Book review by Joan Borysenko Phd

SECOND SIGHT: An Intuitive Psychiatrist Tells Her Extraordinary Story and Shows You How to Tap Your Own Inner Wisdom (Three Rivers Press, $15) is the perfect book to awaken your intuition and inspire you to act on it.

We live in an over-intellectualized society where too many people are stuck in their heads. An Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA, Dr. Judith Orloff is a bridge between traditional medicine and the intuitive/spiritual realm. In Second Sight she helps us open to a part of us with a much wider vision than the linear mind: our inner voice.

Second Sight reads like a thriller. It is a page-turner that was hard to put down.
This pioneering book shares the struggles and well-won successes of a courageous physician who fights against a skeptical medical system to validate the power of intuition. This book will assure anyone who ever thought they were weird or crazy for having intuitive experiences that they are not.

In Part One, “Initiations,” Dr. Orloff describes being an intuitive child who had premonitions about deaths and illnesses that frightened her and her physician-parents—so much so they forbade her to discuss them at home. Judith grew up believing there was something wrong with her. This part of the book is extremely personal and frank. In riveting detail she describes how an ignored premonition of a patient’s suicide attempt convinced her to get beyond her fears and integrate intuition into her medical practice. And the chapter “Female Lineage” also shares the “family secret” about intuition that her mother told her on her deathbed. You’ll discover what that secret is when you read the book. 

In Part Two, “Teachings,” Second Sight shows you effective ways to cultivate your natural intuitive abilities including how to recognize intuitive experiences in daily life such as déjà vus and synchronicities. There are particularly touching chapters on remembering dreams and embracing the spiritual path of the intuitive. She describes intuition as an outgrowth of spiritual evolution and an expansion of the heart—not just as information your pick up to win the lottery.

Second Sight is the rare book that is both inspiring and controversial. You will find a new friend in Judith as her writing style is as intimate as if she was talking to you in her living room. In this revised edition with a new introduction by Judith, Second Sight will challenge to reexamine your assumptions about the parameters of the human mind—and your own wondrous potential.

Joan Borysenko Phd is a pioneer in Mind-Body Medicine, author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind