This is a finest HOW TO book I have ever read. Of course, there are strings attached. You must do some imaginary work for a few days. First, I am a librarian at a local university, a husband, a father, and a disabled retiree because of the pain.

Some easy to understand conclusions and results follow for your amusement and stimulation regarding the exercises in this book:

1. You must accept and practice the exericizes in the middle of the book because it simply makes you competent to heal yourself.

2. You must create with your brain (which the authors have you train and prepare) an easy application to visually, aurally, tactilely, tastingly, and olfactorily cut off the sensation of pain. I image valve handles, like copper pipe valves, from the top of my spine down to the middle of my back - AND IT WORKS!!! I just repeatedly close off those valves and the sensory, not motor, nerves slowly stop the communicating pain from the places that hurt to the brain, and OF COURSE !!! the nerves are gradually simultaneously commuicating less and less pain by the sensory nerves back out of the brain and to the head, neck, and right trapezius, which is where it has hurt me for 5 years. It doesn't happen in one session, but many, and YOU ARE IN CHARGE. Nobody else to blame. But the ability to become better each day trying to reduce your pain significantly is a great stimulus to be nearly totally pain free. I can't help but wonder How fast will I become even MORE adept at reducing even more pain, more quickly when fully sensually well-rehearsed. I will be able to pause, do the meditation and lose 99% of the pain in just a few seconds. I have the faith that it will work. I also take presciptions, get plenty of sleep, and eat a low fat diet which helped me lose 10 pounds from October 1 to December 31.

3. I will be buying old copies of this book... so I can get my hands on them for friends, and supply my own stock all around the house to read whenever I feel like it and in the car at long stop lights. Someday I will be healed and I will then give my extra copies of the books to my friends - when I am healed, probably the middle of 2003. Nonetheless, I will have to continuously pay attention to "awake" relaxation meditations using the principles and procedures in this book.

I would love to see a new edition soon. It took me four years to find a book as good as this. Two thumbs up !!

With a little hard work, say 4 or 5 days during the first week, I can now sense when the pain is coming and drop into my meditative state within 3 seconds, breathe slowly, slowly push out all of my abs and stop the preliminary pain from getting worse. By also dropping my shoulders in a slight slump and by tilting the pelvis forward, I maintain a straight RELAXED sitting posture at work. Even with people all around my desk at work, I can pull "My Trigger" of conscious meditation, slow breathing, and a quiet searching for / creating a non-anxiety state of mind which I manifest slyly to myself while I am talking with a student who needs help. Sometimes just consistent focusing on a little pain ALLOWS THE PAIN TO DISAPPEAR while I am practicing the instructor's proactive meditations in this book. I believe that this book will work for you if you do the work and want to change. If you don't want to change and really want to continue using pain as an excuse to get out of living your life, THEN LEAVE THE BOOK ALONE. Someone needful could use it. Wanting to Heal is the key motivator, this book is the best vehicle for getting away from pain.

Thank you, wonderful authors !!! Please write again !!!

Mike

I picked this book because I'm 41 and am a software engineer that used to be in good shape, but not anymore. I was looking for some new routines that could inspire me for the summer months. Most of the stuff out there seems to be aimed at 19-year-olds with 2-3 hours a day to spare for a workout.

Anyway, there are some very good sections that deal with metabolic rates, plus some new things I didn't know. Abdo gets vague, too, on the idea of what really is "fitness" and that you can't pigeon hole it as pounds, body fat, etc.

The only thing I don't like so far is their approach to supplements. I just don't believe you need them and they go overboard - like taking anti-toxins with every meal, stuff like that.

All in all, it is a good book to get some ideas on getting *back* into shape and trying to reshape your life style. And it is one of the less expensive onew out there. There are no photos to show you how to do exercises correctly, just drawn "stick" figures. But if you're like me, that isn't a turn off to the book.

This book would have been better if it had been called "If You're a Dad, Stay Out of Court If You Can."

With the increase in divorce and changes in way men want to be spend time with their kids as fathers, it's predictable that the number of custody cases will also rise. But little has changed in terms of gender bias. The mother still typically gets the kids, especially if they are young. After my ex took our daughter out of state when our daughter was two and remarried (her third husband), she thought I should disappear and made visitations increasingly difficult. After five years of this, I went to court thinking I could get better visitations, and, at the least, peace of mind by having he the agreement redone. Although I don't regret going to court because my ex was forced to abide by a clearer agreement, I ended up paying more in child support even though my ex made twice what I did at the time, about 15k to my attorney, and had LESS time with my daughter. (I have a Ph.D., a full time job as a prof, no criminal record, no substance abuse, etc., and I had joint custody when my ex left the state. Even though my ex taught one class a semester as a prof, she had our daughter in full time daycare, and even though she described her new husband as "abusive" both to her and to our daughter, the shrink didn't care.) In my state, the court appoints a "guardian ad litem," a shrink who reports to the court. His or her decision is basically final. You can't take hoim to court and examine him. What happens in cases of conflict, I learned later, is that the shrink always shortens the visitations. So if you are not the custodial parent and a man, the deck is really stacked against you. Thus, I would say that if you can manage to negotiate with your ex out of court, by all means do so. Go to court ONLY AS A LAST RESORT. I had a very good attorney. But there was no way I could win. Moreover, the shrink made a new recommendation each year for the whole coming year, so that cost another 500 each year. The good thing is that it was all worth it in terms of the visitations being made more exact. (In our initial agreement, only th enumber of vistations was agreed to, not their length or their dates.) As my daughter has gotten older, she has begun to see for herself just how how unreasonable my ex is (I decided it was best to let her figure things out for herself rather than comment on them to her). I remarried happily when my daughter was eight, and my wife and I have a two year old son, who my daughter loves. So things have worked out, especially for my daughter and me, but also for her and my new wife, and for my wife and me, because we don't have to communicate with my ex (except about pick ups and drop-offs).

In some ways, the court system is a terrible racket. The courts pass the buck to the shrinks, and the shrinks pass the buck right back to the court. Everyone claims to be acting in the "best interest of the child," but that is just empty rhetoric. So stay out of court, if you can. Present yourself as calm and reasonable if you do go to court, and do not correspond by email with your ex. Also, make sure you research the shrinks. Some of them are very conservative about visitations, others are much more reasonable. And use that "best interest of the child" rhetoric too. Never talk about your own needs. They don't count. Somehow, the idea that a child would benefit from having her father be financially stable and emotionally happy is not an idea that shrinks or the courts care apparently about. Don't talk much about yourself unless asked. Don't talk about your ex, and don't express any anger aout her. Do talk about how much you love your daughter. Cry. Get very emotional about ho wmuch you miss her, how you ar concerned about her. And if you do to court, get an agreement that spells everything out in advance--exact dates, etc, for as long in advance as you can. That cuts down on any need to interact with ex. And of course, never talk to your kids about any conflict over the visitations, even if your ex is, and don't talk to them about your ex either, even if she is the ex from hell. Shield them from the conflict as much as you can.

Although I cannot speak for all non-custodial parents (Typically fathers), I can say that when I discovered this book during the winter of 1998, I felt that the author was almost speaking directly to me. Mr. Leving uderstands that our courts and our court-appointed visitation and custody mediators are profoundly gender biased. Prior to reading Fathers's Rights (How very few there are!), I had attended father-support groups for three years, and I had heard some real horror stories, especially concerning problems with denial of visitation. Mr. Leving acknowledges the fact that most mothers do not consider the fathers' visitation right as important-they view these rights as gifts or privileges for them to bestow at their wim. For the many fathers who have had to fight with the tenacity of a pit bull, this book speaks to them. It is further intersting to note that while our society continually decries the absence of fathers, it fails to acknowledge just how difficult it is for fathers to be granted even a modicum of visitation rights, and how equally apathetic judges are when it comes to enforcing them. Indeed, a father who stands on his rights stands on quicksand. It is my belief that if the mothers do not want the fathers in the childrens lives, than the mothers should not have chldren with the fathers. Instead, most mothers enforce the double standard. Unfortunately, Mr. Leving has no advice for the fathers who are poor and must represent themselves as Pro Se litigents. My answer was to go to the local law library and photocopy the statutes on Visitation and Child Support. I then read How To Reprensent Yourself In Court, published by Nolo Press. The modern father needs to become involved with Father Support Groups, and learn all he can about the few legal rights he has. Reading the statutes on visitation is not all that complex. It is also helpful when you do need an attorney that you know the rules of the game. Mr. Leving's book was, for me, a great place to start.

The author of the book, Jeffery Leving, is a well-known divorce lawyer in the Chicago-area, solely because of his commercials shown between Jenny Jones-esque talk shows. Because of the shady credibility that I associate with these lawyers, I wasn't sure what to expect from Leving's book. I can only really say one thing about this book - WOW! Not only is Leving a great writer, but I believe his advice will be truly valuable. (My husband will be fighting his ex-wife for custody in the coming months.) His advice includes what to look for when choosing a lawyer, ways to deal with the "ex", how to respond to interviews by court officials and "experts", and helping your child(ren) through the whole ordeal. I must have highlighted half of the book while reading it! Finally, although Leving makes note of the gender bias in the domestic court system, he does not focus on the issue. That is, where other books whine excessively about the bias problem, Father's Rights addresses gender bias in the courts but then moves on to bigger and more important issues. This is definitely a must-read for any father who sees a custody battle in his future.

Author summarizes a bunch of nothing. Waste of time

This book is packed with practical information on dozens of unique therapies from around the world. I particlarly liked the way each remedy is linked with a particular ailment. The writing is crisp and very accessable.