Hands of Life:
An Energy Healer Reveals the Secrets of Using Your Body's Own Energy Medicine
for Healing, Recovery, and Transformation
by Julie Motz
New York: Bantam Books 1998
Reviewed by Binnie Dansby, East Sussex, England

Hands of Life is an inspiring contribution of far-reaching significance for the healing of early trauma, including pre- and perinatal trauma. Julie Motz is a notable "energy healer" who shares her wisdom, world view and experience gained in the operating rooms of some of the most prestigious hospitals in the United States. A skillful storyteller, Julie takes us behind closed doors to reveal cooperative healings based on intuitive information and the ability of patients to communicate the meaning of their disease. Children and adults facing serious illness and surgery were often found to be suffering from unresolved traumas of gestation or birth, traumas still held in tissue structure. With the resolution of emotional blockages, surgical patients usually need less anesthetic, have fewer complications, feel liberated, and enjoy a positive post-operative course.

This book is clear, concise and compelling. As the daughter of a scientist, and as a holder of a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University, Julie integrates physical science with psychology and the intuitive in a way that makes easy reading even for skeptics. She pays tribute to William Emerson as one of her important teachers and tells the reader how she was helped personally in Emerson Seminars and how she has been able to help others using these insights and techniques. Our readers will be interested in how she works with children battling disease (pp. 192-208). In Chapter 12 "Prenatal and Birth Traumas" she explains how persons having general anesthetic often spontaneously regress to womb or birth experiences-and she shows us how she assists them in this process.

This member of APPPAH works on a promising frontier of healing, utilizing psychological and spiritual energies which have been little understood in academic psychology or medicine. I celebrate her courage, sensitivity and wisdom, and I urge you to read this enlightening book!