A patient of mine, Joan, a physician in her late 40s, had been diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. I’ll never forget our first visit. As I took her history, inquired about her life, work, and family, and conducted a physical exam, I was amazed by her detachment from her diagnosis, her emotions, and her body. For Joan, breast cancer was an unpleasant bump in the road, an irritating diversion f...

Since time immemorial humans have utilized natural products and therapies for their healing properties. Even now, in the age of genomics and on the cusp of regenerative medicine, the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approaches represents a popular branch of health care. Furthermore, there is a trend towards a unified medical philosophy referred to as Integrative Medicine (IM)...

OBJECTIVES Chronic pain management typically consists of prescription medications or provider-based, behavioral, or interventional procedures that are often ineffective, may be costly, and can be associated with undesirable side effects. Because chronic pain affects the whole person (body, mind, and spirit), patient-centered complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) therapies that acknowledg...

OBJECTIVES Chronic pain management typically consists of prescription medications or provider-based, behavioral, or interventional procedures that are often ineffective, may be costly, and can be associated with undesirable side effects. Because chronic pain affects the whole person (body, mind, and spirit), patient-centered complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) therapies that acknowledg...

Purpose Non-intervention research using clinical records is difficult, both from the theoretical and practical standpoints. Progress on the former requires progress on the latter. Several techniques have been developed in the SPICER project to overcome the various practical problems encountered in research from electronic medical records (EMRs). This presentation will exhibit techniques that ha...

OBJECTIVES Prior integrative reminiscence interventions have had a limited focus on attachment themes. The attachment-focused integrative reminiscence (AFIR) intervention differs from these in its central emphasis on attachment themes. The wide range of health benefits resulting from integrative reminiscence may be due in part to reminiscing about, mourning, and integrating unresolved attachmen...

40 Lake—Philosophical Problems in Medicine and Psychiatry This is the third in a 4-part series on philosophical problems in medicine and integrative medicine. The article reviews basic questions pertaining to the evidence base in science and medicine in general. Most conventional and non-conventional medical approaches are used without compelling evidence for their postulated mechanisms of acti...

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Integrative medicine has emerged as a potential solution to the American healthcare crisis. It provides care that is patient centered, healing oriented, emphasizes the therapeutic relationship, and uses therapeutic approaches originating from conventional and alternative medicine. Initially driven by consumer demand, the attention integrative medicine places on understanding whole persons and a...