May 26, 2009
This letter of mine appeared in The New York Times yesterday (in somewhat shortened form), under the title, “Alternatives to New Drugs.”
To the Editor of The Science Times:
Richard Friedman (“New Drugs Have Allure, Not Track Record,” May 19, 2009) is appropriately troubled by the loss of a “larger context” by physicians who prescribe newer, aggressively marketed drugs preferentially to older, less expensive but more reliable ones. His own therapeutic context is, however, far too narrow.
In evaluating treatments for mood disorders, psychiatrists (and the comparative effectiveness studies proposed by the Obama Administration) must enlarge their perspective well beyond drug therapies. My own work over the last forty years, and my reading of the “evidence-based” scientific literature, strongly suggest that an integrative, non-pharmacological approach based on self-awareness and self-care is in many cases significantly superior to drug treatment.
This kind of integrative approach, which may include meditation, physical exercise, dietary modification and supplements, and psychotherapy has been shown to enhance biological as well as psychological functioning—decreasing stress hormones, shifting electrical patterns to portions of the brain associated with optimism, and improving neurotransmitter levels along with mood—without the negative side effects that often accompany drugs. Moreover, such an approach, carefully individualized to meet the needs of each anxious, depressed, and troubled person, significantly enhances the damaged self-esteem of patients who, using it, experience the satisfaction of helping themselves.
-James S. Gordon, M.D.
Dr. Gordon, a psychiatrist, is the author of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression.
Posted in Depression by Dr. James S. Gordon
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May 15, 2009
Memoirs of depression like Daphne Merkin’s in The Sunday Times (May 10, 2009), and for that matter like William Styron’s Darkness Visible, make me sad. Of course I feel sadness for the writers’ dense and burdened suffering, set off so strikingly against their lucid, often spritely, prose. But more important, and far more troubling, I feel sad for the inadequacy of the therapeutic approaches they use, for the lack of understanding their suffering yields them, and, especially, for the fact that inadequate approaches and limited understanding are offered to readers as “state of the art.”
Daphne Merkin and her doctors seem to have concluded that depression is a disease characterized by inadequacies in brain chemistry and best treated by drugs that raise the levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and/or norepinephrine. In fact, the evidence that depression is a disease is mixed at best, and the weight of the research evidence-negative studies on antidepressant drugs have notoriously been unpublished-suggests that antidepressants are little, if any, better than simple placebos.
What is absent from Merkin’s account, and, most sadly, from her experience, is an effort to address the fundamental biological, psychological and social processes that may precipitate depression and contribute to its persistence: the severely impaired response to stress that may indeed be the consequence of the kind of prolonged early life deprivation and trauma Merkin describes; nutritional deficiencies (apparently untested in Merkin’s case) that can cause or contribute even to the most severe depression; and the need for the healing power of sustained and sustaining support and intimacy that may have been absent in early life.
Nor do her therapists suggest other powerful, non-pharmacological modalities that are proving effective in significantly improving mood; for example, exercise, which is at least as effective as antidepressant drugs (it appears among other benefits to stimulate neuron growth in areas of the brain where cells have been destroyed by chronic stress and depression); and meditation which enlarges our perspective on the role of suffering in our lives and shifts brain activity from cortical areas connected with pessimism and depression to those associated with happiness and optimism.
Finally, the saddest thing about Merkin’s account is the passive role she assumed, one which it appears was acquiesced in, if not encouraged, by her therapists. “Do what we say; take the pills we tell you to,” they seemed to have said, “and all will be well.” In fact, therapeutic interventions in which we actively participate are doubly powerful. They have the kinds of inherent benefits I suggested above. Equally important, acting on our own behalf, working in concert with physicians and therapists who value our efforts, we overcome the helplessness and hopelessness that are the hallmarks of depression. Moving forward, as Merkin finally and unexpectedly does, we discover the possibility of change, to see, perhaps for the first time, light in the darkness which had seemed to surround us.
Warmly,
Jim
Posted in Cancer Care, Depression by Dr. James S. Gordon
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April 30, 2009
Gina Kolata’s April 24, 2009 front page New York Times story (”Advances Elusive in the Drive to Cure Cancer“) on the significant failure of our near-forty-year “war on cancer” provided a sobering and necessary corrective to inflated claims about cures already arrived or just around the corner. Kolata rightly chides those in the pharmaceutical, medical, and health food industries who claim that their approach promises a cure and notes our national failure to fund and launch truly innovative studies. She appropriately takes to task clinicians who use deceptive prognostic terminology: “progression free survival” does not, to the dismay of people who are so labeled, mean longer survival. On the other hand, Kolata’s actual or implied dismissal of the potent preventive and therapeutic power of diet and exercise, and of the role that attitude, mood, and social support can play in enhancing quality of life and perhaps prolonging survival, is ill-informed and potentially dangerous.
Though there is indeed some disagreement about the value of “high-fiber or low-fat” [my underlining] diets 
in preventing cancers of various kinds, there is a general consensus, shared by the National Cancer Institute, that diet plays a significant role in at least 35-40% of all cancers. In recent years it has become abundantly clear, for example, that obesity has an important role in making us vulnerable to cancer and to its recurrence. And there is considerable evidence that certain kinds of diet can have significant anti-cancer properties and effects: epidemiological studies show that populations with diets high in the omega-3 fats that are present in fish oil have a lower incidence of several cancers; one study published in the Journal of The National Cancer Institute in 2006 shows that reducing dietary fat may increase survival time for women with breast cancer. And then there is the data on specific foods: cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc.) have significant, repeatedly observed anticancer effects; tomatoes may help prevent prostate cancer; and soy may be useful for the prevention of breast cancer in premenopausal women.
Kolata does not, curiously, discuss exercise, but appears to marginalize it along with nutrition, as she presents the case of a fit vegetarian woman, Phyllis Kutt, whose breast cancer has recurred. Exercise is not of course a panacea, but it does appear to be a powerful tool in both preventing cancer and forestalling its recurrence. One important study, published in 2005 in The Journal of The American Medical Association , showed that 3-5 hours of walking per week significantly reduced the rate of breast cancer recurrence.
Stress, which Kolata also chooses to ignore, appears to be another important and perhaps remediable factor in hastening recurrence. Though the evidence is still weak that stress causes cancer (the exception may be overwhelming stress, as in bereavement, divorce, or massive trauma), studies are accumulating which show that chronic stress may speed up recurrences. In particular, it appears that high levels of hormones like cortisol that stress produces can inhibit enzymes that would otherwise help protect us against cancer.
Finally, group support, which has also been shown to be so helpful in improving quality of life, though not necessarily (here the data is mixed) extending life, is also given short shrift. Kolata tells a horror story of a support group whose members, apparently unable to deal with their own fears, rejected Kutt and forced her out of the group after her cancer had recurred.
For more than ten years my colleagues and I at The Center for Mind-Body Medicine have accepted the challenge of exploring and clarifying the limitations, as well as the benefits, of conventional cancer care and of bringing an open-minded but critical perspective to therapies that are said to complement or be alternatives to them. We have been training what we call CancerGuides(R)–health and mental health professionals and patient advocates who can provide informed and compassionate guidance to people with cancer and their families as they navigate among the bewildering array of therapeutic options and professional opinions. Our CancerGuides learn to cut through the hype about conventional care as well as complementary and alternative approaches. They work collaboratively with people with cancer and their families to create comprehensive programs of care which include evidence-based nutritional and herbal approaches, exercise, massage, acupuncture, and stress-reducing mind-body techniques as well as appropriate conventional therapies. They learn to help people with cancer put all therapeutic and preventive studies on a “level playing field” in which evidence for every approach, whether called “conventional” or “alternative,” is looked at with the same thoughtful, critical gaze.
The oncology professionals and patient advocates we train (sometimes nonprofessionals who have themselves faced the challenges of cancer and its treatment can be the most discriminating and skillful of guides) help those they are guiding to ask the right, and often hard, questions of their oncologists. We also help these CancerGuides to develop the sensitivity that is necessary to encourage and support each person with cancer to make choices that are appropriate to his or her unique situation.
We teach our trainees mind-body approaches (guided imagery, meditation, biofeedback, yoga, etc.) and expressive therapies (written exercises, drawings, and movement) that are so helpful in reducing chronic stress (and levels of stress hormones) and in dealing with the difficult choices and challenges that cancer and its treatment presents. Finally, over time, we train these CancerGuides to lead groups that are genuinely supportive, groups that help people with cancer come to terms with their fears rather than (like Ms. Kutt’s group members) shun those who provoke them, groups where true compassion trumps emotional convenience.
We as a nation have certainly not won the war on cancer. But we have learned over the last forty years that there are things each of us can do to reduce the risk of cancer and, in some instances, slow or forestall its recurrence. We have learned also that acting on our own behalf to create programs in which self-care is integral is, itself, stress-reducing and therapeutic, helping people with cancer to overcome the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that so often debilitate them. And we have found too, as so many people with cancer would testify, that such efforts often become an opening to remarkable self-discovery and psychological and spiritual growth.
There is no silver bullet for most cancers, or sure cure for those whose cancers have advanced. But creating a comprehensive program that includes diet, exercise, stress management, and genuine support, a full array of options critically examined, may offer a measure of scientifically grounded common-sense help from which all of us can take heart.
James S. Gordon, M.D., a psychiatrist, is creator of the CancerGuides(R) training program and Founder and Director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine. He is the author, with Sharon Curtin, of Comprehensive Cancer Care: The Integrating Alternative, Complementary, and Conventional Therapies and of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression.
Read more about the upcoming CancerGuides training, June 11-14th in Washington DC
New York Times Article by Kolata
2006 NCI Report on Dietary Fat & Cancer
2005 JAMA study on Exercise and Cancer
2008 Study, Stress Hormones Inhibit Tumor Suppression
As appeared on The Huffington Post
Posted in Cancer Care, Events by Dr. James S. Gordon
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April 23, 2009
Dear Friends,
Our exciting training program, CancerGuides® II will be offered June 11-14, here in DC (along with Food As Medicine). You can help us as we offer our groundbreaking, integrative trainings by telling everyone you know about the programs, posting the fliers in your offices and clinics, handing them out on the street, etc. etc. Download a flier here.
A quick note: CancerGuides II is absolutely appropriate and accessible for cancer survivors and their families, not only for professionals. Everyone will have the opportunity to meet leaders in the field of integrative care, and to get the most up-to-date practical information–about nutrition, yoga, massage, Chinese medicine, and cutting-edge alternative therapies among many other topics. We would love to see you there, and there are generous partial scholarships available. Check out the website (see above) to learn more.
I hope you understand that you all - staff and faculty, along with our Board, and all those who support and participate in our programs - are the foundation for all we do, the juice that keeps nourishing our work, nourishing me, and helping us to grow. I’m so eager to hear from you and to see you soon, or to meet you for the first time at one of our exciting upcoming trainings.
With love,
Jim
Posted in Announcements, Events by Dr. James S. Gordon
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April 21, 2009
Dear Friends,
It’s stunningly, suddenly it seems to me, green here in Washington. It feels like the season and its recent holy days match the message and the mood of our work - change and hope, new growth and greater freedom, leavened by compassion and forgiveness and, for me as well, gratitude for who you are and all we’ve done together and will continue to do. “Old things are passed away…all things are new” is what it says in the New Testament. Thank you.
Some very happy news for us: we’re now partners with Saybrook University, a wonderful cutting-edge program in psychology. Read about it here.
Dennis Jaffe, my old friend who is both a CMBM and a Saybrook Board member, got things started, and Lorne Buchman, the Saybrook President, has embraced our vision from the beginning and made sure that it infuses our partnership. The negotiations were long but we’re all happy now. I am going to be the Dean of Saybrook’s new Graduate College of Mind-Body Medicine and our program (Professional & Advanced Training Programs in Mind-Body Medicine, Supervision by faculty, plus Food As Medicine Training) is going to be required and central to the core curriculum for both Saybrook Masters and PhD degrees in Mind-Body Medicine.
This means a wonderful opportunity for CMBM to reach and teach more bright, eager, and idealistic participants, for those who want our work to be central to an advanced degree to have that opportunity, and for me (and our faculty) to help shape a graduate curriculum which will be exciting, attractive, and fun too. We’ll be getting the word out about the Saybrook degree and they’ll be telling people about Center programs. Dan Sterenchuk, our Director of Finance and Administration, is going to be working closely with me on all this. He’s thrilled and of course so am I; Dan does such an amazing job, makes everything easier and better for everyone he works with, and we enjoy our adventures together. Everyone else at The Center is really excited too.
With love,
Jim
Posted in Announcements by Dr. James S. Gordon
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April 17, 2009
Dear friends,
I have some exciting news—thanks to numerous requests, my latest book, Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression is being released as an e-book! In my publisher’s own words:
“your e-book will be with retailers tomorrow; it should be on sale within 48 hours on Amazon and by the end of next week everywhere.”
“Unstuck” is on Kindle at Amazon.com here (or will be soon).
A warm thank you to everyone who helped by requesting this format. I hope this additional release will allow me, through Unstuck, to help many more people struggling through depression and anxiety (and perhaps, antidepressants) to move toward health and wholeness.
All my best,
Jim
Posted in Announcements, Depression by Dr. James S. Gordon
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April 7, 2009
James S. Gordon, M.D. Interview on “Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression”, on The Broad Perspective with Vivian Komori
Location: Internet Radio, Friday April 10, 2009
This week on The Broad Perspective™:
We have Dr. James S. Gordon, MD, Psychiatrist and author of “Unstuck, Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression”
“Depression is not a disease”. With this simple but revolutionary assertion, James S. Gordon, M.D., a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and a pioneer in integrative medicine, challenges the perceived wisdom on how depression is viewed and treated. He goes on to explain that depression “is a sign that our lives are out of balance, that we’re stuck. It’s a wake-up call and the start of a journey that can help us become whole and happy, a journey that can change and transform our lives.” During our program Dr Gordon will discuss and powerfully illustrate how to heal depression without the use of antidepressants and outlines the practical steps we can take to exert control over our own lives.
Radio show airs each Friday at 11:00 AM PST (2:00 PM EST) on 1380AM (based in Palmdale CA)
If you are unable to tune in on your radio, you can stream it live on your computer and tune in.
1. Go to http://www.highdesertbroadcasting.com/
2. Click on “News Talk 1380 Radio”
3. Click on “Listen Live” Banner
Hey, too busy to listen during the day? Now listen anytime you want, day or night. Just click on over to www.thebroadperspective.com This is where you will find all of the show archives from our earliest broadcast to our most recent ones.
Posted in Announcements, Depression, Events by Dr. James S. Gordon
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April 7, 2009
Title: Lecture at Urban Zen Focus on Nutrition: Nutrition in Hospitals
Location: Stephan Weiss Studio, 705 Greenwich St. NYC 10014
Description: This discussion will focus on the nutritional standards of food provided to patients in hospitals. Sadly, these standards have been notoriously weak. Malnutrition among patients has been identified in numerous studies and hospital food is frequently cited as insufficiently nourishing. This presentation will address what can be done to improve hospital food: nutrition to aid healing and improve health outcomes.
With Roberta Lee, MD.
For more info, see www.urbanzen.org/news/
Start Time: 10:45 AM EST
Date: April 17, 2009
End Time: 11:45 AM ESt
Posted in Announcements, Events by Dr. James S. Gordon
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March 23, 2009
Title: Keynote and Lecture: Unstuck:Using Mind-Body Medicine to Move Through Depression and Beyond Anxiety
Location: Yoga Journal Grand Geneva Conference, March 26-29, Lake Geneva, WI (Central Standard Time)
Description: Yoga Journal Grand Geneva Conference, March 26-29, 2009- Lake Geneva, WI (EST)
Join Dr. Gordon at the Grand Geneva Conference. Choose from over 100 yoga classes for every level of student.
Register now at www.yjevents.com use promo code GG32 to save $100 off the Main Conference
Featuring Dr. Gordon - Saturday from 1:30-2:30pm EST \”Unstuck: Using Mind-Body Medicine to Move Through Depression and Beyond Anxiety\”
Start Time: 01:30:00
Date: 2009-03-28
End Time: 02:30:00
Posted in Uncategorized by Dr. James S. Gordon
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March 12, 2009
Dear Friends,
Check out the great AP story by Karin Laub about our Gaza training–
At the Washington Post (you may have to close an ad first to read it)
Or at Google News
It’s an great take on how our mind-body skills training is an unconventional fit, but an immense help, to people within the Palestinian culture. (Great picture of me shaking & dancing up front, too (!!!))
We’re in Israel now—flying back to the States soon. More soon.
All the best,
Jim
Posted in Announcements, Global Trauma Relief by Dr. James S. Gordon
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