DR: Your role as a healer goes beyond direct application of therapies into an educational function.

JG: Yes. And that?s the focus of the book too, education. I think the role of the healer is at least fifty percent guide and teacher, and probably far more. I am there to help teach people how to understand themselves, to become more aware of what?s going on in their lives. To see how to use what they?re learning to help themselves, and how to look beyond wherever they are to what may be most useful to help them go where they want to go. Whether that?s in terms of looking at alternatives for cancer, or in terms of looking at alternatives for their work situation, I think these are absolutely crucial functions for a physician to have.

DR: You have some deeply moving stories in your book about patients you?ve worked with. The book begins with a Washington, D.C. attorney you call David. Could you briefly tell us that story?

JG: I started the book with that story because David in some ways represents all of us. He is a man who is very conventional, a man who wants to trust his physicians. He has serious rheumatoid arthritis. I said he represents everybody, but actually he represents the