Exploring the relationship between culture and health, this text provides readings of the works of five women writers, tracing their common structure of a main character moving from a state of mental or physical disease toward wellness through reconnection with her cultural traditions.

Ancestral Voices, Healing Narratives: Female Ghosts in Contemporary US and Caribbean Fiction examines four novels by Erna Brodber, Zoé Valdés, Sandra Cisneros, and Maryse Condé. In this unique comparative analysis, Kristina S. Gibby explores the significance of female ghosts—specifically maternal figures, who haunt female narrators, inspiring them to transcribe the dead’s obfuscated (hi)stories and recover their family memory. The author argues that these female ghosts subvert historiographic power structures through a matrilineal succession of knowledge via oral traditions of storytelling, inevitably broadening historical consciousness and asserting the value of fiction in the face of historical rupture. Gibby contends that in form and content, these novels disrupt patriarchal and Western expectations of time and epistemology. They favor cyclical temporality (highlighted by the spirits’ uncanny return), which underscores relational understanding and challenges the exclusive and limiting constraints of linear time. This book makes important contributions to inter-American literary criticism with its narrow focus on female authors who confront the horrors of history through maternal spirits.

Millions of people experience stress in their lives, and this is even more prevalent in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether this stress stems from a job loss or a fear of sickness from working with the public, stress has reigned throughout the pandemic. However, stress is more complicated than being simply a “bad feeling.” Stress can impact both mental and physical wellbeing. Using Narrative Writing to Enhance Healing During and After Global Health Crises is a critical reference that discusses therapeutic writing and offers it as a simple solution for those who are at the highest risk of poor health. This book covers multiple writing narratives on diverse topics and how they aid with stress after the COVID-19 pandemic. Including topics such as anxiety, health coaching, and leadership, this book is essential for teachers, community leadership, physical and emotional therapists, healthcare workers, teachers, faculty of both K-12 and higher education, members of church communities, students, academicians, and any researchers interested in using writing as a healing process.

This treasury of 101 new healing stories addresses a range of issues - from unruly behaviour to grieving, anxiety, lack of confidence, bullying, teasing, nightmares, intolerance, inappropriate talk, toileting, bedwetting and much more. The stories also have the potential for nurturing positive values.

Seeks to restore the pivotal role of the patient’s own story in the healing process • Shows how conventional medicine tends to ignore the account of the patient • Presents case histories where disease is addressed and healed through the narrative process • Proposes a reinvention of medicine to include the indigenous healing methods that for thousands of years have drawn their effectiveness from telling and listening Modern medicine, with its high-tech and managed-care approach, has eliminated much of what constitutes the art of healing: those elements of doctoring that go beyond the medications prescribed. The typically brief office visit leaves little time for doctors to listen to their patients, though it is in these narratives that disease is both revealed and perpetuated--and can be released and treated. Lewis Mehl-Madrona’s Narrative Medicine examines the foundations of the indigenous use of story as a healing modality. Citing numerous case histories that demonstrate the profound power of narrative in healing, the author shows how when we learn to dialogue with disease, we come to understand the power of the “story” we tell about our illness and our possibilities for better health. He shows how this approach also includes examining our relationships to our extended community to find any underlying disharmony that may need healing. Mehl-Madrona points the way to a new model of medicine--a health care system that draws its effectiveness from listening to the healing wisdom of the past and also to the present-day voices of its patients.

Caleb invites you on a journey to learn about attachment and trauma in this interactive story and workbook intended for children and the adults who support them. Caleb shares his own story about healing from his difficult early experiences, and encourages readers to join him in sharing their stories and completing the healing activities included in the book. Caleb's Healing Story identifies the common challenges that children who have experienced attachment or trauma issues will encounter and offers easy to use interventions in the form of activities and worksheets. Fully illustrated, it is suitable for children aged 5-14, as well as their family, friends and those working with children who present with these issues. It is the ideal companion to A Safe Place for Caleb, by the same author, which outlines theories, definitions and strategies for addressing attachment and trauma-related disorders.

Healing by Jesus and the apostles is not a popular subject for biblical studies today, but the importance of healing in the first-century eastern Roman Empire was enormous. In the New Testament writings of Mark, Luke and Paul we find considerable variation in their use of divine healing. With respect to Jesus' healing, Mark and Luke both emphasize it, but differ in their representation of its purpose and source. Also, Mark's accounts of Jesus' healing combine with his overall description in the Gospel to underline his theological view (a theologia crucis), while Luke depicts healing as showing primarily the glory of God (although a theologia crucis is also present) and he presents the theological aspect of Jesus' healing within each healing narrative. Healing in the early church is then compared in Acts and Paul's undisputed letters. Luke continues to emphasize the power and evidential value of healing in spreading the gospel. Paul, instead, emphasizes the 'essence' of Jesus' ministry, love and compassion, and underplays healing, both by himself and by members of the churches he planted. The main reason for this seems to be because of his 'thorn in the flesh'; his physical weakness demonstrates that the gospel truth shines only because of Christ's influence. Paul's illness probably also sensitizes him to the risk of healing becoming a power which could compromise a fellowship based on love and equality. Finally, the legacy of Jesus' healing is considered briefly over the subsequent few centuries.