James Samuel Gordon

Education

James Samuel Gordon was born in New York City. His father was a surgeon and his grandfather was a pediatrician, First Chief of Pediatrics at Beth Israel Hospital in New York. He attended both college and medical school at Harvard University. As an undergraduate, he studied for and received an A.B. in English, and went on to Harvard Medical School to graduate with an M.D. degree. After medical school, he became a volunteer physician at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic during the 1960s. He also attended Woodstock as a volunteer physician. He also studied acupuncture with Shyam Singha, D.O., D.Ac. and is a licensed acupuncturist.

Career

During the 1970s he worked as a research psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (and worked on many NIMH projects through 1997), and became a lecturer at various colleges. While at NIMH, he developed the first national program for runaway and homeless youth, edited the first comprehensive studies of alternative and holistic medicine, directed the Special Study on Alternative Services for President Carter’s Commission on Mental Health, and created a nationwide preceptorship program for medical students. As Georgetown Medical School’s Director of the Program of Mind-Body Studies and Clinical Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine since 1980, he has helped design and implement a study track for medical students in integrative and alternative medicine, which covers nutrition, self-regulation and relaxation techniques like meditation, and the social, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of psychiatry.

Gordon founded the nonprofit Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) in 1991. Designing and offering professional training programs in mind-body medicine, integrative oncology, and nutrition to health and mental health professionals is meant to help them integrate these techniques into their practice and extend help to as many people as possible. Through CMBM Gordon has also applied mind-body skills to global trauma relief in war-torn and disaster-stricken regions such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel, and Gaza as well as in post-9/11 New York and post-Katrina southern Louisiana. Gordon and his colleagues have trained over 3,000 health and mental health professionals in the U.S. and overseas to more effectively address the psychological trauma within their communities, as well as to deal with chronic illness. He and his CMBM colleagues have also supervised and trained local leadership teams in Kosovo, Israel, and Gaza to make the CMBM model a fully integrated and sustainable part of the local healthcare system.

In 2008, CMBM won a research award from the US Department of Defense to study this mind-body approach with veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. Gordon was also appointed to chair the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP) from 2000 to 2002 by President Clinton.

Medical philosophy

Gordon's books and teachings emphasize the idea of "self-care as the true primary-care," and that patients should be provided with information and techniques to keep themselves healthy. He also takes issue with what he considers the "disease model" of healthcare. In an interview with Daniel Redwood D.C., regarding his position as Chair of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy, Gordon is quoted saying:

"I believe we need to change our fundamental orientation from a too narrow focus on end stage disease management to keeping people healthy, whole and well. We need to change the distribution of resources from overwhelming emphasis on acute care at the end of the line to teaching people how to stay well. We need to begin with health care education in the schools, as early as possible."

Gordon’s method integrates relaxation therapies, hypnosis, meditation, acupuncture, nutrition, herbalism, musculoskeletal manipulations, dance, yoga and physical exercise in his own practice of medicine and psychiatry.

“Unstuck” approach

In his seven-stage program outlined in Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression, which he describes as "adapted from mythologist Joseph Campbell's groundbreaking studies of the world's mythic heroes and heroines," —Gordon explains the useful, mood-healing benefits of food and nutritional supplements; movement, exercise, and dance; psychotherapy, meditation and guided imagery; and spiritual practice and prayer. He concludes each chapter with a "Prescription for Self-Care," guidelines to help each person play an active, effective role in their own healing, and he includes examples from the patients he has worked with over the years.

Personal life

Gordon is Jewish.

Honors and awards

Publications

Gordon’s writings span over thirty years and include the following books:

Gordon’s writings have also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today as well as numerous other publications. It has also been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, CBS Sunday Morning, Fox News Channel and National Public Radio, as well as in The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, People, American Medical News, Clinical Psychiatry News, Town and Country, Hippocrates, Psychology Today, Vegetarian Times, Natural Health, Health, and Prevention.

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine

In 1991, Gordon founded the nonprofit Center for Mind-Body Medicine. The mission statement on its website reads,

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine is a non-profit, 501(c) (3), educational organization dedicated to reviving the spirit and transforming the practice of medicine. The Center is working to create a more effective, comprehensive and compassionate model of healthcare and health education. The Center’s model combines the precision of modern science with the wisdom of the world’s healing traditions, to help health professionals heal themselves, their patients and clients, and their communities.

The organization is going about this mission through several different educational programs, including the Professional Training Program in Mind-Body Medicine, where health professionals can learn to lead Mind-Body Skills Groups; Food as Medicine integrative nutrition training; and CancerGuides training in integrative oncology. CMBM’s program, “Healing the Wounds of War,” an offshoot of the Professional Training Program in Mind-Body Medicine, is engaged in global trauma relief: CMBM faculty train health, mental health, and education professionals in war-torn and disaster-stricken areas in mind-body skills in a way that is designed to help them care for themselves and, in turn, better care for their patients. This has been extended to include clinicians and counsellors working with US veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.