Healing EEs/EHEs/Healing Process Record Type: Review   ID: 521
Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry: The Diamond Healing Clifford, Terry
Revision of the author's dissertation in which she attempts to review "Tibetan Buddhist medicine and psychiatry within their religious, medical, and historical contexts. As such, it is meant to reflect the unique union of medicine and religion in Buddhism" (p. xiii). Emphasis is placed on the Tibetan psychiatric system, which she says is "the world's oldest surviving complete and written system of medical psychiatry" (p. 3). Several Tibetan medical models are described: holistic medicine, psychosomatic medicine, mental and psychic healing, an ethical model of the healer, and a model for using illness to develop wisdom. Tibetan medicine is holistic in nature, emphasizing the relation of mind to body and of the organism to the universe at large. Its preventative and restorative attempts are aimed at restoring cosmic equilibrium both without and within. Health is defined "in terms of balance, but in Tibetan medicine that concept of balance is developed to its furthest and most subtle reaches" (p. 7). There is a chapter on Tantric medicine, which includes the chakras and "splendid inner vision" and one on demons in medical psychiatry. Translations from medical texts are included, but the extensive descriptions and explanations are based on the author's research and interviews with Tibetan refugee doctors in Nepal and India.
Publisher Information:	York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1984. 268p. Bibliography: 253-259; Bibliographic notes: 243-252; 1 fig; 39 illus; Index: 261-268; 5 tables

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