The Instinct to Heal: Curing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy

By David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., PH.D.
Published by Rodale
February 2004; $23.95US/$34.95CAN; 1-57954-902-0

Americans seek therapy in record numbers and consume more medications than ever before, yet stress, anxiety, and depression continue to rise to epidemic proportions. People can spend years on the psychoanalytic couch without making any progress. And for many psychiatrists, the prescription-writing reflex has become almost automatic, despite the fact that benefits often disappear as soon as drug treatment stops. Standard treatments simply aren't long-term solutions.

But psychiatrist/neurologist David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D., knows that we can cure our emotional pain. He's seen certain natural methods produce tremendous results in his clinical practice, in that of his peers, and even in war-torn regions where horrific memories can leave deep scars.

Numerous studies in prestigious scientific journals have documented the amazing benefits of these methods on anxiety and depression, but because the mechanisms through which they operate remain poorly understood, they've remained largely excluded from mainstream medicine and psychiatry. Dr. Servan-Schreiber explains how each of the natural methods in this ensemble treatment plan can help us escape the therapy/drug trap by working through the body to tap into the emotional brain's self-healing processes rather than relying on the cognitive process of language.

Weaving fascinating accounts of his first-hand experience and findings together with the research of hundreds of other esteemed scientists, Dr. Servan-Schreiber outlines a program that's becoming embraced throughout the world as a permanent cure for emotional pain. See how you, too, can tap into The Instinct to Heal.

Author

David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., PH.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and cofounder of the Center for Complementary Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He codirected a National Institutes of Health laboratory for the study of clinical cognitive neuroscience and functional neuroimaging for several years and has published more than 90 scientific monographs. He's lectured at leading international academic centers, including Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, and Cambridge Universities. One of the original seven members of the United States board of Doctors Without Borders/Médicins Sans Frontières, he served on the board for 9 years and provided medical relief in Kurdistan, Guatemala, India, Tajikistan, and Kosovo. He continues to develop mental health interventions for victims of crises and to train therapists in crisis areas.

For more information, please visit the author's website at www.instincttoheal.org or www.writtenvoices.com

Reviews

"David Servan-Schreiber has done a brilliant job of bringing together insights and information of vital importance for well-being. The Instinct to Heal is itself an instrument of healing."

--Daniel Goleman, PH.D., bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence

"The scientist and physician David Servan-Schreiber has provided a wonderful manual to help reconcile our emotional and rational brains . . . [he] bases his advice about how to improve our lives on a profound understanding of how the human brain works, on a broad synthesis of the latest knowledge in neuropsychology, as well as his own clinical and research experience. The book is deeply satisfying intellectually, yet crystal-clear and user-friendly . . .Written with grace and elegance, this book might well become the most important mental health landmark of this generation."

--Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PH.D., bestselling author of Flow, Being Adolescent, The Evolving Self, and Creativity

"The Instinct to Heal is a fascinating account of unorthodox approaches to treating the emotional brain and mind. I learned a lot."

--Joseph LeDoux, PH.D., the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University and author of The Emotional Brain and Synaptic Self

"The Instinct to Heal is an inspiring overview of the internal healing potential that exists within everyone -- and that this potential is our birthright and is not dependent on drugs, surgical procedures, or high-tech manipulations . . . The Instinct to Heal will help anyone expand their concepts of health and health care to a more majestic level."

--Larry Dossey, M.D., bestselling author of Healing Beyond the Body, Reinventing Medicine, and Healing Words

"A brilliant, absorbing synthesis of science, experience, and thought by an internationally known neuroscientist and clinician . . . essential reading for all those who want to understand the frontiers of mind-body health."

--Michael Lerner, PH.D., author of Choices in Healing

"David Servan-Schreiber is one of those rare scientists who truly listens with his heart and perceives the larger connection."

--Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., bestselling author of Love is Letting Go of Fear

"This book, the translation of research findings into meaningful clinical insights and practice, bears the unmistakable signature of Dr. Servan-Schreiber's unique abilities and voice, which echo with humor, wisdom, and compassion . . . David used to talk often about the great masters, such as Erikson, whom he admired specifically for their combination of intellectual prowess, personal depth, and caring disposition. I was able to understand exactly what he meant, for I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to observe, in him, a young example of just such greatness."

--Jonathan D. Cohen, M.D., PH.D., director of the Center for the Study of Brain, Mind, and Behavior at Princeton University

"This book has love on every page."

--Professor Francine Lecas, chair of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery, Sick Children Hospital, Paris, France

"Dr. Servan-Schreiber is sending an important message to those talking therapists who appear to rely on the rational brain and language as the sole route to our emotions. This timely and comprehensive review opens many doors and may be read with pleasure by a wide audience."

--Judith S. Schachter, M.D., past president of the American Psychoanalytic Association

"Why is The Instinct to Heal such a success anywhere it has been published? Because people are eager to find new ways to deal with the wear and tear of coping with a stressful social environment; and because this book, written by a traditionally-trained psychiatrist who dares to think untraditionally, offers an alternative that may work, and, by so doing, offers hope."

--Antonio Damasio, M.D., PH.D., author of Looking For Spinoza, The Feeling of What Happens, and Descartes' Error

"Servan-Schreiber's stunning book takes a leap beyond conventional psychiatry and integrates contemporary neuroscience research with a deep understanding of the emotional brain's innate tendency to heal. He shows how one can 'reprogram' the emotional brain so that it adapts to the present, instead of continuing to be stuck in one's painful past. In this book, he shows that for healing to occur, one needs to not exclusively depend on traditional methods of language and understanding, but directly influence the emotional brain by acting directly on bodily experience."

--Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D., professor of psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine

"The Instinct to Heal is engaging and highly readable, and packed with concrete suggestions about how to relieve stress, anxiety, and depression. Servan-Schreiber's advice is culled from top-notch scientific journals and his years of clinical and scientific experience. His accounts of patients, along with his easy narrative style, help readers see beyond the research studies he cites."

--Robin S. Rosenberg, PH.D., clinical psychologist and coauthor of Psychology: The Brain, The Person, The World

Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from the book The Instinct to Heal: Curing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy

by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., PH.D.

Published by Rodale; February 2004; $23.95US/$34.95CAN; 1-57954-902-0

Copyright © 2004 David Servan-Schreiber

Animals Can Heal Us, Too

At the hospital where I practiced in Pittsburgh, other physicians often asked my advice before discharging a depressed elderly patient after bypass surgery or hospitalization for a fractured hip. Usually, I was the last person they consulted. The colleagues preceding me had already prescribed a long list of medicines: antiarrhythmic, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, antacid. They expected me to carry the ball and add my own "anti" to the list -- an antidepressant or anxiolytic (anti-anxiety medication).

Often, however, the cause of depression was clear. The old man or woman had been living alone for years, and was no longer going out very much because of frail health. No longer playing bingo with friends. No longer being visited by their children or grandchildren, who had left for California, Boston, or New York. These men and women were idling away the hours in front of television screens. Would these patients honestly feel like looking after themselves? Even if antidepressants could have done them good, would they have taken them every day? Probably no more than those other pills, already so hard to distinguish from each other and to take as prescribed.

I really did not feel like adding my two-cents' worth to that confusion. Medicines are not "limbic regulators." So, summoning up all my courage, I would add my recommendation to the patient's medical record: "As far as her depression is concerned, the best thing for this patient would be to get a dog (a small one, obviously, to minimize the risk of a fall). If the patient considers that would be too much work, a cat would do, since it does not need to be taken out. And if a cat still seems too much, a bird or a fish. Finally, if the patient still refuses, then a houseplant."

At the beginning of this campaign, I received slightly irritated calls from the residents in orthopedic or cardiovascular surgery: "We asked you to recommend an antidepressant, not a zoo. What are we going to write on the discharge prescription? There aren't any household pets at the pharmacy."

However I answered, my explanations seemed convincing only to myself. My colleagues invariably ended up prescribing an antidepressant themselves, mumbling about how useless psychiatrists really were. They were undoubtedly convinced that they were defending the cause of modern scientific medicine against the ever-threatening, obscuring specter of "old-wives' remedies."

I soon realized that my approach was not working and that I was doing damage to my reputation as chief of the psychiatry division of the hospital. Instead of backing down, I prepared a document summing up various scientific studies on the question. From that point on, I attached the document to my recommendations in the patient's record.

I hoped to inform my colleagues of certain remarkable results with which they didn't seem to be familiar, such as one study from the American Journal of Cardiology about men and women whose infarctions had been accompanied by dangerous arrhythmias. The patients were tracked for more than a year, and those who had had a household pet faced only one-sixth the likelihood of dying during the year compared to all the others. Or yet another study, in which older people with household pets had much better psychological resistance to life's difficulties and went a lot less often to the doctor's. I also called their attention to a study from a group at Harvard showing that simply looking after a plant lowered the mortality rate of residents in a retirement home by 50 percent. I cited research on AIDS patients showing that cat or dog owners were better protected from depression. Finally, I referred to the font of all knowledge in my colleagues' eyes -- the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 1996, it published a study about handicapped people who were virtually unable to move around unaided, very similar to the elderly patients I had been asked to see. This study showed that these people were happier and had greater self-esteem and a distinctly larger network of friends and relations if they had the companionship of a dog. In fact, another study found that the mere presence of an animal by your side makes you "more attractive" to others.

Even stockbrokers feel better if they have a household pet. With one of the most stressful professions imaginable, they are constant victims of market ups and downs over which they have no control, yet they still have to meet their sales targets. It is hardly surprising that a good many of them suffer early from high blood pressure. Karen Allen, Ph.D., from the University of Buffalo, conducted an unconventional study on a group of brokers in her city. Antihypertensive medications brought their blood pressure down below the initial alarming average of 160/100. However, in moments of stress, they still showed sudden peaks of blood pressure above those numbers.

To a randomly selected half of the stockbrokers, Dr. Allen allocated either a dog or a cat. (They had the opportunity to choose one or the other.) Six months later, the results spoke for themselves: Those who had received household pets were no longer reacting to stress in the same way. Not only had their blood pressure stabilized, even in periods of stress, but their performance on stress-inducing tasks -- such as rapid mental arithmetic and public speaking -- was significantly better. They made fewer mistakes, suggesting that they had more control over their emotions and thus over their concentration. In another study, Dr. Allen was able to show that older women (over 70) who lived alone but with pets had the same blood pressure as women of 25 with active social lives.

My "enclosure" turned out to be effective. After that, nobody ever made the slightest comment. I no longer heard interns snicker behind my back when I left one of my "zoological" recommendations in their patient's file. On the other hand, alas, I do not think that a single patient ever went home with a cat or without his or her prescription for Prozac. The idea that a loving relationship is in itself a physiological remedy, comparable to taking medication, rests on sound scientific ground -- but it simply has not yet taken hold in the medical establishment.

Reprinted from: Instinct to Heal: Curing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D. © 2003, 2004 by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc., Emmaus, PA 18098. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher by calling (800) 848-4735 or visit their website at www.rodalestore.com.

For more information, please visit the author's website at www.instincttoheal.org or www.writtenvoices.com