I confess, I was prepared to dislike Dr. David Servan-Schreiber's new book, The Instinct to Heal. Curing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy. Especially after reading the desciption of him on the cover as "co-founder of the Center for Complementary Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh." And especially after a glance at the table of contents listing chapters such as "The Power of Qi," "The Energy of Light," and "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): The Mind's Own Healing Mechanism." My knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss it as yet another paen to alternative medicine at the expense of traditional, proven, medical therapies.
But Dr. Servan-Schreiber is not your typical alternative medicine guru. He has no product to sell, no "newly discovered" technique (with video tie-in) to hype. He's just a psychiatrist who has seen way too many people placed on Prozac simply because they wept in a doctor's office. And he wants to do something about it.
Too often, traditional medicine assumes we can counsel away any trauma, medicate away any pain. It's this sort of thinking that gave rise to one of the most ridiculous sites in the aftermath of September 11 - the flight of mental health professionals to lower Manhattan to provide "emergency counseling" for the victims, as if their training had given them some god-like inner wisdom that would allay the suffering of mere mortal laypeople. But pills, and even talk therapy, can't obliterate the horror of facing your mortality, the pain of a lover's rejection, or the loneliness of old age, let alone erase the emotional scars inflicted by man's general inhumanity to man.
Dr. Servan-Schreiber knows this all too well. He has spent a lot of his time doing psychiatric liaison work. That is, he helps other doctors deal with the repercussions of their illnesses. It's these sorts of patients who modern psychopharmacology fails the most. And it's these sorts of patients Dr. Servan-Schreiber has in mind when he talks about the instinct to heal.
Take the example of the lonely old person. Many's the time Dr. Servan-Schreiber was consulted by other doctors to recommend therapy for them. He knew from experience that no amount of psychotherapy, no potent anti-depressant, was going to cure their loneliness. So, he often made sensible recommendations instead. Recommendations like "get a pet." The response of his colleagues was not kind. "We asked you to recommend an anti-depressant, not a zoo," they would tell him, as they ignored his recommendation and made their own choice of anti-depressant. And one could easily imagine them scoffing at most of the ideas in this book.
Article comments
1 - Chris Kent
This is a great blog Sydney and fascinating. You probably didn't need the final sentence as what you were insinuating was clear.
I have seen some people on anti-depressants and I could see how it changed them in odd, zombie-like ways. From that experience, I don't believe I would ever take such drugs to cure anxiety or depression. I do believe talking to a therapist is productive in the short term for most people.
Just about all of the suggestions from Instinct to Heal sound productive....
2 - Shark
Nice work, Sydney. Sounds interesting. Will check it out.
One shouldn't discount 'complementary/alternative medicine' too quickly, especially when it's practiced by an MD (ie. under scientific auspices).
My wife is an RN, and a lot of MDs are getting into 'alternative' medicine these days. The science lags behind, but because some are using clinical applications, more studies should arrive sooner than later.
re. Omega-3 --- Believe it: From what the RN says, Omega-3 appears to be somewhat of a miracle 'drug' for many illnesses.
The big complaint with most Americans is stress/depression, and doctors are finding these anti-depressants often cause physiological imbalances that end up making the situation worse. But as your review / author acknowledges, a lot of this is 'lifestyle' depression, meaning you're bummed out because your life sucks. Hard to treat that w/traditional drugs. And it's the rare family physician who'll say, "Dump your jerk spouse and get a pet."