It's a rare person who can honestly say they're grateful for life's hardships and even tragedies. It's called Radical Gratitude and Margaret Evans speaks with a man whose whole life vouches for its healing power.

At the age of five, Andrew Bienkowski watched his grandfather starve himself to death so that his meagre food ration could sustain his family a little longer. Two weeks later, he, together with his mother, grandmother and little brother endured the even greater agony of finding his grandfather's body torn apart and scattered by hungry wolves. The shallow grave they had laboured to dig for him in the frozen ground had proved inadequate.

Such horrors during the family's banishment to the wilderness of Siberia as part of Stalin's paranoid campaign to rid the Soviet state of educated Poles, would have killed many a weaker soul. And of the more than one million Poles who were sent to Siberia, many did die. But Andrew had inherited his grandfather's stoic strength and determination and now, just a month or two short of 74, has just published his first book imbued with a powerful, and remarkably gentle, healing energy.

"Radical Gratitude and other life lessons learned in Siberia" introduces us to the concept that gratitude should not be limited to appreciating the good that is done to us; rather, we should be truly thankful, explains Andrew, "for those things that are painful, unfortunate, difficult because those are the experiences that teach us the most and are the most valuable to us".

For Andrew's family, the nightmare began in 1939 when the Soviets overran the Polish city of Lvov and enforced Stalin's order to remove those whose education and wealth made them resistant to communism. His father, an officer in the Polish Army, had been fighting the Nazis when Russia invaded Poland and was, by that time, being held as a prisoner of war. Perhaps he never learned the full details of his family's three week train journey in a crowded, filthy cattle wagon to reach their destination of an isolated village in Siberia. Andrew writes sparingly of the ordeal during which those passengers who died were "lifted by the arms and legs and heaved out (the massive cargo door) and onto the frozen ground". The parallels with the infamous train journeys of the Holocaust are all too clear.

Beyond the cruelty that human beings can inflict upon each other (because we have all heard these accounts before in a different context and seen the searing images of suffering), what is most remarkable to the reader is Andrew's sense of caring and empathy for others, as a little boy of five.

Together with his co writer Mary Akers, a prize-winning author in her own right, Andrew conveys his realisation, during that journey, that he had "a sense of wanting so badly to help them. ... I believe this first awful experience was the beginning of my intense lifelong desire to help others in need." It also crystallised an awareness that "we are all connected", and, in order to overcome barriers that may seem otherwise insurmountable, we must all help one another. Here, as in many instances throughout this book that is suffused with compassion, Andrew draws on the words of an acclaimed humanitarian, in this case, Albert Schweitzer: "You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it's a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it."

And, as it becomes clear as I talk with Andrew over the phone from his home in New Buffalo in upstate New York, "only 30 minutes from Canada", this has become the guiding principle of his life. After the reunited family eventually settled in the United States in 1948, Andrew studied clinical psychology and began a 40 year career working in this field for the state of New York. Even now, in his retirement, the urge to give time to others is as strong as ever and Andrew spends a day or two each week with terminally ill patients at a local hospice and teaches courses aimed at helping people reconnect with themselves and with life.

One senses this book is, itself, part of that altruistic urge, simply a chance to share his lifetime of wisdom gleaned from too much tragedy but, even more, his remarkable response to it.

Andrew, married with two adult sons, is the only survivor of that tightly knit family unit, his mother Zosia and younger brother Jurek both dying well before their time - Zosia as the result of her struggle with typhus contracted during their exile and Jurek, struck by a car while training for a biathlon. His death, in his mid forties, cut short a brilliant career as a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. Only the formidable Babcia, his grandmother, whose strength and faith in the power of her intuition shine out during their most difficult times in Siberia where starvation was often only a matter of a day or two away, lived almost her full measure. "My grandmother probably deserves more credit than anyone else for our survival," says Andrew in his soft New England accent with its hint, still, of a European youth. Yet in the midst of the Cold War, in the late 1950s, she returned alone to Poland. "We had no intention of ever settling permanently in America," he says. "It was considered to be a temporary arrangement until Poland was free again. But my grandmother decided that she couldn't wait and she had to go back home to die."

In a kinder link to his homeland, Andrew has recently been approached by a Polish publisher keen to translate the book into Polish for a new and unexpected audience. Such stories as his, says Andrew, while new to a Western audience, resonate deeply with Polish readers where "every family probably has someone who has gone through a similar experience." So, the publisher's interest is as surprising as it is welcome.

Or is it? Maybe it's Andrew's advice on how to live our lives and overcome the growing malaise of depression and a feeling of "disconnect" that explain this book's apparent ability to cross the language and culture barrier. As Eastern Europe, along with China and India, becomes wealthier, it seems to be inheriting some of those problems that have been singularly our own, here in the self indulgent West!

One of his most compelling statements, at least for me, is that "Powerlessness is the disease of our times." In answer to my question of how we can overcome this feeling, Andrew contrasts our modern habit of seeking professional advice for any problem we may have, whether it be personal, legal or financial, with a more traditional self reliance. "This wasn't always true. I think in the past human beings were much more capable and confident in helping each other. I am trying to reawaken this idea in the reader. We need to realise how much we are capable of helping each other. I think being more responsible and less likely to blame others would be a good thing." In fact, so central is this idea to his thinking that the working title of his book was "Helping Each Other". That image of a handsome well dressed little boy with his arm around his equally angelic little brother that we see in the book comes, unbidden, to mind.

And the surprises of Andrew and his book don't end here. I'm surprised when he states, quite categorically, that "Radical Gratitude" was intended "to be the opposite of a self help book". Such books have been part and parcel of this industry for many years and like millions of others I've read my share and found the best of them uplifting. Andrew explains his stance this way: "Having worked as a psychologist for 40 years, I've always been opposed to self help books because they focus on 'me, me, me, me'. I don't think it's healthy to become so self centred and so egocentric that you completely lose track that you are part of a community, part of humanity. My patients, for example, could find that they could make their lives more meaningful when they were able to focus on other people - helping other people, being more aware of other people, improving relationships with other people, being more a part of a human network. And that really is the opposite of self help!" Later, when I've had time to digest this comment, I think maybe we've been thinking of different things - yet another "how to" guide which promises transformation in the blink of an eye is, surely, a very different message from a Deepak or a Dyer that takes the self as just part of the interconnected whole as its starting point. And, certainly, I think this idea is gaining credence while the "one week wonders" languish on the shelves.

"Meaningful" as a word and a concept matters to Andrew Bienkowski, and it has clearly sustained him throughout both his childhood and adult life. It's central to his approach to achieving that most elusive of goals, happiness: "You go up a blind alley when you seek happiness. To my mind, happiness is a byproduct, not a goal in itself. To the extent that you live a life that's meaningful, you do things that are meaningful, that you're feeling that you're part of the community and you're helping other people, that's what adds meaning to your life. And the byproduct is happiness."

In his own case, it's now his work with terminally ill patients that provides much of the meaning he seeks. "People with only a few days to live don't have time for superficial conversations," he says with a quiet chuckle. While it benefits him, he also recommends work in a hospice to many of his clients. As well as removing, even if for a short while, their own preoccupation with their own problems, with self, it removes their fear of death, says Andrew. "People are so afraid of death. But if you work in a hospice and you're around people who are dying, sometimes you may even be sitting there talking with the person as they are dying, you very quickly overcome your fear of death. You realise that death is not frightening, like it is in the movies. Most of the time death is very peaceful."

Interconnectedness is one of his key messages, in life and in his book where it earns a chapter all to itself. Once we recognise that even the most aggressive and threatening of people are only manifesting the fear they feel within, it becomes much easier for us to overcome those barriers of mistrust, ignorance and fear for our own part, Andrew advises. His comment brings to mind a powerful image from the book of his grandmother deflecting the tension of a loaded gun held to her head by a drunken Russian soldier by praying for him and telling God she knew he had a good heart. Confused, the soldier left and, afterward became more respectful and even supportive during their term in exile.

Establishing that sense of connection is perhaps easier than we might think, suggests Andrew. We can pay more attention to our dreams, for instance, for in cultivating and valuing them we establish a strong link to our spiritual world. Meditation is another technique he both teaches and practises for its capacity to heal both body and soul and give rise to inner wisdom, calmness and creativity. As he writes, "Deep meditation is a form of love - love of self, love of others, and of the world as a whole. And nothing heals better than love."

Being open to the beauty and even cruelty of nature is another strong theme that runs through the book and into our conversation. Even with starvation beckoning, Andrew can sense the beauty all around him as summer comes to the Siberian steppe. He writes of long sun filled days, fields of yellow wildflowers, the glorious sweetness of a single overripe strawberry he allowed himself from the bowl of wild berries he picked from his secret cache as a surprise for his family, the howling of wolves on a clear night as the family slept on the open plain en route to another camp. As Andrew curled deeper into his mother's arms, he felt no fear because wolves are well fed in the summer months. He writes: "That summer evening, listening to the wolves calling to one another, remains one of the most peaceful images that I hold in my heart."

It comes as no surprise, then, to find Andrew still seeks communion with nature and often, in the summer months, backpacks for a week at a time with his oldest son, now aged 50. He takes obvious pleasure in his capacity to handle such rigorous exercise, even though winter camping when the snow can be a metre deep is now beyond him "and I've given up skiing too".

As our conversation nears an end, I feel I must pose the question that lies at the heart of his understanding of radical gratitude, the belief that has moulded his entire adult life: "Are you really grateful for being banished to Siberia as a little child, starving and almost dying of dysentery and malaria?"

Andrew's response is unhesitating: "Yes I am grateful because it made me into who I am. It made me into a better person than I would have been otherwise. When we came out of that experience I very quickly realised that to forgive them for what they did to us was essential. I very quickly overcame that experience and it's not even painful anymore. I could very easily go back to Siberia and meet those people and not feel any animosity towards them." I don't doubt him for a minute.

Radical Gratitude and other life lessons learned in Siberia
Andrew Bienkowski and Mary Akers
Allen & Unwin
RRP $22.95