The Healing Power of Faith: How Belief and Prayer Can Help You Triumph Over Disease - Couverture souple

Koenig, Harold

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0684852977 ISBN 13 : 9780684852973

Editeur : Simon & Schuster, 2001

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Chapter One: Science, Religion, and Health

In February 1996, I chaired a symposium on "Social and Religious Factors Affecting Health" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A professor from a prestigious university approached me during a coffee break at the Baltimore conference room.

"Doctor Koenig, how did someone with your background ever become interested in religion?" he asked.

"That's a tough question," I replied.

After all, I'm a physician who has spent years mastering several complex specialties. The Association is widely viewed as the world's most prominent science organization. And natural science, with its immutable laws and formulae, is the foundation of modern medicine, while religion, by definition, deals with inexplicable supernatural powers and events. He no doubt wondered what had made me diverge from my grounding in biomedical science to venture into the intangible realm of religious faith.

A Voyage of Discovery

My career has been more a voyage of discovery than a predictable linear progression from student to clinician to medical professor and researcher. During this twenty-year odyssey, I've worked as a hospital orderly and registered nurse, often in intimate contact with sick people. I have been certified in family medicine, psychiatry, geriatric medicine, and geriatric psychiatry. My clinical practice has brought me newborn babies and their mothers as well as elderly people in their final weeks, and the full range of physical and emotional illness between infancy and old age. I've encountered people whose bodies were ravaged by disease, but who somehow remained optimistic and emotionally healthy, and others who were so wounded by stress and emotional trauma that the ensuing depression destroyed their lives.

Today I am director of Duke University's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health, the world's first major research facility to comprehensively study the impact of people's religious life on their physical and emotional health.

Struggling to answer my colleague's question that February afternoon in Baltimore, I recognized an important aspect of my professional life: It was my patients who led me to explore the previously underinvestigated connection between health and religious faith. Without question, I have learned more about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of crushing adversity from the people I treated than I ever did from textbooks or medical school lectures.

An Unusual Alcoholic: Lee's Story

I met the first of these patients -- a middle-aged man named Lee Daugherty -- in November 1981, when I was a third-year medical student at the University of California at San Francisco. As part of my Internal Medicine rotation, I covered rounds at San Francisco General Hospital. Lee had been admitted on Halloween, suffering from severe complications of alcoholism.

"Good morning, Mr. Daugherty," I said to the gaunt man hunched beneath the sheets. His hair was long, his face haggard. Lee's chart reported he had been living on the streets of the Mission district for years. His daily alcohol consumption was estimated at more than six pints of cheap fortified wine. The night before, he had suffered a seizure, tumbled headlong into the street, and sprawled there in the cold drizzle, unable to rise. Lee's diagnosis included cirrhosis, neurological involvement, and complications of malnutrition. His blackouts and seizures were the most alarming symptoms, a probable indication of brain damage.

Lee rolled over and stared at me with red-rimmed eyes. "What time is it?" he grumbled.

"Just after seven." Rounds on this ward started early.

"Can I have some coffee?" he asked as I felt his rapid, uneven pulse.

Before rounds that morning, my instructors had described Lee as a typical "terminal" alcoholic. My initial examination seemed to confirm that grim prognosis. But, unlike some of my fellow students, and because I'd worked wards as an orderly and nurse, I saw my patients as real people, not just interesting cases. With Lee, I was gripped by the need to help someone who was suffering, but also by a sense of futility. I knew that Lee's level of alcoholism could rarely be cured. People like Lee are not "problem drinkers," but so profoundly addicted that they suffer life-threatening convulsions if deprived of alcohol. Almost inevitably, the disease crushes their spirits until they're sluggishly fatalistic. But I saw a lively spark in Lee's blue eyes. I fetched him a cup of coffee.

Lee sat up in bed and examined me with new interest. "Doctors never did that before," he said, cuddling his coffee cup.

"You've had a terrible time, Lee," I said, consulting his chart, "and you're very sick. I'm recommending we keep you here as long as possible. You just can't go straight back to the street."

"I'll be okay once my legs get better, Doc," he said.

Even though I was as overworked as any medical student, I stayed with him a while longer. "You will not be okay, Lee," I said, placing my hand on his thin arm. "If you start drinking again, you'll be dead before summer."

Lee savored the last of his coffee. "I'll be all right," he insisted. "God has a purpose in my life."

His confident words surprised me. Lee Daugherty was one of the "lost souls" who can be found on inner-city streets across the country. Yet he seemed to firmly believe that God would intervene in his life. "How can you be so sure?" I was preoccupied with hard medical science, not the mysteries of faith.

"God has a plan for me," Lee repeated. "Last night, layin' there in the gutter, I saw kids in Halloween costumes going up Mission, and I thought about my life..."

Lee had been born in rural Oklahoma in 1931, at the peak of the Dust Bowl drought that sent thousands of Okie immigrants to California. His father had died when Lee was an infant, and his mother soon fell ill. He and his brother were raised in foster homes. By his twenties, Lee was one of the country's millions of functional alcoholics, working as a cook, successfully hiding his growing addiction. Alcohol, however, eventually overpowered his life, and by his forties Lee was living on the desolate streets of San Francisco's Mission district, panhandling for rotgut wine. He didn't drink for pleasure anymore, but just to "keep from getting sick."

Lying against the cold curb, his legs paralyzed, Lee had prayed for guidance. "Lord, if this is all there is to life," he had moaned, speaking directly to God, "I just want it to end. But if there is more, can you show me?"

He had virtually hit rock bottom the night before in that gutter. Yet now he seemed serene. "I think the Lord is showing me the way out of this mess," he said confidently.

"Maybe so," I agreed to keep his mood up. "But you're still going to need a place to stay when they discharge you. And you're going to have to go through detox again."

Lee nodded. "This time I'm going to make it, Doc."

You can appreciate my skepticism. Lee Daugherty had already been through half a dozen detoxification programs. He'd also tried Alcoholics Anonymous. He'd always gone back to drinking. Yet somehow he was convinced that the Lord would lift the burden of his disease. I suddenly recalled a passage from Sigmund Freud that had impressed me as a premed student. Religion, Freud had proclaimed, was the "universal obsessional neurosis of humanity." This undoubtedly hopeless alcoholic seemed gripped by just the type of delusion Freud had identified. Well, I thought, at least Lee's faith brings him some comfort.

I managed to keep him in the hospital for almost a week so that his withdrawal symptoms could be tempered by medication. And I helped find him a hotel room near the detox center. I also gave Lee my phone number and asked him to stay in touch, secretly fearful that I'd receive a call from a cop who'd found the number on Lee's lifeless body on the street.

Imagine my surprise when Lee called me that spring. "I'm getting married, Doc," he announced proudly. Lee had met Charlotte in the San Francisco General detox program. Like him, she had an abiding faith that God would free her of alcohol dependence. Together they were struggling through each day, determined to let their faith guide them to the inner healing necessary to break the grip of alcoholism. When I left California to begin my family medicine residency at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Lee and Charlotte Daugherty were sober and working, saving their money in hopes of buying a home.

"Congratulations," I told Lee.

"We couldn't have done it without God's help," Lee said, noting that they began and ended each day reading scripture. "I really like Ecclesiastes," he added. " 'To every thing there is a season...a time to weep and a time to laugh...' This is our time to get well."

Proud of my new M.D., with boundless confidence in the power of medical science, I attributed Lee's remission more to the techniques and medications of the detox counselors than to the healing power of his faith. But his experience had also sparked an ember of curiosity. Would he and Charlotte have managed to salvage their lives if they hadn't possessed such a deep faith?

A Lesson in Optimism: Ruby and Bill's Story

Ruby and Bill Clevenger were also patients who sharpened my interest in the health benefits of religious faith. During my family medicine residency in Missouri in the early 1980s, I often visited patients in their homes. The Clevengers lived in an old frame farmhouse in Callaway County. Bill Clevenger was eighty-one when we met. He had the strong, gnarled hands and weathered face of a man who'd worked hard his whole life, but he was now incapacitated by emphysema, and also suffered increasing deafness. Ruby, then near seventy, had a glow to her cheeks and a serenely cheerful manner.

Despite Bill's health problems, they welcomed me to their home with the genuine graciousness that comes naturally to many country people. As we sat in the small parlor, I discreetly studied them both for any signs of melancholy that might indicate an underlying depression.

Doctors learn early in their careers that serious, sometimes crippling depression afflicts many elderly people suffering from chronic physical illness. Although about 5 percent of the general population suffers from depression, almost half of those people with severe health problems become depressed. Many sick older people abandon hope that their lives will ever get better. Nervous and irritable, they lose interest in activities they once enjoyed, often have difficulty concentrating, withdraw from others, and feel worthless. Indeed, the severe depression that frequently follows physical illness can delay healing and provoke premature death.

With his emphysema growing worse and threatening to make him housebound, and his deafness deepening his isolation, Bill Clevenger was a likely candidate for depression. But the handsome elderly man sitting across the parlor on the chintz-covered easy chair was obviously alert, beaming with friendly interest in my visit.

"Finally getting some nice spring weather," I commented.

Bill cupped his ear and leaned toward Ruby. "Ask him to please speak so that I can hear him," he said in a loud, toneless voice.

"Sorry," I said, speaking louder. I was prepared for Bill to slip into a sour lament about his failing health.

But he grinned warmly. "I like to talk if I can hear what people say." He explained that his hearing had deteriorated over many years, beginning when he was a youngster working with explosives on the railroad. "But I can still sing my hymns at church," Bill added.

"We're Baptists," Ruby interjected, "but we've gone to all kinds of different churches over the years."

There were religious pictures on the walls and end tables. They were standard, inexpensive pastel-tone prints -- The Last Supper, Jesus alone in prayer, the Virgin and Baby Jesus. "I get them at rummage sales," Ruby said. "They always make me feel good."

The Clevengers seemed to take comfort in religion and church worship. But I had no way to gauge the impact of this faith on their physical health and outlook. However, it was clear that neither one suffered from depression. Bill's laugh was hardy and unfeigned; Ruby's plans for their summer vegetable garden rang with cheerful optimism. But it was when they brought out their photo album that I discovered just how well Bill and Ruby had coped with an often difficult life.

"We've been foster parents for years," Ruby said, opening the album to reveal snapshots of the Clevengers and a remarkable number of children on picnics or grouped around a Christmas tree. Some of the children had crutches; several were of mixed race.

"We took the kids other people didn't want," Bill said.

"They're all precious in the eyes of the Lord," Ruby added, fondly turning the pages to linger on the dozens of young faces that had passed through their lives. She showed me the six teenage girls they had cared for at the same time several years earlier. Some of them had been abused. All had come from shattered families.

Bill Clevenger beamed, studying the girls' pictures. "We didn't always have a lot to give them except a warm house, clean clothes, and good hot food," he said.

"And love," Ruby added. "They all got plenty of that."

I was surprised that the Clevengers were still active foster parents, despite Bill's condition, which demanded a lot of care from Ruby. Leafing through the album, I realized that both Bill and Ruby Clevenger enjoyed a healthy self-respect, yet were completely free of the self-absorption that grips many elderly people with health problems.

We were still looking at the pictures when the kitchen door opened and a slight, dark-haired girl of about ten entered, moving tentatively in the presence of a stranger.

"Cindy," Ruby said, taking the child's hand. "Say your hello to Dr. Koenig."

"Cindy's our daughter," Bill said proudly.

Cindy was mentally retarded. Ruby gently explained that they had adopted the girl after she had spent her first three years in their home as a foster child and it became obvious her disability would make adoption elsewhere very difficult.

"She's God's child," Ruby said with surprising conviction, taking Cindy onto her lap.

How many old people with their problems would have happily assumed such a responsibility?

Over the coming months, I often visited the Clevengers. Bill's physical condition did not improve. But both he and Ruby retained their uncomplaining cheerfulness. And they always made some reference to the role of religion in their lives.

Somehow, I realized, their faith is shielding them from depression.

Soothing Fears: Edna's Story

As my residency continued, I became convinced that there were many people like the Daughertys and the Clevengers who used religious faith to cope with otherwise crushing problems.

I'll never forget Mrs. Edna Hanson (name changed), whom I met in the university hospital the day before she had surgery. Mrs. Hanson, a widow of seventy-five, was a ten-year breast cancer survivor who had later received a hip replacement. As sometimes happens, the artificial hip joint did not graft well. Now she faced the same painful surgery again.

That afternoon I found her sitting in a chair at the window of her hospital room, quietly reading the Bible.

"I hope I'm not intruding," I said.

She slid her bookmark into place and smiled. "You're not disturbing me at all," she said. "I was j...

Présentation de l'éditeur :

A fascinating marriage of science and spirituality, THE HEALING POWER OF FAITH uses the tools of science - double-blind research studies and analysis of tissue, blood levels, and hormones - to track the influence of religious beliefs on physical and mental health. The documented evidence shows how traditional religious practices like prayer and community service can raise white blood cell counts, improve immune system responses, and lower blood pressure.
THE HEALING POWER OF FAITH is filled with inspiring case studies of remarkable recoveries from near-fatal illness, as well as heartwarming stories of how people from such diverse backgrounds as Evangelical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, Catholicism, and Baptist Fundamentalism triumph over addiction, depression, marital problems, and other serious life stresses. With simple, practical methods for harnessing the power of faith, this cutting-edge book offers a fascinating, scientifically valid approach to healing.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Simon & Schuster
• Date d'édition: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0684852977
• ISBN 13: 9780684852973
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 332