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82 reviews for:
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness
Jon Kabat-Zinn
4.08 AVERAGE
82 reviews for:
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness
Jon Kabat-Zinn
4.08 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
There is a lot of data in this book which can make it read like a text book, however, the rest is so useful and effective it’s a must read for anyone who suffers long term. Despite this book being decades old, all the information is still very relevant. It also helps that his body scan meditation is available on YouTube for free.
I bought this book three years ago as a companion to my MBSR course. It has been intimidating me from my bookshelf ever since. I'm grateful that this pandemic afforded me the time, and the soil, to make my way through it. I love the quote that opens chapter one, from an 85 year old: "Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day."
I barely got through a third of this book, but from what I understand, the basic premise is that mindfulness meditation is very useful. My advice is to skip this book and get yourself a good guided meditation cd or app.
I read this book as part of a 12-week training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, based on the work of Kabat-Zinn. The training, and the tenets of this book and its research, was a game-changer for me. Essential reading for those interested in the benefits of mindfulness. Kabat-Zinn's recorded meditations are awesome, too!
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A useful sanitized version of Buddhism. Buddhism isn't mentioned once in the entire book, that I can recall. Instead the focus is about how the practices of meditation and mindfulness can help with stress reduction and pain relief.
Just as in The New Earth , which was too optimistic about the evolution of human consciousness (yet still a worthy book), John Cabot Zinn is too optimistic that medicine is becoming more integrated and aware of mind-body connections. It bothers me when practices are recommended that are truly meaningful and helpful but then the author mars their advice by makes these sweeping generalizations about societal changes. Practitioners have absolutely no control over societal evolution, and they are not necessarily the best cultural critics. Right now, medicine is obsessed with a pandemic! It’s not working on mind-body duality as a body of knowledge. Also, I think he never touches on how health insurance--pay for care--is greatly skewing provided services.
This pet peeve aside, regardless of your philosophy or religion, if you are a novice at meditation and mindfulness, this book is a good primer and how-to. Overall, it's better for beginners than the experienced but not bad as general reinforcement.
Just as in The New Earth , which was too optimistic about the evolution of human consciousness (yet still a worthy book), John Cabot Zinn is too optimistic that medicine is becoming more integrated and aware of mind-body connections. It bothers me when practices are recommended that are truly meaningful and helpful but then the author mars their advice by makes these sweeping generalizations about societal changes. Practitioners have absolutely no control over societal evolution, and they are not necessarily the best cultural critics. Right now, medicine is obsessed with a pandemic! It’s not working on mind-body duality as a body of knowledge. Also, I think he never touches on how health insurance--pay for care--is greatly skewing provided services.
This pet peeve aside, regardless of your philosophy or religion, if you are a novice at meditation and mindfulness, this book is a good primer and how-to. Overall, it's better for beginners than the experienced but not bad as general reinforcement.
If you’re interested in mindfulness and beginning a structured practice than there is no better resource. This is a book I will come back too again and again to continue to absorb the material. There is a structured MBSR online resource that allows people to move through the program at home. Here is the link: https://palousemindfulness.com/ . This is a free resource. It is nice to use these resources while moving through the book.
I find the techniques and training useful, but this book is far too long and far too impractical to be used as anything more than an effective paperweight, I'm afraid. I've photocopied the useful pages and constructed the 50-page book this should have been.