The Healing Power of Faith: How Belief and Prayer Can Help You Triumph Over Disease, Harold G. Koenig, Malcolm McConnell
An infirm, lifetime alcoholic suddenly becomes sober and strong. A patient undergoing open-heart surgery amazes the doctors with a speedy convalescence. A cancer patient given only a few months to live defies the predictions. What accounts for such remarkable recoveries? Is it miracle or medicine?
In this extraordinary book, Dr. Harold G. Koenig presents groundbreaking scientific evidence that provides answers to these puzzling medical mysteries.
You will read about the pioneering study that found nonreligious patients with heart disease to be three times more likely to die following surgery than their religious counterparts. You'll learn why saying prayers regularly can be as effective as taking medicine, and why prayer and medicine together are such a potent combination.
Here you will meet the unforgettable patients who taught the doctors so much as they triumph over life-threatening disease, heartbreaking marital problems, dangerous addiction, and more. With simple, practical methods for harnessing the power of faith, this potentially lifesaving book provides an astonishing and immensely effective strategy for healing
Harold G. Koenig, M.D. Director, Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Associate Professor of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Adjunct Professor, Department of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Adjunct Professor, Department of Public Health, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, People's Republic of China, Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry,, School of Osteopathic Medicine, Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina, Visiting Professor, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
Dr. Koenig completed his undergraduate education at Stanford University, his medical school training at the University of California at San Francisco, and his geriatric medicine, psychiatry, and biostatistics training at Duke University. He is board certified in general psychiatry, and formerly boarded in family medicine, geriatric medicine, and geriatric psychiatry. He is on the faculty at Duke University Medical Center as Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Professor of Medicine. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and is Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health at Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, China. In addition, he is a Visiting Professor at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Shiraz, Iran. Dr. Koenig has over 550 scientific peer-reviewed academic publications, nearly 100 book chapters, and 55 books. His research has been featured on many national and international TV programs (including ABC’s World News Tonight, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Dr. Oz Show, NBC Nightly News) and hundreds of national and international radio programs and newspapers/magazines (including Reader's Digest, Parade Magazine, Newsweek, Time). Dr. Koenig has given testimony before the U.S. Senate (1998) and U.S. House of Representatives (2008) concerning the benefits of religious involvement on public health. He is the recipient of the 2012 Oskar Pfister Award from the American Psychiatric Association and the 2013 Gary Collins award from the American Association of Christian Counselors. He is the former editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, and is the currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Religion and Health.
Finally, Dr. Koenig is the lead author of the Handbook of Religion and Health, 3rd edition (2021-2022, forthcoming, with professors Tyler VanderWeele (TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University) and John Raymond Peteet (Department of Psychiatry at Harvard).
