Dean's Welcome

Over the last 30 years, the American public and many of our most committed healthcare professionals have been searching for an approach to health and wellness, as well as illness, that recognizes and treats the whole human being—body, mind, and spirit. The College of Mind-Body Medicine at Saybrook extends and deepens that search and provides a sustained, scientifically grounded experience of the model that we have created, one we believe will shape the health and mental health care of the future.

 

My name is Jim Gordon and I am Dean of the College of Mind-Body Medicine. I’m a psychiatrist, the Founder and Director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), a clinical professor at Georgetown Medical School. I served as Chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. Over the past forty years I’ve created programs of comprehensive mind-body healing for physicians, medical students, and other health professionals; for people with cancer, depression and other chronic illnesses; and for traumatized children and families in Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel and Gaza as well as in post-9/11 New York and post-Katrina southern Louisiana and with U.S. military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. My colleagues and I have trained over 7,000 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.

 

Saybrook University has pioneered a holistic approach to the study of human experience and well-being for almost 40 years. The partnership between Saybrook University and The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) brings together the spirit of healing with rigorous scholarship to create a program of integrative education for a cadre of scholar-healers who will help to transform healthcare for all.

 

Increasingly, we understand the importance of including mind body approaches, nutrition and exercise, and group support in preventing and treating chronic illness, and improving quality of life. Masters and doctoral students of the College of Mind-Body Medicine will participate in the transformation of healthcare-through performing cutting-edge research, enhancement of clinical practice, and the development of innovative and integrative models of health education and healthcare delivery. The College of Mind-Body Medicine offers MS and PhD degrees and a certificate program in Mind-Body Medicine. PhD students may further define their area of study by selecting a specialization in Research, Practice, or Healthcare Systems.

 

The College of Mind-Body Medicine is committed to educating and supporting the women and men who will help to shape the coming worldwide transformation in health and mental health care. The College's teachings are grounded in the understanding that self awareness, self care and mutual help are crucial to the prevention and treatment of all chronic illness and to the fulfillment of our human potential, and that we cannot help others on their healing journeys unless we are embarked on and actively engaged in our own. Combining the wisdom of in-depth experiential learning with the most sophisticated tools of scientific investigation, we are creating a graduate curriculum that is intellectually challenging, powerfully practical, and personally and socially transformative. The College will be a central element of a worldwide healing community and will itself be a community of healers.

 

The Faculty Chair of the College of Mind-Body Medicine is Donald Moss, PhD. He is the past-President of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback; partner in the Psychological Services Center in Grand Haven and Holland, Michigan; and chief editor for Biofeedback magazine. He has trained professionals around the world to integrate mind-body medicine techniques into their personal and professional lives. Don and I are blessed with a faculty of gifted and deeply committed teachers who are also pioneering clinicians and researchers.

 

Please contact me if you have any questions and please be sure to check out the website for the most up-to-date information about this innovative and transformative degree program.

 

Warmly,

 

James S. Gordon, MD

Dean, Mind-Body Medicine Degree Program

jgordon@saybrook.edu