Review of The Practice of Dream Healing: Bringing Ancient Greek Mysteries into Modern Medicine by Edward Tick, Ph.D., Quest Books, 2001, 291 pages. Originally published in Alternative Therapies, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2002.
I was asked by the editor of what I consider to be the best psychotherapy journal in the world to review this book, and I declined. As the main title of the book implies, the book has great relevance for psychotherapists. However, the subtitle refers to that aspect of the book which warrants attention from the larger community of healers, those I imagine more likely to see a review in Alternative Therapies.
Edward Tick is seasoned psychological and spiritual healer. His previous writings, including a book about healing of the psychological and spiritual wounds of Vietnam veterans, demonstrate that this excellent author is also a profoundly impactful clinician/healer and theoretician. His commitment to the healing of the souls of individual soldiers, as well as whole cultures traumatized by war, is astounding.
By writing The Practice of Dream Healing, Dr.Tick vastly expands the range and the implications of his work. Long interested in Greek culture and traditions, particularly as these relate to deep healing, he has written a book which draws on anthropology, theology, psychology, sociology, medicine and religion to translate ancient Greek wisdom into usable modern medical theory and practice. Although the specific focus of the book is on the healing legacy of the ancient Greek man/god, Asklepios, it presents a model of healing which is universal.
Like another major figure of healing in Western Civilization born a few hundred years later, Asklepios was believed to be the son of a mortal woman divinely impregnated. In his name several hundred Askplepieia, or healing sanctuaries, were established throughout the area of the Mediterranean. The primary one, at Epidauros, was active from approximately 600 BCE to 300 CE. The treatment program for those suffering from all manner of physical, emotional, and/or spiritual disturbances included healthy diet and exercise, massage, bathing, and catharsis through viewing performances of classical Greek tragedies. However, all of these elements were essentially secondary to, and preparation for, the core element: dream incubation. The seeker of healing would retire for a period of hours or days in a special chamber in the earth, with the expectation of having in a dream or a vision a visitation from of Asklepios himself, in one of his many guises. This visitation could provide direct healing through the touch of the god and/or instructions for some therapeutic regime which, when implemented, would ultimately have the same effect.
The Practice of Dream Healing provides not only the fascinating history of Asklepian healing. Its author goes on to describe many successful contemporary attempts on his part to resurrect and replicate this form of healing. During pilgrimages he has led over the last decade to ancient sacred sites in Greece, and in the much more mundane circumstances in his psychotherapy practice and personal life, Tick documents the power of Asklepian dream incubation to bring healing to himself and to those with whom he works. In particular my attention was caught by a case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome which had been treated with all manner of conventional and alternative therapies over the course of 25 years. It showed a dramatic and unequivocal response to a seemingly simple treatment prescribed in a dream/vision. Other cases involve much broader issues of finding meaning and purpose in one’s life and work, with existentially profound results, but the description of a cure for IBS in a person who had become resigned to living with it is very satisfying to the part of me that is from Missouri.
Extrapolating from his experiments with an Asklepian approach to healing, Tick is able to comment insightfully about what is missing in modern medicine, and to speculate about what a modern Asklepian sanctuary might look like and be able to accomplish. To expand modern scientific medicine enough to include the wisdom and power of Asklepios will require “...nothing less than a shift in the way we look at ourselves and our world, a shift that takes us away from our usual mechanistic, materialistic, and existential wordview and into mythic consciousness.” In order to clarify what he means, he goes on to note: “In order for Asklepian medicine to work, we need to accept that what we call gods and goddesses, guides, helping spirits, and totem animals exist as imaginal realities. We need to believe that they are concerned with us and can be evoked through prayer, practice, and ritual--that they answer when we call out to them.” Elsewhere he notes that an Asklepian approach requires a belief that all illness is ultimately of the soul. Although the immediate physical cause may be determined and even counteracted to the point of alleviation of symptoms, the meaning of the illness must be addressed through contact with the divine in order for the soul to be healed. Such healing is reflected in a state of peaceful knowing of one’s connection with all of life, and one’s purpose within that sacred web. By Asklepian standards, anything less is merely palliative.
My only quibble with the content of The Practice of Dream Healing arises from the perception that it gives perhaps a bit too much credit to modern medicine by noting that it has done very well in dealing with survival of acute physical trauma and infectious disease. It is not clear to me that the “defeat” of major infectious illness during the last century will be a lasting victory. Antibiotic-resistant infectious agents seem to be able to evolve at least as fast as our ability to synthesize new antibiotics, and probably faster. My hunch is that somebody will need a visit from Asklepios to show us the way out of this one.