New medicine man

Vegetarian Times, Feb, 1998 by Suzanne Gerber

James, S. Gordon, M.D., has a plan for reviving the spirit of a medical system that's no longer working for millions of people. It starts with self-healing.

Standing at a podium before an audience of health-care professionals, James S. Gordon, M.D., is clearly at ease. After all, addressing his peers is something he does on a regular basis. Today is the first day of his week-long "Spirit of Self-Regulation" conference, featuring his favorite subject, his vision of a "new medicine," in which patients and their doctors are involved in a therapeutic alliance that treats the former as more than just the sum of their symptoms. "The heart of all healing," he says, his deep voice soft and steady, "has always been self-care. But that's become less and less the case today, in the age of managed care. Patients' biggest complaint is that nobody is listening to them. In the past year, nearly 45 percent of Americans have seen an `alternative' practitioner-because he or she tends to listen. [For people with cancer and AIDS, that number jumps to 80 percent.] We are in the middle of a revolution. We are in the process of reshaping medicine."

Within a few moments of listening to him, you find yourself wondering where his practice is based and if he takes on new patients. "This new medicine is holistic, integrative, alternative," he continues, "which basically means anything you didn't learn in medical school." That comment draws a knowing laugh from the crowd. "It's founded on seven tenets. First, that we all are unique. Research shows we can differ up to thirty-fold in nutritional needs. Second, it's based on holism--looking at the whole life of a person instead of a set of symptoms. In my practice, up to 60 percent of patients have problems at work, but nobody ever asks them about that."

Gordon goes on to describe his next five points, which are laid out in richer detail in his popular book Manifesto for a New Medicine: Your Guide to Healing Partnerships and the Wise Use of Alternative Therapies (Addison-Wesley, 1996). They include the concept of a partnership between patient and healthcare provider; reliance on self-care (using awareness, relaxation, meditation, physical exercise, healthy diet and prayer); non-Western healing techniques, such as yoga and acupuncture; group support; and spirituality.

He peppers his talk with interesting asides, detailing, for example, the "hierarchy" of healers in traditional Chinese medicine. "The lowest level of physician treated symptoms," he says. "The next level used surgery and herbs. Then came the self-care teachers. But the highest level of healer helped you to live in harmony with nature--your own and the world around you."

As he speaks, there are no bells chiming, no Age music playing in the background. Gordon is a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, a professor at Georgetown University's medical school and a former researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Each of his points is backed up with clinical studies, published in respected medical journals. And every one of them is put into action in his private practice and his Center for Mind-Body Medicine, both located in Washington, D.C.

By the end of the talk, you're not only convinced that you have to switch doctors but that the revolution has started without you and it's high time you signed on.

"I ALWAYS KNEW that I'd be a doctor," Gordon says over a plate heaped high with veggies and rice (and maybe a little seafood) at a spa in West Virginia. The annual conference he's leading teaches alternative healing techniques to doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and other health care providers (see p. 64). "My grandfather was a pediatrician and my father was a surgeon. As the team physician for the Yankees, he had some interesting patients, including Joe DiMaggio." What boy growing up in New York City in the '40s wouldn't be influenced by a father like that? And yet, for a brief moment, Gordon was almost headed in a completely different direction. "When I was 8, I told my father I wanted to be either a rabbi or a farmer. His response was, `Why don't you be a doctor because if you're a doctor, you can do anything.' Those words stuck in my mind, even though I had no idea what being a doctor meant."

While Dad was a larger-than-life figure for James and his two younger brothers, he wasn't exactly a role model. "He was an angry man," says Gordon, "not easily satisfied. He wasn't home much--but when he was around, he was really around. We'd have discussions, interrogations, arguments. I always felt close to him, though I didn't want to be like him necessarily. But it was clear that he enjoyed what he did, and that was a model for me."

As a 12-year-old at New York's elite Riverdale Country Day School, Gordon found himself an inspiring, if unlikely, role model: Socrates. "He stood up against the establishment, helped people find the truth and sat around talking and somehow made a living. I wanted to be like that, and I thought the way to do that was to become a psychiatrist." Four years later, when he read Freud's introductory lectures, his mind was made up. And while he