COLUMNISTS
 Larry Lachman, PsyD is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist with Psychooncology Associates where leads a weekly cancer therapy group for people with cancer, and a bereavement therapy group. In addition, Dr. Lachman facilitates a twice-monthly cancer support group for patients and caregivers at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, in California.
    Dr. Lachman himself is a cancer survivor and currently hosts a twice monthly coping with cancer cable television show on Access Monterey Peninsula in Monterey, California, called, "Living Options: Coping With Cancer On The Central Coast." He also publishes a twice-yearly nationally distributed newsletter on the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of coping with cancer entitled, "Courage of the Soul." Dr. Lachman is a member of the American Psychological Association and the American Society of Psychosocial and Behavioral Oncology/AIDS.
    On (w)holistic medical approaches in our society: I agree with psychiatrist Nathan Ackerman, who wrote: "We have a number of sciences related to the person but we do not have a science of the person. Human physiology, psychology, and sociology deal with artificially separated single aspects of the human organism. . . such a view necessitates a more unitary approach to man. . ." With the advent of Engle's Biopsychosocial Medicine, Spector's Neuroimmunomodulation, Ader and Cohen's Psychoneuroimmunology, Holland's Psychooncology, and the newly developing field of Neurotheology, a truly comprehensive and (w)holistic study of Man is quickly emerging. This comprehensive paradigm, rooted in the best that scientific tradition has to offer, and WITHOUT blaming the patient in a condescending, judgmental, and destructive manner for becoming ill, is definitely the wave of the future.
Dr. Larry Lachman
The Path of Courage
P.O. Box 22151
Carmel, CA 93922
Phone: (831) 643-2635
Fax: (734) 448-4724
DrLarryCancerPet@Comcast.net

 
EDITORIAL PANEL
David Aldridge, PhD has the Chair for Qualitative Research in Medicine at the University of Witten Herdecke in Germany. He is particularly concerned with teaching research, developing appropriate forms of research supervision and promoting the next generations of health care researchers. He works with medical practitioners, nurses, counselors, creative arts therapists and artists.
    My vision for integrative care in the future is that people will be actively encouraged to find voices to their own individual forms of expression that sometimes we label as "health" and that the plurality of health care initiatives on offer within our communities will be used to the full.
David Aldridge, PhD
Chair of Qualitative Research in Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, Uni Witten/Herdecke
Alfred Herrhausen Str. 50
58448 WITTEN, Germany
Tel: (0)2302 926780 Fax: (0)2302 926783
www.musictherapyworld.net  davida@uni-wh.de
  

Robert A. Anderson, MD, ABFP 1973-91, ABHM 2000-, AHMA, AAFP, was a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Washington and currently teaches Family Medicine at Bastyr University. He is author of the Clinician's Guide to Holistic Medicine (2001).
    Healing is an objective of all who find themselves on a spiritual path. The stimuli to the discovering of healing are varied and wondrous, including crises, vicarious learning from others, evoking positive intent and faith, and disease processes themselves. Healing involves each of us personally, our communities, our society and our planet. The quintessential principle is unconditional love.
Robert A. Anderson, MD
614 Daniels Drive
East Wenatchee, WA 98802
(509) 886-3708
nhf@msn.com

 
Meryl Hershey Beck, MA, M.Ed., Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, has a background as a teacher, 12 Step Recovery sponsor, and licensed psychotherapist. She is excited to be involved in many avenues of healing. Her current passion is teaching bioenergy techniques and instructing workshop participants in becoming their own Energy Detectives (a process that involves learning to monitor one's personal energy, discover and intervene on the drains, and increase the energy sources.) She has been a well-received presenter at the International Energy Psychology conferences for the past three years. As a Personal Energy Detective, Meryl is co-authoring a book, The Energy Detective: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Secrets of Bringing Unlimited ENERGY Into Your Life, due out early 2002. In addition, she creates transformational experiences on spiritual adventure trips bringing spiritually minded people to high-energy sites to help raise the vibration of the individual, the group, and the planet. As an Instrument Keeper for several of the Gentle Wind Instruments, Meryl offers free healing sessions. Meryl also sends out a free inspirational email message approximately once a week.
Wholistic Healing involves health of the whole person-emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, and energetically. Instead of dealing solely with illness, Wholistic Healing has more of a focus on education and prevention, with the belief that wellness is our normal state of being. It honors the innate healing power of nature and the wisdom of the human body. People involved in wholistic healing are eager to take responsibility for their own health as they seek harmony and balance, peace and love, a sense of aliveness, and a connection to the larger universe.
Meryl Hershey Beck, MA, M.Ed, LPCC, CPC
Personal Energy Detective
(800) 995-0796 Ext. 0321
MBeck333@aol.com
inspirationalwords@onelist.com
 

Richard A. Blasband, MD I am a board-certified psychiatrist, trained in the Department of Psychiatry, Yale Medical School, where I was on the teaching faculty. I was trained in orgonomic medicine by Elsworth Baker, appointed by Wilhelm Reich to train psychiatrists in his therapeutic discipline. For the last 35 years in addition to my clinical practice I have conducted experimental research in orgone biophysics and medicine, in consciousness under the aegis of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories based in Princeton, N.J., and in healing as a student of the physicist and master-healer, Nicolai Levashov.
    I believe that the most important issue facing integrative care is the development of a theoretical position that embraces consciousness, healing, "subtle energy", and allopathic and alternative medical practices. A theoretical position would provide impetus for new kinds of experimentation that would eventually place medicine on a solid foundation rather than the shaky mechanistic/reductionistic basis that has limited value in curing chronic illnesses.
Richard A. Blasband, MD
Research Director
Center for Functional Research
2392 Mar East St.
Tiburon, CA 94920
www.functionalresearch.org    rablasband@sbcglobal.net

 
Kenneth S. Cohen, QiGong Master, Native American Healer
Kenneth S. Cohen ("Bear Hawk"), M.A., M.S.Th. has trained with indigenous healers from North America, China, and Africa for more than thirty years. He is a member of the Red Cedar Circle (Si.Si.Wiss tradition), the Seneca Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge, the Good Medicine Society of the Cherokee, and other medicine societies. His adopted Cree family is from Sturgeon Lake First Nation in Canada. Ken is the author of The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing, Healthy Breathing, "Native American Medicine" in Essentials of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and more than 150 journal articles on complementary medicine. He is Executive Director of the Qigong Research and Practice Center and an Adjunct Professor at Union Institute Graduate School.
Kenneth S. Cohen, MA, MSTh
Qigong Research & Practice Center
P.O. Box 1727
Nederland, CO 80466
Ph/Fx: 303-258-0971

  
William Collinge, PhD, MPH, is an author, researcher, visionary and speaker in integrative health care. He is the originator of The Integrative Medicine Wheel, a practical tool for teaching the paradigm of integrative medicine. He has taught at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and consults as a grant review panelist for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, NIH. He has extensive clinical and research experience in integrative programs for chronic illness including cancer, HIV, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and hemophilia. His books include The American Holistic Health Association Complete Guide to Alternative Medicine, Subtle Energy, and Recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
    My vision of the future of integrative care includes a cultural transformation at the grassroots level in which the lay public embrace complementary and alternative therapies in the service of the home-based caregiving movement. Many powerful and effective modalities are easily taught and learned by lay caregivers, and lay people can be educated and empowered to care for one another and their loved ones, particularly in light of the declining ability of the institutional health care system in meeting people's needs. I foresee a time when self-care and caregiver care will become primary sources of health support, and institutional care and reliance on professionals will become secondary.
William Collinge, PhD, MPH
(207)451-9152, Fax (208)275-0683
www.healthy.net/collinge   wcollinge@comcast.net

Allan Cooperstein, PhD
215 830-0790 Fax 218 830-1147
www.allanpsych.com    allanco@verizon.net
 

 
Philip Friedman, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist and psychotherapist and a certified intuitive healer and spiritual life coach in Philadelphia and Plymouth Meeting, PA. He is director of the Foundation for Energy and Spiritual Healing and Well-Being and the author of Creating Well-Being: The Healing Path to Love, Peace, Self-Esteem and Happiness," the Integrative Healing Manual: an Energy, Spiritual and Positive Psychology Approach; "Integrative Energy and Spiritual Therapy," and the Friedman Assessment Scales on Well-Being, Affect, Beliefs, Quality of Life and Personal/Spiritual Growth.
    Dr. Friedman is a founder of "Integrative Therapy" (IT), "Integrative Marital and Family Therapy (IMFT), "Integrative Energy and Spiritual Therapy (IEST), "Integrative Healing" (IH) and "Integrative Psychological Coaching" (IPC). He was on the faculty of both Jefferson and Hahnemahn University and Medical Schools and is currently an approved supervisor for the Association of Marital and Family Therapy. Dr. Friedman moderates 3 email Lists on energy and spiritual healing.
    I see integrative care as an integration of holistic/alternative and traditional healing, or said differently, as an integration of Western and Eastern approaches to healing in a way that maximizes the healing potential of each person. In addition, I see integrated care as healing care that focuses not only on the individual but also on the relationship systems that the individual is embedded in such as the family, community and society at large. I also see integrative care as integrating and balancing spirit, energy, mind, body and emotions. In particular I see integrative care as focusing on the core divine, holy and wholistic dimension of each person and activating the spiritual and energetic dimensions of each person to facilitate healing and balance whenever possible. Finally, I see integrated care using the powerful qualities of wisdom, forgiveness, intuition, prayer, self-empowerment, touch, compassion, love, light and energy to facilitate healing in addition to many other well known interventions.
Philip Friedman, PhD
www.integrativehelp.com   energyspirit1@aol.com.
  

David Gersten, MD practices psychiatry and nutritional medicine out of his Solana Beach office. Both sides of his work, the mental and the holistic medical treatments occur within a spiritual context. His clinical practice includes many people with chronic illness, especially Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which Dr. Gersten himself developed in 1984 and which served as his springboard for learning how to work with and cure chronic illness. He is past publisher of Atlantis The Imagery Newsletter and author of Are You Getting Enlightened Or Losing Your Mind?
    Medicine as we now know it must change or die. A true Integrative Medicine is the goal, a blend of East and West, or Allopathic Medication and Surgery . . . alongside mental imagery and acupuncture. The mind-set must change. We must be critically open to the myriad of healing modalities around the world, and we must show discernment. At the current time, healthcare is shaped by powerful alliances between the AMA, FDA, Pharmaceutical Industry and State Medical Boards. Thus far they have been interested in money and not true healing. The power of these alliances must either be shifted or woven into the fabric of a true Integrative medicine.
    True healing realizes from the start that each of us carries a soul, a spark of the Divine within us. That is the starting point. If we return to the original words of Hippocrates, we will be fine. We will realize that, as healer, we are humble servants and that we have been given a sacred trust which must be honored.
David Gersten, MD
1020 Second Street Suite C
Encinitas, CA 92024
tel: 760-633-3063
fax: 760-633-3393
www.AminoAcidPower.com
www.ImageryNet.com
www.EarthingUSA.com
   

Joyce Goodrich, PhD, a humanistic and transpersonal psychologist and educator, has been working with Dr. Lawrence LeShan's approach to healing for 30 years. She is in charge of training, practice, facilitating selected research projects, and networking within a multi-disciplinary framework. She is President and Project Director of the Consciousness Research and Training Project, Inc., founded with Dr. LeShan.
Joyce Goodrich, PhD
Director, Consciousness Research and Training Project Inc.
315 E 68th Street
New York, NY 10021

 
Christopher Hegarty is a business advisor and a complementary/ alternative healing researcher/journalist. Business clients include more than 400 of the Fortune 500 companies. He serves as a contributing editor to Alternative Medicine magazine and as executive producer for Scizone Radio Group. He�s a founder of a number of organizations including The Institute of Noetic Sciences and the College for Financial Planning. He has written a number of books including Seven secrets of Exceptional Leadership and Tyranny of the familiar.
    Integrated healing is the use of all non harmful modalities that assist in helping people live long, healthy, productive lives. There are numerous practitioners getting superb results with a wide variety of treatments for the same illnesses. The number one cause of death in the US is subtle suicide, and health education of our clients is the highest priority to achieve robust health for those we wish to help.
    In my work I begin by testing a person�s response to the following statement: �I want, deserve, and expect to live a long life of abundant health�. The vast majority of people will test negative. These harmful beliefs can be corrected in less than 60 seconds and the person then has a greater capacity to respond to the healing. Many long-standing conditions such as allergies and emotional traumas are corrected in minutes. The three ingredients I bring to my work are: a heart of service, high levels of intention that the healing will be successful and long lasting, and an unlimited belief in the person�s capacity to respond. I also teach other practitioners how to eliminate allergies in a matter of less than 4 minutes and over 90% stay corrected for very long periods of time.
Christopher Hegarty
(928) 468-6399 leaders@cutting-edge.com

 
Lynn Keegan, RN, PhD, HNC, FAAN, Lynn Keegan is a pioneer in the holistic health movement. She is a past president of the American Holistic Nurses' Association and most recently taught as an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. She is on the board of several organizations and journals. She has been involved in nursing education, practice and research for many years having taught at 4 major universities and published widely in nursing journals. She has authored or co-authored 9 books including the AJN award winning best seller, Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practice. Her most recent book is Healing with Complementary and Alternative Therapies. Currently she is Director of Holistic Nursing Consultants in Port Angeles, WA.

 
Stanley Krippner, PhD, is professor of psychology at Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco, California. He is the co-author of The Realms of Healing, Healing States, and Extraordinary Dreams. He is co-editor of Healing Tales, Healing Stories, and Varieties of Anomalous Experience. He has written widely on systematic models of healing from cross-cultural perspectives and is co-editor of a German yearbook on healing from a transcultural perspective.
    Western biomedicine is "privileged" due to a series of historical developments, resulting in the "marginalizing" of alternative and complimentary healing systems that, nevertheless, often provide effective relief to many people around the world. My vision is to increase the "discourse" among healing systems worldwide, while subjecting each of them to rigorous investigation, using a variety of research methods. I expect that this healing process will add psychological, social, spiritual, and informational dimensions to existing healing systems.

 
Eric Leskowitz, MD, a Board Certified Psychiatrist, has appointments with the Departments of Psychiatry at Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools. He has a long-standing interest in holistic medicine, in particular the role of energy-based therapies as part of a comprehensive approach to treatment. He has practiced meditation for 25 years, and energy healing for 12 years. He lectures widely, and has edited two books: Transpersonal Hypnosis (CRC Press, 1999); and Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Rehabilitation (Harcourt Health Sciences, 2002).
    Hopes for the future: I am working for a future in which the multidimensional nature of man is recognized by all participants in the health care field. A full spectrum of approaches will be available to all, from the prescription of concrete biomedical substances, to subtle energy interventions and psychospiritual techniques. I hope that research, clinical results, educational events, and direct personal experiences can all be brought together to help to create this future.
Rick Leskowitz, MD
Pain Management Program
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
125 Nashua St.
Boston MA 02114
www.EnergyMedicine101.com

 
Jeff Levin, PhD, M.P.H., is a social epidemiologist with training in religion, sociology, public health, preventive medicine, gerontology, and quantitative methods from Duke University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Texas Medical Branch, and the University of Michigan. He pioneered research on the epidemiology of religion, and has served as principal or co-principal investigator on several NIH grants totaling over $1 million in funding. His most recent research, funded by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, has revealed that a loving relationship with God is associated with better physical health and fewer depressive symptoms. A former medical school professor, Dr. Levin is a past president of ISSSEEM and author of God, Faith, and Health.
    My vision of integrative medical care in the 21st Century is grounded in three salient themes: (a) a body-mind-spirit perspective on etiology, disease causation, and the determinants of health; (b) a renewed emphasis in medical research, education, and practice with salutogenesis, and not just on halting pathogenesis; and (c) a proliferation of validated therapeutic interventions that seek outcomes such as improved balance, harmony, and general well-being, and not just the absence of pathology.
Dr. Jeff Levin   
www.religionandhealth.com    levin@grasshoppernet.com

 
Poet / Artist Ric Masten was born in Carmel, California, in 1929. In his youth he studied art in Paris, France.  Became an oil painter and has had many exhibitions in the United States.  Became a songwriter working for Warner Bros. Records in the late 50s.  In the 70s & 80s was a well known folksinger.  Became interested in poetry and touring extensively over the last thirty five years, reading his poetry in hundreds of colleges and universities in North America, Canada, and England.  He recently began illustrating his poetry with single line drawings which he calls �one-liners.� He is a well-known conference theme speaker and is a regular on many television and radio talk shows.  He lives with his poet-wood carver wife Billie Barbara in the Big Sur mountains of California.  He has 17 books to his credit.  His most recent book WORDS & ONE-LINERS features many of the drawings you see here.
Ric Masten
SUN-INK PRESENTATIONS
37931 Palo Colorado Road,
Carmel, CA 93923
(831) 625-0588   Fax: (831) 625-3770
 http://www.sun-ink.com    ric.masten@earthlink.net
On-line WORDS & ONE-LINER page. http://sun-ink.com/WordsOneliners.htm

 
Diane M. Miller, JD, is a Minnesota attorney who successfully helped to defend a Minnesota farmer from charges of �practice of medicine without a license.� After State v. Saunders, Miller designed health freedom legislation for the State of Minnesota and was the lead lobbyist and legislative consultant to the Minnesota Natural Health-Legal Reform Project responsible for passing the consumer driven legislation entitled the Minnesota Complementary and Alternative Health Care Freedom of Access Act. The new law exempts unlicensed health care practitioners from charges of "practice of medicine without a license." Most recently Miller founded the National Health Freedom Coalition, a national information resource for health freedom decision-making, to support individuals and states that are interested in consumer access to complementary and alternative health care.
    Diane Miller is a graduate of the College of St. Teresa and Hamline University School of Law. A former Chemist and Licensed Medical Technologist, Miller responded to her deep interest in the politics of healing by becoming an Attorney in private practice with a concentration in Alternative Health Law, Family Law, and Divorce and Child Custody Mediation. She is a founding member of the Minnesota Natural Health Coalition, the Minnesota Natural Health � Legal Reform Project, and the National Health Freedom Coalition. She is also a student of Master Chunyi Lin in the practice of Qi Gong.
Diane M. Miller, JD
National Health Freedom Coalition
Executive Director
Tel. (651) 699-8300, Fax: (651) 699-8306

 
Richard Pavek, Director, The SHEN Therapy Institute; Director, The Biofield Research Institute, Sausalito, California SHENmaker@MSN.com

 
Janet F. Quinn, PhD, RN, FAAN, was Associate Professor and Senior Scholar in the Center for Human Caring, University of Colorado School of Nursing. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and holds a PhD in Nursing Research from New York University. Her research on Therapeutic Touch has been funded by the Federal Department of Health and Human Services and by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and she serves as a peer reviewer for research grants at the National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. She is a horsewoman and also a spiritual director and counselor in private practice, which sometimes includes the use of horses as co-facilitators for personal growth and healing. Dr. Quinn lectures and consults internationally on Integrative Medicine, Therapeutic Touch, Care for the Caregiver, Healing, Caring, and Spirituality and Healing. Her most recent publication is a book of affirmations and meditations for women entitled I Am A Woman Finding My Voice.
    Integrative Health Care is more than the addition of new tools of care into an existing "sick-cure" paradigm. It requires a fundamental shift in the philosophy underlying care and in the way we view health, illness and healing. True, integrative health care will be attained when both curing and healing are valued and available to all and when the full complement of both caring/healing and curing modalities are available for all.
Janet F. Quinn, PhD, RN, FAAN
Haelan Works
3080 3rd Street
Boulder, Colorado 80304
(303) 449-5790 Fax: (303) 449-2584
www.haelanworks.com    janetquinn@haelanworks.com 
 

Scott Shannon, MD, Board Certified in General Psychiatry, Child/Adolescent Psychiatry, and Holistic Medicine, practices in Northern Colorado. A member of the American Holistic Medicine Association since 1978, he is the current president of that organization. His edited text, Handbook of Complementary and Alternative Therapies in Mental Health will be published in late 2001. As medical director for a hospital-based program�the McKee Center for Holistic Medicine�Dr. Shannon incorporates herbs, nutrition, acupuncture, and spirituality into his practice.
    Integration of healthcare services benefits all but remains just a single step toward true holistic care. The end point in this process of transformation is holism�the attention to the wholeness of each individual in body-mind-spirit. Over the next generation, we will witness the gradual evolution of healthcare from fragmented pockets of care, which attend to different aspects of our being, to separate services integrated together, to a system which is just as whole as the people it serves. Holism must be our goal for both the individuals for whom we care and the system in which we function.
Scott M. Shannon, MD
Medical Director, McKee Center for Holistic Medicine
Banner Health System
1825 E. 18thStreet
Loveland, CO 80538
(970) 593-6189
scottshannon@cowisp.net
 

Martina Steiger, Th.D. is Dean of Faculty and Students, and Professor at Holos University Graduate Seminary in Spiritual Healing & Integrative Health. Dr. Steiger has a private practice, "Transitions," in interactive subtle energy medicine and spiritual healing in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. She conducts workshops on stress management through GUS�, a wholistic, multi-modal program she developed. Her thesis has demonstrated significant effects of GUS� in reducing stress and enhancing self-image. She also teaches how to access intuition, the integration of complementary and conventional medicine, and effecting change in the educational system through caring for and restoring the soul, while moving gracefully through each moment of beingness towards wholeness.  
martina4847@earthlink.net    www.martinasteiger.com

 
Barry Sultanoff, MD is a founding member and former board member of the American Holistic Medical Association. He is a psychiatrist and family physician with a home-based clinical practice near Washington, D.C. An avid student of feng shui, he is a pioneer in defining and promoting "the new environmental medicine," which emphasizes the creation of optimal healing environments for client and practitioner. Barry's cable TV programs, "Healing Matters" (for adults) and "Adventures with Dr. Barry" (for children) bring succinct, positive health messages to the general public. He will be featured on Discovery Channel's upcoming program on healthy aging, called "Beating the Clock." Barry is co-author of the book Putting Out the Fire of Addiction (Keats, 2000). His compact disk Dances with Breath, released in October, 2000, is a guided musical journey into an experience of wellness and deep peace.
    Here's how I see the future of holistic/integrative medicine: Our greatest challenge will be to nurture and maintain our own health and awareness, so that we can serve as models of conscious, visionary activism within the healing professions. This will include facing and breaking free of our own addictions to stress, overwork, and other dysfunctional behaviors fostered in professional training and elsewhere. Embracing the vast healing potential within the arts (music, visual arts, dance, poetry, etc) and innovatively applying it in "medical" settings will be one important thrust. Exploring what it means to live in a healthy environment -- within oneself as well as part of our living planet, and disseminating that, will be another. Applying Buddhist teachings and practices, as described by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others will be especially pertinent.
Dr. Sultanoff can be reached c/o "Healing MattersT", 3700 Washington St.,
Kensington, MD 20895.
www.humormatters.com/healingmatters.htm    Barrysult@aol.com.
   

Sara L. Warber, MD, Holistic Family Physician, Co-director of (NIH funded) Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research Center, U. Michigan, Ann Arbor
    Vision for the Devlopment of Integrative Care: I dream the creation of healing environments where all who enter - staff, patients and families - are bettered by the experience. I work for the time when all health care professionals see themselves as healers - for each other, as well as for their clients/patients. I advocate for the awareness of the complex interaction of our societal decision making and our people's health. I support the preservation of the earth's ecosystem because our health, indeed our life and the lives of our unborn generations depends upon bringing our human society into balance with nature. I believe that each one of us has a purpose and a gift in sickness and in health. Our work here is to discover these aspects in ourselves and our patients; and then dedicate ourselves to their highest expression. I practice holistic family medicine, which means that I focus on healing not just the body, but also the mind, the heart and the spirit. I know that evidence for effective therapies comes in many shapes, from case studies to randomized controlled trials to meta-analyses. I work for the furthering of our knowledge base about how the universe works, how the human heals, and for the place of complementary and alternative medicine paradigms and techniques in comprehensive health care.
University of Michigan Complementary and Alternative Research Center
Ann Arbor, MI  www.med.umich.edu/camrc   swarber@med.umich.edu

 
Jerry E. Wesch, PhD is virtually a life-long advocate of the merger of science and spirit. He began having encounters with mystery as a 10 year old Nebraska farm boy. Trained as a health psychologist at the University of Tennessee, he has used biofeedback, imagery, hypnosis, energy psychology and other mind / body techniques clinically since 1968. He has also been at the front of the holistic health movement since the mid 1970's. Energy healing is his passion, working with many different healers since 1977, trying to come to a working theory for this fascinating, effective and elusive phenomenon. He is a Reiki III initiate, has studied bioenergy therapy, and has tried every healing and prayer technique he has ever encountered. He has an extensive catalogue of healing stories and some interesting but unpublished research data. All three of his daughters have manifested intuitive and healing gifts.
    Dr. Wesch is on the Executive Board of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energy and Energy Medicine. He directs a multidisciplinary pain clinic in Chicago, helps out at the Unity In Chicago Energy Healing Circle and is on the staff of a hospital-based integrative medicine center called Strong Spirit. His partner Sondra Brigandi is one of the principals of Conscious Choice magazine in Chicago, a journal of holistic living. They live on Chicago's north-side with 4 cats and a big red dog.
    Views on Healing: We have no working theory of energy healing and its mechanisms because we do not yet include (or understand how to include) Consciousness in the equations that describe all the levels of Reality. So far we have consistent phenomenology of the subjective experience and pretty good effectiveness data but no model that really handles the data. When we finally understand healing, we will know more about the Universe and Consciousness than we have discovered in the last 500 years. It will be a revolution! In any case, energy healing is the best general purpose health care system. Works on everything some of the time and never hurts to try.
Jerry E. Wesch, PhD
6550 N. Greenview, #2
Chicago, IL 60626
(773) 262-8798
jerrywesch@sbcglobal.net