Product Description

In this compelling self-portrait, psychic and psychiatrist Dr. Judith Orloff explores the mysterious and poorly understood realm of the psychic, based on her own experiences and those of her patients. In riveting detail, she describes how an ignored premonition of a patient's suicide attempt convinced her to not only embrace her gift but to incorporate it into her practice. Optioned by Atlas Entertainment to be a movie of the week and/or series. National ads/media. Online promo.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39818 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
While growing up in California with her mother, a Beverly Hills family practitioner, and her father, a radiologist, Orloff says she had psychic experiences and could foresee deaths, illnesses, earthquakes. Now a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, she works with police departments by using her psychic abilities to help locate missing persons and identify suspects. In her clinical practice, she claims, her clairvoyant gifts enable her to get information about patients' health, relationships, careers and childhoods, and to discern stumbling blocks that are not readily apparent. A premonition warned her of one patient's upcoming suicide attempt. With another patient afflicted with debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, Orloff says, she successfully used hands-on healing, or therapeutic touch. She encourages analysands to use prayer, meditation, ritual and dream journals to promote emotional healing. She movingly describes the dreams and visions that helped her draw closer to her mother, who succumbed to cancer in 1993. Orloff's unconventional attempt to bridge the worlds of Freud and the paranormal will appeal to open-minded readers. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly down-to-earth and sensible
I've been reading up on the subject of intuition, especially as it relates to healing. Someone recommended this book to me; although I'm usually put off by the term "psychic," I felt that Dr. Orloff's credentials were impressive enough to lend some credibility to what she had to say. The first half of the book is mostly biographical, but makes an important point: what she calls the psychic (I prefer "intuitive") kept resurfacing in her life no matter how much she resisted it, and when she finally learned to integrate it with her personal and professional life it enriched both. In the second half she writes more generally about the psychic and how it affects people's lives, and I was impressed with her levelheadedness and good sense: being psychic doesn't make a person "special," and like all gifts this ability can be used for good or misused for personal gain. Her warnings about bad psychics, and those who try to control their clients through fear, were well taken. Also, I feel that her criticism of traditional psychology is right on: psychic experience, and spirituality in general, have been viewed for too long as symptoms of mental illness rather than health. Her viewpoint is not so much "religious" as spiritual, and, although that may be too much for hard-core materialists, I think most readers can relate to it. I felt that the concluding chapters were rather long and repetitious, but otherwise I found the book readable and thought-provoking.

Becoming Authentic
Second Sight is a double feature not to be missed. The book begins with the eloquent unveiling of the life of Judith Orloff, told to me as if she were sitting in my living room, and ends with her giving me the inner and outer tools to help me sense the psychic messages we all receive daily but do not always recognize, that lead to a heightened awareness of spirit, personal freedom, and increased love of self, and others.

What stands out to me in this book is the genuineness of the story, the way it is told. Judith's unique approach weaves and interweaves the actual events with the learnings that come from them. By doing so she is showing me that I, too, am an intuitive, if I will only listen to my own creation. And she provides a map, based on her own path, to take me into a world I could not otherwise navigate. "Envision a grander step of what is possible," she says. "There's no ceiling to what we can learn." Second Sight is a powerful discourse delivered with a gentle voice, and its teachings have enabled me to put miles and miles behind me on my journey toward authenticity.

A touching and heartfelt story of acceptance and discovery
I am a professional in the computer business and also share the gift of the psychic and the high sensitivity that Judith describes in her book. I'm in the process of reading the book for a second time and must say that I feel as if we are brother and sister after reading this wonderful book.

Her very direct writing style, and first person account with sometimes brutal honesty is refreshing and an act of candor and love not seen in many books on this subject. She has successfully placed the psychic gift in its true context, that of a God given gift to be cherished and used to better the lives of your fellow human and yourself. I can only hope that her book becomes required reading for all medical, spiritual, and even educational disciplines so that people who have the gift can be recognized early in life, and to receive the help and training they need to successfully use their gifts to hopefully help others on their paths.

Judith - you are a sweetheart of a lady, and I'm sincerely hoping to see another book from you...