Radical Hope and the Healing Power of Illness

In Radical Hope and the Healing Power of Illness, Jungian analyst Bud Harris, Ph.D., helps readers examine the emotional impact of illness and the life lessons, self-knowledge, and freedom that coping with difficult circumstances can provide.

Jungian psychology teaches that illnesses and problems can help people grow—to move beyond “normal” existence and the myth of “the good life.” Harris guides readers toward a transformation in thinking—to a more wholistic, authentic way to process the emotional effects and the deeper meanings of illness. This guide’s goal is not to “fix” sufferers or ignore and bury their emotional challenges. Rather, it leads them through a step-by-step process aimed at letting hardship open their minds and hearts to the possibilities of life, uncover inner strength, and become their own authentic selves.

Along the journey, Harris provides guideposts—checkpoints that help readers examine their reactions to what they’ve been learning and apply the concepts to their own lives.

Because physical illness has a heartfelt effect on the patient’s entire support network, loved ones, caregivers, and medical practitioners can also use this guide to connect with, better understand, and impactfully process illness and loss—toward a renewed, reenergized outlook on life.

This whole journey that I am presenting in Radical Hope is directed toward us finding meaning and individuation through our illnesses. It is choosing the path of being a seeker. It is a radical perspective that brings radical hope, as we learn to understand that individuation itself is a radical series of transformations.  

As we realize that initiation is the rite of dying to an old life and being born into a new one, we see that illness, as an initiation, initiates us continually into knowing what it means to become more fully human. And becoming more fully human initiates us into becoming truly spiritual.