All diseases have a deep meaning. They convey the most valuable messages of the psyche. Psychologist Thorvald Dethlefsen and physician Rudiger Dahlke help us understand what infectious diseases, headaches, accidents, heart attacks and stomach cramps, as well as cancer and AIDS, indicate. If you understand the picture of your own illness, you can find a new direct path to yourself. Illness is not an unpleasant obstacle on this path, for it itself is the path. The more consciously we treat it, the better it performs its tasks. Our goal is not to fight the disease, but to use it to heal the soul.