Review

A guide to the therapies

BODYWORK THERAPIES FOR WOMEN
Delcia McNeil
The Women’s Press, 2000, £9.99

There are many books available at present which can help us to choose among the ‘alternative therapies’ when we feel that what we think of as conventional western medical approaches have not worked. This book is slightly different in several ways.

First, it genuinely aims to give as broad and unbiased an overview as possible. To this end, the author includes sections on everything you may have heard of – and almost certainly a few that will be unknown or at least unfamiliar. This means that each section is necessarily brief, and provides only a ‘taster’ of each approach, leaving the reader free to explore further if any particular therapy seems to meet their needs.

It can look superficial, because of the number of items it attempts to cover, but in fact a great deal of thoughtful comment is included. For example: how ‘hands on’ is this particular approach (if at all)? What sort of commitments do clients and practitioners make to the length of the therapy? How available is it?

These are essential questions and while the book will not in itself allow you to make a fully informed choice, it will direct you towards the necessary information.

Second, Bodywork Therapies for Women is what it says it is: a book for women. It is often tacitly assumed that all consumers of alternative therapies are female but this is not so. This book deals directly with female needs, female issues of body image and empowerment and, in doing so, beats any other summary text (from a woman’s point of view) hands down.

If the publisher was anybody but Women’s Press I would hope to see the immediate commissioning of a text that dealt equally sensitively (and comprehensively) with the same approaches from a male point of view. Perhaps someone else will take up the challenge.