In 1975, Dr. Gerald “Jerry” Jampolsky, a Stanford-educated child and adult psychiatrist, began his journey toward sobriety and another way of looking at the world. After a life-changing spiritual experience, Jerry was inspired to create a small center dedicated to helping children facing life-threatening illnesses. While offering his support to this small group of children, he discovered that they, in turn, were helping him confront his own fear of dying. This exchange of giving and receiving became one of the core concepts of this work.