James Samuel Gordon is an American author and psychiatrist known for mind-body medicine. In 1991, he founded and is the director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization. At the Georgetown Medical School and Georgetown University, he is the director of mind-body studies and clinical professor in the departments of psychiatry and family medicine.
James Samuel Gordon was born in New York City. His father was a surgeon and his grandfather was a pediatrician, First Chief of Pediatrics at Beth Israel Hospital in New York. He attended both college and medical school at Harvard University. As an undergraduate, he studied for and received an A.B. in English, and went on to Harvard Medical School to receive an M.D. degree. After medical school, he became a volunteer physician at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic during the 1960s. He also attended Woodstock as a volunteer physician. [1]
During the 1970s he worked as a research psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) as well as on many NIMH projects through 1997. He also became a lecturer at various colleges. While at NIMH, he developed the first national program for runaway and homeless youth, edited the first comprehensive studies of alternative and holistic medicine, directed the Special Study on Alternative Services for President Carter’s Commission on Mental Health, and created a nationwide preceptorship program for medical students. He has been Georgetown Medical School’s director of the program of mind-body studies and clinical professor in the departments of psychiatry and family medicine since 1980. [2]
In 2008, CMBM won a research award from the U.S. Department of Defense to study the mind-body approach with veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. [3] Gordon also was appointed to chair the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP) from 2000 to 2002 by President Clinton. [4]
During September 2019, Gordon published a new book entitled, The Transformation: Discovering Wholeness and Healing After Trauma. The book is on his recommendations to heal depression, anxiety, and psychological trauma for those who are confronted by tragedy and trauma and reviews his work with traumatized children and families in Bosnia, Gaza, Haiti, post-9/11 New York, and Parkland, as well as, veterans, active-duty military, and others.[ citation needed ]
In his seven-stage program outlined in Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression, which he describes as "adapted from mythologist Joseph Campbell's groundbreaking studies of the world's mythic heroes and heroines", [5] Gordon explains the useful, mood-healing benefits of food and nutritional supplements; movement, exercise, and dance as well as that of psychotherapy, meditation, guided imagery, spiritual practice, and prayer. He concludes each chapter with a "Prescription for Self-Care," guidelines to help each person play an active, effective role in their own healing. He includes examples from the patients he has worked with over the years. [6]
Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), integrated medicine or integrative medicine (IM), and holistic medicine are among many rebrandings of the same phenomenon. Alternative therapies share in common that they reside outside medical science, and rely on pseudoscience. Traditional practices become "alternative" when used outside their original settings without proper scientific explanation and evidence. Frequently used derogatory terms for the alternative are new-age or pseudo, with little distinction from quackery.
Reiki is a Japanese form of alternative medicine called energy healing. Reiki practitioners use a technique called palm healing or hands-on healing through which a "universal energy" is said to be transferred through the palms of the practitioner to the patient in order to encourage emotional or physical healing.
Andrew Thomas Weil is an American celebrity doctor who advocates for alternative medicine.
Yoga as therapy is the use of yoga as exercise, consisting mainly of postures called asanas, as a gentle form of exercise and relaxation applied specifically with the intention of improving health. This form of yoga is widely practised in classes, and may involve meditation, imagery, breath work (pranayama) and music.
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel healing energy into a patient and effect positive results. Practitioners use a number of names including various synonyms for medicine and sometimes use the word vibrational instead of or in concert with energy. In no case is any empirically measurable energy involved: the term refers instead to so-called subtle energy.
Leon Eisenberg, was an American child psychiatrist, social psychiatrist and medical educator who "transformed child psychiatry by advocating research into developmental problems"
Health is the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. This article lists major topics related to personal health.
Linda L. Barnes is an American medical anthropologist, a professor of family medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, and in the Graduate Division of Religious Studies at Boston University. Her research specialties are the social and cultural history of Western responses to Chinese healing traditions, and the interdisciplinary study of cultural, religious, and therapeutic pluralism in the United States. She has been regularly cited as an authority in the use of religiously based therapeutic traditions.
Frederick King Goodwin was an American psychiatrist and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center, where he is also director of the Center on Neuroscience, Medical Progress, and Society. He is a specialist in bipolar disorder and recurrent depression.
Norman E. Rosenthal is a South African author, psychiatrist and scientist who in the 1980s first described winter depression or seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and pioneered the use of light therapy for its treatment.
Dennis S. Charney is an American biological psychiatrist and researcher, with expertise in the neurobiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. He is the author of Neurobiology of Mental Illness, The Physician's Guide to Depression and Bipolar Disorders and Molecular Biology for the Clinician, as well as the author of over 500 original papers and chapters.
Siddharth Ashvin Shah is an American physician, public health scientist and educator of South Asian origin. In the course of his work, Dr. Shah has blended disciplines involving preventive medicine, behavioral medicine, integrative medicine, humanitarian aid, East-West health systems, group psychology, trauma recovery and stress management research.
Bessel van der Kolk is a psychiatrist, author, researcher and educator based in Boston, USA. Since the 1970s his research has been in the area of post-traumatic stress. He is the author of the New York Times best seller, The Body Keeps the Score. Van der Kolk served as a past president for the International Society for Traumatic stress Studies and former co-director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. He is a professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and president of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program was created in 2003 by Georgetown University Medical Center in response to a nationwide NIH-funded educational initiative to incorporate CAM into medical and graduate school curricula. This program is focused on training students to objectively assess the safety and efficacy of various CAM modalities such as acupuncture, massage, herbs and supplements, and mind-body interactions and introducing scientific rigor to much needed research in this field.
William T. Carpenter, M.D. is a psychiatrist, a pioneer in the fields of psychiatry and pharmacology who served as an expert witness in the John W. Hinckley trial for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. His primary professional interest is in severe mental illness, especially schizophrenia, to the prevention and treatment of which he has made significant contributions in psychopathology, assessment methodology, testing of new treatments, and research ethics.
Daniel Blain, M.D. (1898–1981) was an American physician and was the first medical director of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the first professional medical society, founded in the United States in 1844. He may be credited with the leadership which brought changes in the practice of psychiatry after World War II and in advocating the treatment for people with mental disorders.
Marc S. Micozzi is a physician specializing in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), a medical anthropologist, and an epidemiologist.
Charles L. Raison is an American psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health as well as the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families and Professor with the School of Human Ecology in Madison, Wisconsin.
Judith L. Rapoport is an American psychiatrist. She is the chief of the Child Psychiatry Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.
Trauma-sensitive yoga is yoga as exercise, adapted from 2002 onwards for work with individuals affected by psychological trauma. Its goal is to help trauma survivors to develop a greater sense of mind-body connection, to ease their physiological experiences of trauma, to gain a greater sense of ownership over their bodies, and to augment their overall well-being. However, a 2019 systematic review found that the studies to date were not sufficiently robustly designed to provide strong evidence of yoga's effectiveness as a therapy; it called for further research.
