Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

nonfiction

“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman

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Subtitle: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures

Recommended to me by: Emily Ross

This is a beautifully written history of the Hmong people from Laos in the 20th century, interwoven with the story of one Hmong family who took refuge in Merced, California. Their daughter Lia Lee had her first epileptic seizure at age 4 months. Both the family and Lia’s doctors struggle with her illness and with the communication barriers between their cultures.

The Lees are frustrated because Lia continues to have seizures, and her prescribed medicines cause side-effects they don’t expect. The doctors are frustrated because the Lees don’t speak English and “aren’t compliant” with the medicine schedule. Also, the Lees have very little money.

Dr. Arthur Kleinman, a psychiatrist and medical anthropologist at Harvard Medical School, developed a set of eight questions to elicit a patient’s “explanatory model.” After getting to know the Lees, Anne Fadiman answers the eight questions from their perspective. The American doctors continue full-tilt in their own medical explanatory model, unable to consider a different model.

  1. What do you call the problem?
    Qaug dab peg. That means the spirit catches you and you fall down.
  2. What do you think has caused the problem?
    Soul loss.
  3. Why do you think it started when it did?
    Lia’s sister Yer slammed the door and Lia’s soul was frightened out of her body.
  4. What do you think the sickness does? How does it work?
    It makes Lia shake and fall down. It works because a spirit called a dab is catching her.
  5. How severe is the sickness? Will it have a short or long course?
    Why are you asking us those questions? If you are a good doctor, you should know the answers yourself.
  6. What kind of treatment do you think the patient should receive? What are the most important results you hope she receives from this treatment?
    You should give Lia medicine to take for a week but no longer. After she is well, she should stop taking the medicine. […]
  7. What are the chief problems the sickness has caused?
    It has made us sad to see Lia hurt, and it has made us angry at Yer.
  8. What do you fear most about the sickness?
    That Lia’s soul will never return.

My only issue with the book is that chapters about Hmong history are inserted at cliff-hanger portions of Lia’s story, causing me to flip ahead and find out what happens to her. The history is worth reading in its own right and doesn’t need manufactured suspense to pull the reader through it.

Recommended to anyone who wants to learn about Hmong culture and history, medical communication at its worst and best, and the story of one much-loved child.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Referral of a Lifetime” by Tim Templeton

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Subtitle: The Networking System That Produces Bottom-Line Results… Every Day!

Recommended to me by: Karen Wehrman

A quick and amusing read, this book teaches a method of getting referrals and building business, illustrated with fictional vignettes. The vignettes are slightly dated in their attitudes toward women, but at least women are shown as successful business owners.

The system is based on treating customers and contacts with integrity, staying in touch consistently, and asking for referrals. While it is recommended to outsource sending “items of value” every month (the author’s business provides that service), it is also recommended to make the system fit each particular business.

I recently realized that my business is personal, not personalized. I send hand-written thank you notes, not cards printed by a service. I spend a couple of days each month writing a substantive article to send to my mailing list.

While I don’t think this book outlines the only way to succeed at business, and I don’t think it’s a perfect fit for my business, I’m going to keep thinking about the suggestions and how they might apply. It wouldn’t hurt to emphasize my commitment to service and ask for referrals more often!

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Way to Rainy Mountain” by N. Scott Momaday

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Recommended to me by: veleda_k in 50books_poc

A series of impressions of the legends, history, and personal experiences of the Kiowas, a Native American tribe living in Oklahoma. Scott Momaday’s grandmother Aho attended the last full Sun Dance of the Kiowas as a child, and shared stories and traditions with him as he grew.

Each image is bright, clear, specific to its own time and place.

The aged visitors who came to my grandmother’s house when I was a child were made of lean and leather, and they bore themselves upright. They wore great black hats and bright ample shirts that shook in the wind. They rubbed fat upon their hair and wound their braids with strips of colored cloth.”

Highly recommended both for the beautiful writing, and for the information about the Kiowas in particular, in contrast to the generalized impression of Native Americans that many books contain.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Nasty People” by Jay Carter

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Subtitle: How to stop being hurt by them without becoming one of them

Re-read while writing my double bind article.

The first half of this book talks about invalidators and how subtle and awful they can be. The tone is affirming and validating for those who have been invalidated in the past.

The second half abruptly changes tone and says there are no invalidators, only people using invalidating mechanisms which can be catching from one person to another. It is true that we have all invalidated others at times, but the shift felt awkward and unsettling.

The gap is bridged by saying that 1% of people are incorrigibly invalidating, but 20% can change their ways with suitable feedback.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. It contains some helpful information, delivered as absolute statements, some of which contradict each other, and many of which talk down to the reader.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Bright-sided” by Barbara Ehrenreich

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Subtitle: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America

Barbara Ehrenreich starts with the personal – her surprise at the mandatory positivity around her breast cancer diagnosis – and veers to the political – how delusional positivity contributed to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. In between, she gives a brief history of New Thought, Christian Science, business and life coaching, and positive psychology, with unsubtle negative digs at the people involved. She also draws connections between megachurch pastors and corporate CEOs.

I read this book with an odd mix of relief and defensiveness.

I completely agree that delusional positivity is frightening and unhelpful, and it’s a relief to see that clearly pointed out. She describes feeling alone in a big coaching seminar because no one else was acknowledging the misuse of quantum physics. I’ve been in that situation, wondering if I’m the only one in the room politely not laughing at the pseudo-science rather than eagerly swallowing it whole.

At the same time, a more grounded positivity has been helpful in my life. Asking “What am I doing right?” rather than “What am I doing wrong?” shifts my focus and allows me to see that, in fact, I am doing a lot of things right. I have benefited from a life coach’s services. My own work borders on coaching and sometimes involves helping clients shift their focus to positive aspects of their situations.

Overall, I enjoyed the beginning and ending of the book, but wished the middle held fewer judgments about various people’s appearance and “invalidism”. I hope people will heed her call to awareness, realism, and action, while maintaining hope that change is possible.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Let’s Take the Long Way Home” by Gail Caldwell

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Subtitle: a memoir of friendship

Recommended to me by: Courtney on the Feministing blog

I loved this book. I cried at the beginning, smiled in the middle, and sighed at the end.

Gail Caldwell describes first her grief at her best friend Caroline Knapp’s death, and then their daily joys together while she was alive. They trained their big dogs together, rowed on the Charles River together, and most of all, talked about everything, including both their writing careers, and both their past struggles with alcohol.

The writing is compressed, detailed, elegant, meandering across years within a page. Trying to find a representative sample, I ended up re-reading large swathes of the book. Here, I opened the book at random:

“I’m afraid that no one will ever love me again.” He leaned toward me with a smile of great kindness on his face, his hands clasped in front of him. “Don’t you know?” he asked gently. “The flaw is the thing we love.”

This book is about intimacy, connection, grief, and love. Go read it.

Available at bookshop.org.