David Knighton - The Wisdom of the Healing Wound: A New View on Why We Hurt & How We Can Cure Even the Deepest Physical and Emotional Wounds

Praise for
The Wisdom of the Healing Wound

Wounding is essential to growthphysical, emotional, and spiritual. Those who dare not break cannot break through. But we need wise guides to help us understand the necessity of woundedness and how to use our wounds to grow. Dr. David Knighton is just such a guide, and his Wisdom of the Healing Wound will transform not only your understanding of woundedness, but your very self as well.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro, author of Recovery, the Sacred Art

The Wisdom of the Healing Wound will help you heal better, faster, and more completely, no matter what kind of woundphysical, spiritual, or psychologicalyou have. Its loaded with practical advice, soulful honesty, and fascinating information about the human body and the human psyche. Dr. David Knighton is a healer extraordinaire.

Louie Anderson, comedian, game-show host, and author of
the bestselling Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child
and Goodbye Jumbo... Hello Cruel World

The Wisdom of the Healing Wound had to be written now because of the role it plays in the current paradigm shift. In his handbook for healing, Dr. Knighton offers what many of us are waiting for impatientlynew, accurate information. After undergoing an extremely invasive surgery, I especially appreciated this breakthrough, accessible advice about healing wounds and then, surprisingly, how to learn from them, too, whether the wound is physical, psychological, spiritual, and inevitably all three. Its time doctors do what they swore to in their oath. Thanks, Dr. Knighton, for leading the way.

Melody Beattie, bestselling author of eighteen books, including
Codependent No More, The New Codependency, The Language of
Letting Go, The Grief Club, and Make Miracles in Forty Days

Dr. Knighton has examined a universal eventinjury and our innate reaction to itand finds in this process a little-appreciated link between our bodies and our minds. The best description of physical and psychological injury and repair for the layman that I have seen.

Thomas K. Hunt, M.D., former Director of the
Wound Healing Research Laboratory, University of
California, San Francisco, School of Medicine

As a distinguished surgeon, inventor, and entrepreneur, Dr. Knighton has helped thousands of patients get on the pathway to healing. In his captivating new book, Dr. Knighton combines medical expertise, transparent story-telling, and a pastoral heart that will help thousands more. If it is true, as Dr. Knighton writes, that every wound creates an open space, then this book may just be that gentle wound we all need to open our minds, hearts, and souls to the wonder and beauty of healing. Thanks, David, for writing and living this book.

Dr. Garth T. Bolinder, Superintendent of the
Evangelical Covenant Church, Midsouth Conference

Through powerful and moving examples taken from both his personal life and groundbreaking medical work in wound healing, physician David Knighton illustrates in this profoundly encouraging book how the remarkable regenerative powers of the human body to mend itself extend also to what we could call our emotional and spiritual bodiesand that this healing of our bodies, minds, and spirits can be furthered when we bring our wounds to the attention of wise and skillful healers. Knighton moves the language and wisdom of allopathic healing into the realms of emotion and spiritand back againenriching and deepening our understanding of how to help ourselves and others. I couldnt put this book down.

Erik Fraser Storlie, Ph.D., teacher of meditation
and mindfulness, Center for Spirituality and Healing,
Academic Health Center, University of Minnesota

The

WISDOM
of the
Healing Wound

A New View on Why We Hurt
& How We Can Cure
Even the Deepest Physical
and Emotional Wounds

DAVID KNIGHTON, M.D.

Health Communications, Inc.
Deerfield Beach, Florida

www.hcibooks.com

DISCLAIMER: This book is designed to provide accurate information and useful guidance. However, it is not intended to replace the services of a qualified healing professional. If you have an illness, condition, or symptom, consult such a professional. This book is sold with the understanding that its author and publisher are not rendering specific medical, psychological, or other professional services to the buyer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Knighton, David, 1949

The wisdom of the healing wound : a new view on why we hurt & how we can cure even the deepest physical and emotional wounds /
David Knighton.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9188-0
eISBN-10: 0-7573-9188-5

[etc.]

1. Mental healing. 2. Mind and body. 3. Self-care, Health. I. Title.

RZ400.K57 2011
615.8'51--dc22

2011007237

2011 David Knighton

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos, and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
3201 S.W. 15th Street
Deerfield Beach, FL 334428190

Cover illustrationRolffimages/Dreamstime.com
Cover, interior design, and formatting by Lawna Patterson Oldfield

About David Knighton, M.D.

David Knighton is one of the worlds leading authorities on wound healing; a visionary medical researcher who has worked with C. Everett Koop, Judah Folkman, Thomas Hunt, and other giants in surgery and medical research; and a highly successful inventor and entrepreneur. His discoveries have generated over a billion dollars in revenue, and he has put most of his own share of this revenue into further research and discovery.

For ten years, David ran the Wound Healing Institute at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, which specialized in healing patients who had been declared unhealable by other doctors. David taught and did research at the University of Minnesota from 1984 to 1992.

In 1984, David founded Curative Technologies, a medical technology company whose products stimulate healing in previously nonhealing wounds. In the years that followed, Curative established 115 wound healing centers around the country.

In 1991, David founded Embro Corporation, a biomedical research and development company that creates new technologies for wound healing, surgery, and treating infectious diseases. Seven years later, David founded Embro Vascular, which developed and commercialized a practical vein harvesting system for heart surgery.

In 1992 and 1993, David was named one of Americas top 100 doctors for his work in wound healing. In 1994, he was one of seven experts brought together by the Wound Healing Society to create formal medical definitions of wounding and healing; these definitions continue to be used throughout the world today.

In 2011, David and one of his companies, Creative Water Solutions, received the Governors Award for Pollution Prevention from the state of Minnesota for the discovery and development of the first green, renewable water treatment process.

David has spoken to hundreds of groupsfrom social workers to spiritual leaders to college students to physicianson the topic of healing. He has published hundreds of short pieces in general-interest publications, including the