Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Also known as mind-body medicine, or integrative medicine, Behavioral Medicine recognizes the deep connection between mind and body and uses knowledge of both to treat disease more holistically. Kabat-Zinn argues that this interdisciplinary approach to medicine provides a more “comprehensive picture” of human health and illness, since it recognizes how people’s thoughts and feelings contribute positively or negatively to their physical health (238).

The author explains that meditation is a form of non-doing, since practitioners are not striving to accomplish a certain task or arrive at a particular destination, even mentally or emotionally. In his work Kabat-Zinn emphasizes that non-doing is an antidote to people’s busy lives, in which they are constantly thinking and striving for something.

Participatory medicine is an approach to practicing medicine which, according to Kabat-Zinn, is growing in popularity. Physicians who practice participatory medicine value their patients’ perspectives in how they receive care and recognize the human body’s capacity for transformation and healing. Kabat-Zinn praises this approach, which he feels is more dignified and egalitarian for the patient and empowers the patient by giving them a sense of control and better understanding of how their behaviors affect their health.