Over the past 60 years, I followed many streams of knowledge on my journey to becoming an Integrative Psychiatrist. Our inspirational family practitioner exemplified the value of conventional medicine and a deep commitment to patients. My grandfather, a master mushroom picker in rural Kentucky, introduced me to the healing properties of fungi. As a child, I witnessed Appalachian, Native American, Cuban, and Chinese healing. Although my medical school education was in Western medicine, I knew there were other valid approaches.
Much of my psychiatric practice has been treating the very ill, atypical, and treatment resistant patients, including those who do not respond or who cannot tolerate prescription medications. For these people to have any hope of improvement, it was necessary to venture outside the standard treatments that had already failed them. Consequently, my treatment plans often included newly discovered medicines, herbs, nutrients, mind-body practices, and new technologies.
Innovators often face years of skepticism from colleagues. For example, I was one of the first to regularly use valproic acid to treat patients with bipolar symptoms (based on a case series by German psychiatrists). For the next 15 years, colleagues criticized me as a public health menace. This didn’t abate until valproic acid became a first-line standard treatment for Bipolar Disorder. Similarly, when I published a case report on using dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) to treat depression, other doctors said I was crazy until my observations were confirmed by three double-blind, placebo-controlled studies over the next 20 years. But the biggest brouhaha came when I popularized s-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) for the treatment of depression in the US. Again, I was called a public menace and 30 years of European research was disregarded. Since then, SAMe has become widely recognized as a valuable treatment for depression and cognitive function.
When I started to publish articles and books about the scientific evidence for the benefits of herbs, nutrients, yoga, and Qigong in psychiatric practice, colleagues I had known for years began to avoid me. Having trained intensively with leading masters of breathwork over the last 20 years, in collaboration with my wife, Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, I refined ancient movement and breath practices to create programs that were more effective, suitable, and safer for people with a wide range of mental and physical disorders, especially for post-traumatic stress disorder and survivors of mass disasters. We used our knowledge of psychology and neuropsychiatry as we combined practices derived from Qigong, yoga, meditation, and Open Focus Attention Training (developed by Les Fehmi and Susan Shor). Our research studies contributed to the growing evidence base that supports integrative treatments in psychiatric practice. The result was our Breath-Body-Mind (BBM) Fundamentals program, consisting of 12 hours of movement, breathing, and relaxation practices for the rapid reduction of symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. We honed these methods by giving programs for large groups of people affected by the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Even those who had been ill for five years or more and who had not responded to many conventional treatment attempts, reported positive improvements in their physical and emotional health after participating in Breath-Body-Mind programs.
This led to a new model for Global Mental Health, wherein a small number of providers could deliver simple, effective treatments to large groups. The 9/11 disaster showed that the medical model of one healer treating one patient at a time was no longer feasible or effective for addressing the needs of thousands of people after a mass disaster.
Breath-Body-Mind can be taught in one-on-one therapy, or it can be quickly adapted for treating groups affected by different types of disasters in diverse cultures. It has been particularly rewarding for me to see BBM treatments rapidly relieve symptoms of stress, trauma, and PTSD in first responders, military personnel, healthcare workers, and victims of war, genocide, and trafficking. To watch people recovering from trauma and becoming reconnected to their genuine selves and to others is most rewarding. To train other providers to share our methods with even more people multiplies the rewards.
To work closely with my wife and our team of breath coaches and translators in countries around the world is something I could not have imagined. To work with talented child yoga teachers, such as Jyoti Manuel (based in London), helping thousands of children, is amazing.
Although I still use biological and integrative treatments in clinical practice, teaching others how to fine tune the nervous system as the foundation for healing and being healed, is the essence and the pinnacle of what I have been working towards since I began learning Japanese martial arts when I was twelve years old. The new model for Global Mental Health would include empowering people to heal themselves through breath.
Kingston, NY – The Global Directory of Who’s Who proudly recognizes Dr. Richard P. Brown, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Phy...
Read Full Press Release →Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
New York, New York, United States of America
Associate Unit Chief, Psychobiology Research Unit Clinical Director, Laboratory of Neuropsychopharmacology
New York City, New York, United States of America
Education Level: M.D.
Institution: Columbia University College of Physicians
United States of America
Education Level: B.A.
Institution: University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America
Education Level: Residency
Institution: New York Hospital, Cornell University Medical College
United States of America
Education Level: Fellowship
Institution: New York Hospital, Cornell University Medical College
United States of America
Breath-Body-Mind LLC
Kingston, New York
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