{"product_id":"how-and-when-to-be-your-own-doctor-gb-4343","title":"How and When to Be Your Own Doctor","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow and When to Be Your Own Doctor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTis a gift to be simple \r\nTis a gift to be free, \r\nTis a gift to come down \r\nWhere we ought to be. \r\nAnd when we find ourselves \r\nIn a place just right, \r\nIt will be in the valley \r\nOf love and delight. \n\r\nOld Shaker Hymn \r\nFavorite of Dr. Isabelle Moser\n\r\nI was a physically tough,\r\nhappy-go-lucky fellow until I reached my late thirties. Then I began to experience\r\nmore and more off days when I did not feel quite right. I thought I possessed an\r\niron constitution. Although I grew a big food garden and ate mostly \"vegetablitarian\"\r\nI thought I could eat anything with impunity. I had been fond of drinking beer with\r\nmy friends while nibbling on salty snacks or heavy foods late into the night. And\r\nuntil my health began to weaken I could still get up the next morning after several\r\nhomebrewed beers, feeling good, and would put in a solid day's work. \r\nWhen my health began to slip I went looking for a cure. Up\r\nto that time the only use I'd had for doctors was to fix a few traumatic injuries.\r\nThe only preventative health care I concerned myself with was to take a multivitamin\r\npill during those rare spells when I felt a bit run down and to eat lots of vegetables.\r\nSo I'd not learned much about alternative health care. \r\nNaturally, my first stop was a local general practitioner\/MD.\r\nHe gave me his usual half-hour get-acquainted checkout and opined that there almost\r\ncertainly was nothing wrong with me. I suspect I had the good fortune to encounter\r\nan honest doctor, because he also said if it were my wish he could send me around\r\nfor numerous tests but most likely these would not reveal anything either. More than\r\nlikely, all that was wrong was that I was approaching 40; with the onset of middle\r\nage I would naturally have more aches and pains. 'Take some aspirin and get used\r\nto it,' was his advice. 'It'll only get worse.' \r\nNot satisfied with his dismal prognosis I asked an energetic\r\nold guy I knew named Paul, an '80-something homesteader who was renowned for his\r\norganic garden and his good health. Paul referred me to his doctor, Isabelle Moser,\r\nwho at that time was running the Great Oaks School of Health, a residential and out-patient\r\nspa nearby at Creswell, Oregon. \r\nDr. Moser had very different methods of analysis than the\r\nmedicos, was warmly personal and seemed very safe to talk to. She looked me over,\r\ndid some strange magical thing she called muscle testing and concluded that I still\r\nhad a very strong constitution. If I would eliminate certain \"bad\" foods\r\nfrom my diet, eliminate some generally healthful foods that, unfortunately, I was\r\nallergic to, if I would reduce my alcohol intake greatly and take some food supplements,\r\nthen gradually my symptoms would abate. With the persistent application of a little\r\nself-discipline over several months, maybe six months, I could feel really well again\r\nalmost all the time and would probably continue that way for many years to come.\r\nThis was good news, though the need to apply personal responsibility toward the solution\r\nof my problem seemed a little sobering. \r\nBut I could also see that Dr. Moser was obviously not telling\r\nme something. So I gently pressed her for the rest. A little shyly, reluctantly,\r\nas though she were used to being rebuffed for making such suggestions, Isabelle asked\r\nme if I had ever heard of fasting? 'Yes,' I said. \"I had. Once when I was about\r\ntwenty and staying at a farm in Missouri, during a bad flu I actually did fast, mainly\r\nbecause I was too sick to take anything but water for nearly one week.' \r\n\"Why do you ask?\" I demanded. \r\n\"If you would fast, you will start feeling really good\r\nas soon as the fast is over.\" she said. \r\n\"Fast? How long?\" \r\n\"Some have fasted for a month or even longer,\"\r\nshe said. Then she observed my crestfallen expression and added, \"Even a couple\r\nof weeks would make an enormous difference.\" \r\nIt just so happened that I was in between set-up stages for\r\na new mail-order business I was starting and right then I did have a couple of weeks\r\nwhen I was virtually free of responsibility. I could also face the idea of not eating\r\nfor a couple of weeks. \"Okay!\" I said somewhat impulsively. \"I could\r\nfast for two weeks. If I start right now maybe even three weeks, depending on how\r\nmy schedule works out.\" \r\nSo in short order I was given several small books about fasting\r\nto read at home and was mentally preparing myself for several weeks of severe privation,\r\nmy only sustenance to be water and herb tea without sweetener. And then came the\r\nclinker. \r\n\"Have you ever heard of colonics?\" she asked sweetly.\r\n\r\n\"Yes. Weird practice, akin to anal sex or something?\"\r\n\r\n\"Not at all,\" she responded. \"Colonics are\r\nessential during fasting or you will have spells when you'll feel terrible. Only\r\ncolonics make water fasting comfortable and safe.\" \r\nThen followed some explanation about bowel cleansing (and\r\nanother little book to take home) and soon I was agreeing to get my body over to\r\nher place for a colonic every two or three days during the fasting period, the first\r\ncolonic scheduled for the next afternoon. I'll spare you a detailed description of\r\nmy first fast with colonics; you'll read about others shortly. In the end I withstood\r\nthe boredom of water fasting for 17 days. During the fast I had about 7 colonics.\r\nI ended up feeling great, much trimmer, with an enormous rebirth of energy. And when\r\nI resumed eating it turned out to be slightly easier to control my dietary habits\r\nand appetites. \r\nThus began my practice of an annual health-building water\r\nfast. Once a year, at whatever season it seemed propitious, I'd set aside a couple\r\nof weeks to heal my body. While fasting I'd slowly drive myself over to Great Oaks\r\nSchool for colonics every other day. By the end of my third annual fast in 1981,\r\nIsabelle and I had become great friends. About this same time Isabelle's relationship\r\nwith her first husband, Douglas Moser, had disintegrated. Some months later, Isabelle\r\nand I became partners. And then we married.\r\nMy regular fasts continued through 1984, by which time I\r\nhad recovered my fundamental organic vigor and had retrained my dietary habits. About\r\n1983 Isabelle and I also began using Life Extension megavitamins as a therapy against\r\nthe aging process. Feeling so much better I began to find the incredibly boring weeks\r\nof prophylactic fasting too difficult to motivate myself to do, and I stopped. Since\r\nthat time I fast only when acutely ill. Generally less than one week on water handles\r\nany non-optimum health condition I've had since '84. I am only 54 years old as I\r\nwrite these words, so I hope it will be many, many years before I find myself in\r\nthe position where I have to fast for an extended period to deal with a serious or\r\nlife-threatening condition. \r\nI am a kind of person the Spanish call autodidactico,\r\nmeaning that I prefer to teach myself. I had already learned the fine art of self-employment\r\nand general small-business practice that way, as well as radio and electronic theory,\r\ntypography and graphic design, the garden seed business, horticulture, and agronomy.\r\nWhen Isabelle moved in with me she also brought most of Great Oak's extensive library,\r\nincluding very hard to obtain copies of the works of the early hygienic doctors.\r\nNaturally I studied her books intensely. \r\nIsabelle also brought her medical practice into our house.\r\nAt first it was only a few loyal local clients who continued to consult with her\r\non an out-patient basis, but after a few years, the demands for residential care\r\nfrom people who were seriously and sometimes life-threateningly sick grew irresistibly,\r\nand I found myself sharing our family house with a parade of really sick people.\r\nTrue, I was not their doctor, but because her residential clients became temporary\r\nparts of our family, I helped support and encourage our residents through their fasting\r\nprocess. I'm a natural teacher (and how-to-do-it writer), so I found myself explaining\r\nmany aspects of hygienic medicine to Isabelle's clients, while having a first-hand\r\nopportunity to observe for myself the healing process at work. Thus it was that I\r\nbecame the doctor's assistant and came to practice second-hand hygienic medicine.\r\n\r\nIn 1994, when Isabelle had reached the age of 54, she began\r\nto think about passing on her life's accumulation of healing wisdom by writing a\r\nbook. She had no experience at writing for the popular market, her only major writing\r\nbeing a Ph.D. dissertation. I on the other hand had published seven books about vegetable\r\ngardening. And I grasped the essentials of her wisdom as well as any non-practitioner\r\ncould. So we took a summer off and rented a house in rural Costa Rica, where I helped\r\nIsabelle put down her thoughts on a cheap word-processing typewriter. When we returned\r\nto the States, I fired-up my \"big-mac\" and composed this manuscript into\r\na rough book format that was given to some of her clients to get what is trendily\r\ncalled these days, \"feedback.\" \r\nBut before we could completely finish her book, Isabelle\r\nbecame dangerously ill and after a long, painful struggle with abdominal cancer,\r\nshe died. After I resurfaced from the worst of my grief and loss, I decided to finish\r\nher book. Fortunately, the manuscript needed little more than polishing. I am telling\r\nthe reader these things because many ghost-written books end up having little direct\r\nconnection with the originator of the thoughts. Not so in this case. And unlike many\r\nghost writers, I had a long and loving apprenticeship with the author. At every step\r\nof our colaboration on this book I have made every effort to communicate Isabelle's\r\nviewpoints in the way she would speak, not my own. Dr. Isabelle Moser was for many\r\nyears my dearest friend. I have worked on this book to help her pass her understanding\r\non. \r\nMany people consider death to be a complete invalidation\r\nof a healing arts practitioner. I don't. Coping with her own dicey health had been\r\na major motivator for Isabelle's interest in healing others. She will tell you more\r\nabout it in the chapters to come. Isabelle had been fending off cancer since its\r\nfirst blow up when she was 26 years old. I view that 30 plus years of defeating Death\r\nas a great success rather than consider her ultimate defeat as a failure. \r\nIsabelle Moser was born in 1940 and died in 1996. I think\r\nthe greatest accomplishment of her 56 years was to meld virtually all available knowledge\r\nabout health and healing into a workable and most importantly, a simple model that\r\nallowed her to have amazing success. Her \"system\" is simple enough that\r\neven a generally well-educated non-medico like me can grasp it. And use it without\r\nconsulting a doctor every time a symptom appears. \r\nFinally, I should mention that over the years since this\r\nbook was written I have discovered contains some significant errors of anatomical\r\nor psysiological detail. Most of these happened because the book was written \"off\r\nthe top of Isabelle's head,\" without any reference materials at hand, not even\r\nan anatomy text. I have not fixed these goofs as I am not even qualified to find\r\nthem all. Thus, when the reader reads such as 'the pancreas secreates enzymes into\r\nthe stomach,' (actually and correctly, the duodenum) I hope they will understand\r\nand not invalidate the entire book.\n\nChapter One \nHow I Became a Hygienist \n\n\n\r\nFrom The Hygienic Dictionary\n\nDoctors. [1] In the matter of disease and healing, the people\r\nhave been treated as serfs. The doctor is a dictator who knows it all, and the people\r\nare stupid, dumb, driven cattle, fit for nothing except to be herded together, bucked\r\nand gagged when necessary to force medical opinion down their throats or under their\r\nskins. I found that professional dignity was more often pomposity, sordid bigotry\r\nand gilded ignorance. The average physician is a fear-monger, if he is anything.\r\nHe goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may scare to death. Dr. John.\r\nH. Tilden, Impaired Health: Its Cause and Cure, Vol. 1, 1921. [2] Today we are\r\nnot only in the Nuclear Age but also the Antibiotic Age. Unhappily, too, this is\r\nthe Dark Age of Medicine--an age in which many of my colleagues, when confronted\r\nwith a patient, consult a volume which rivals the Manhattan telephone directory in\r\nsize. This book contains the names of thousands upon thousands of drugs used to alleviate\r\nthe distressing symptoms of a host of diseased states of the body. The doctor then\r\ndecides which pink or purple or baby-blue pill to prescribe for the patient. This\r\nis not, in my opinion, the practice of medicine. Far too many of these new \"miracle\"\r\ndrugs are introduced with fanfare and then reveled as lethal in character, to be\r\nsilently discarded for newer and more powerful drugs. Dr. Henry Bieler: Food is\r\nYour Best Medicine; 1965.\n\n\r\nI have two reasons for writing this book. One, to help educate\r\nthe general public about the virtues of natural medicine. The second, to encourage\r\nthe next generation of natural healers. Especially the second because it is not easy\r\nto become a natural hygienist; there is no school or college or licensing board.\r\nMost AMA-affiliated physicians follow predictable career\r\npaths, straight well-marked roads, climbing through apprenticeships in established\r\ninstitutions to high financial rewards and social status. Practitioners of natural\r\nmedicine are not awarded equally high status, rarely do we become wealthy, and often,\r\nnaturopaths arrive at their profession rather late in life after following the tangled\r\nweb of their own inner light. So I think it is worth a few pages to explain how I\r\ncame to practice a dangerous profession and why I have accepted the daily risks of\r\npolice prosecution and civil liability without possibility of insurance.\r\nSometimes it seems to me that I began this lifetime powerfully\r\npredisposed to heal others. So, just for childhood warm-ups I was born into a family\r\nthat would be much in need of my help. As I've always disliked an easy win, to make\r\nrendering that help even more difficult, I decided to be the youngest child, with\r\ntwo older brothers. \r\nA pair of big, capable brothers might have guided and shielded\r\nme. But my life did not work out that way. The younger of my two brothers, three\r\nyears ahead of me, was born with many health problems. He was weak, small, always\r\nill, and in need of protection from other children, who are generally rough and cruel.\r\nMy father abandoned our family shortly after I was born; it fell to my mother to\r\nwork to help support us. Before I was adolescent my older brother left home to pursue\r\na career in the Canadian Air Force. \r\nThough I was the youngest, I was by far the healthiest. Consequently,\r\nI had to pretty much raise myself while my single mother struggled to earn a living\r\nin rural western Canada. This circumstance probably reinforced my constitutional\r\npredilection for independent thought and action. Early on I started to protect my\r\n\"little\" brother, making sure the local bullies didn't take advantage of\r\nhim. I learned to fight big boys and win. I also helped him acquire simple skills,\r\nones that most kids grasp without difficulty, such as swimming, bike riding, tree\r\nclimbing, etc. \r\nAnd though not yet adolescent, I had to function as a responsible\r\nadult in our household. Stressed by anger over her situation and the difficulties\r\nof earning our living as a country school teacher (usually in remote one-room schools),\r\nmy mother's health deteriorated rapidly. As she steadily lost energy and became less\r\nable to take care of the home, I took over more and more of the cleaning, cooking,\r\nand learned how to manage her--a person who feels terrible but must work to survive.\r\n\r\nDuring school hours my mother was able to present a positive\r\nattitude, and was truly a gifted teacher. However, she had a personality quirk. She\r\nobstinately preferred to help the most able students become even more able, but she\r\nhad little desire to help those with marginal mentalities. This predilection got\r\nher into no end of trouble with local school boards; inevitably it seemed the District\r\nChairman would have a stupid, badly-behaved child that my mother refused to cater\r\nto. Several times we had to move in the middle of the school year when she was dismissed\r\nwithout notice for \"insubordination.\" This would inevitably happen on the\r\nfrigid Canadian Prairies during mid-winter.\r\nAt night, exhausted by the day's efforts, my mother's positiveness\r\ndissipated and she allowed her mind to drift into negative thoughts, complaining\r\nendlessly about my irresponsible father and about how much she disliked him for treating\r\nher so badly. These emotions and their irresponsible expression were very difficult\r\nfor me to deal with as a child, but it taught me to work on diverting someone's negative\r\nthoughts, and to avoid getting dragged into them myself, skills I had to use continually\r\nmuch later on when I began to manage mentally and physically ill clients on a residential\r\nbasis.\r\nMy own personal health problems had their genesis long before\r\nmy own birth. Our diet was awful, with very little fresh fruit or vegetables. We\r\nnormally had canned, evaporated milk, though there were a few rare times when raw\r\nmilk and free-range fertile farm eggs were available from neighbors. Most of my foods\r\nwere heavily salted or sugared, and we ate a great deal of fat in the form of lard.\r\nMy mother had little money but she had no idea that some of the most nutritious foods\r\nare also the least expensive. \r\nIt is no surprise to me that considering her nutrient-poor,\r\nfat-laden diet and stressful life, my mother eventually developed severe gall bladder\r\nproblems. Her degeneration caused progressively more and more severe pain until she\r\nhad a cholecystectomy. The gallbladder's profound deterioration had damaged her liver\r\nas well, seeming to her surgeon to require the removal of half her liver. After this\r\nsurgical insult she had to stop working and never regained her health. Fortunately,\r\nby this time all her children were independent.\r\n I had still more to overcome. My eldest brother had a nervous\r\nbreakdown while working on the DEW Line (he was posted on the Arctic Circle watching\r\nradar screens for a possible incoming attack from Russia). I believe his collapse\r\nactually began with our childhood nutrition. While in the Arctic all his foods came\r\nfrom cans. He also was working long hours in extremely cramped quarters with no leave\r\nfor months in a row, never going outside because of the cold, or having the benefit\r\nof natural daylight. \r\nWhen he was still in the acute stage of his illness (I was\r\nstill a teenager myself) I went to the hospital where my bother was being held, and\r\ntalked the attending psychiatrist into immediately discharging him into my care.\r\nThe physician also agreed to refrain from giving him electroshock therapy, a commonly\r\nused treatment for mental conditions in Canadian hospitals at that time. Somehow\r\nI knew the treatment they were using was wrong. \r\nI brought my brother home still on heavy doses of thorazine.\r\nThe side effects of this drug were so severe he could barely exist: blurred vision,\r\nclenched jaw, trembling hands, and restless feet that could not be kept still. These\r\nare common problems with the older generation of psycho tropic medications, generally\r\ncontrolled to some extent with still other drugs like cogentin (which he was taking\r\ntoo).\r\nMy brother steadily reduced his tranquilizers until he was\r\nable to think and do a few things. On his own he started taking a lot of B vitamins\r\nand eating whole grains. I do not know exactly why he did this, but I believe he\r\nwas following his intuition. (I personally did not know enough to suggest a natural\r\napproach at that time.) In any case after three months on vitamins and an improved\r\ndiet he no long needed any medication, and was delighted to be free of their side\r\neffects. He remained somewhat emotionally fragile for a few more months but he soon\r\nreturned to work, and has had no mental trouble from that time to this day. This\r\nwas the beginning of my interest in mental illness, and my first exposure to the\r\nlimitations of 'modern' psychiatry.\r\nI always preferred self-discipline to being directed by others.\r\nSo I took every advantage of having a teacher for a mother and studied at home instead\r\nof being bored silly in a classroom. In Canada of that era you didn't have to go\r\nto high school to enter university, you only had to pass the written government entrance\r\nexams. At age 16, never having spent a single day in high school, I passed the university\r\nentrance exams with a grade of 97 percent. At that point in my life I really wanted\r\nto go to medical school and become a doctor, but I didn't have the financial backing\r\nto embark on such a long and costly course of study, so I settled on a four year\r\nnursing course at the University of Alberta, with all my expenses paid in exchange\r\nfor work at the university teaching hospital. \r\nAt the start of my nurses training I was intensely curious\r\nabout everything in the hospital: birth, death, surgery, illness, etc. I found most\r\nbirths to be joyful, at least when everything came out all right. Most people died\r\nvery alone in the hospital, terrified if they were conscious, and all seemed totally\r\nunprepared for death, emotionally or spiritually. None of the hospital staff wanted\r\nto be with a dying person except me; most hospital staff were unable to confront\r\ndeath any more bravely than those who were dying. So I made it a point of being at\r\nthe death bed. The doctors and nurses found it extremely unpleasant to have to deal\r\nwith the preparation of the dead body for the morgue; this chore usually fell to\r\nme also. I did not mind dead bodies. They certainly did not mind me!\r\nI had the most difficulty accepting surgery. There were times\r\nwhen surgery was clearly a life saving intervention, particularly when the person\r\nhad incurred a traumatic injury, but there were many other cases when, though the\r\nknife was the treatment of choice, the results were disastrous. \r\nWhenever I think of surgery, my recollections always go to\r\na man with cancer of the larynx. At that time the University of Alberta had the most\r\nrespected surgeons and cancer specialists in the country. To treat cancer they invariably\r\ndid surgery, plus radiation and chemotherapy to eradicate all traces of cancerous\r\ntissue in the body, but they seemed to forget there also was a human being residing\r\nin that very same cancerous body. This particularly unfortunate man came into our\r\nhospital as a whole human being, though sick with cancer. He could still speak, eat,\r\nswallow, and looked normal. But after surgery he had no larynx, nor esophagus, nor\r\ntongue, and no lower jaw. \r\nThe head surgeon, who, by the way, was considered to be a\r\nvirtual god amongst gods, came back from the operating room smiling from ear to ear,\r\nannouncing proudly that he had 'got all the cancer'. But when I saw the result I\r\nthought he'd done a butcher's job. The victim couldn't speak at all, nor eat except\r\nthrough a tube, and he looked grotesque. Worst, he had lost all will to live. I thought\r\nthe man would have been much better off to keep his body parts as long as he could,\r\nand die a whole person able to speak, eating if he felt like it, being with friends\r\nand family without inspiring a gasp of horror. \r\nI was sure there must be better ways of dealing with degenerative\r\nconditions such as cancer, but I had no idea what they might be or how to find out.\r\nThere was no literature on medical alternatives in the university library, and no\r\none in the medical school ever hinted at the possibility except when the doctors\r\ntook jabs at chiropractors. Since no one else viewed the situation as I did I started\r\nto think I might be in the wrong profession. \r\nIt also bothered me that patients were not respected, were\r\nnot people; they were considered a \"case\" or a \"condition.\" I\r\nwas frequently reprimanded for wasting time talking to patients, trying to get acquainted.\r\nThe only place in the hospital where human contact was acceptable was the psychiatric\r\nward. So I enjoyed the rotation to psychiatry for that reason, and decided that I\r\nwould like to make psychiatry or psychology my specialty. \r\nBy the time I finished nursing school, it was clear that\r\nthe hospital was not for me. I especially didn't like its rigid hierarchical system,\r\nwhere all bowed down to the doctors. The very first week in school we were taught\r\nthat when entering a elevator, make sure that the doctor entered first, then the\r\nintern, then the charge nurse. Followed by, in declining order of status: graduate\r\nnurses, third year nurses, second year nurses, first year nurses, then nursing aids,\r\nthen orderlies, then ward clerks, and only then, the cleaning staff. No matter what\r\nthe doctor said, the nurse was supposed to do it immediately without question--a\r\nvery military sort of organization. \r\nNursing school wasn't all bad. I learned how to take care\r\nof all kinds of people with every variety of illness. I demonstrated for myself that\r\nsimple nursing care could support a struggling body through its natural healing process.\r\nBut the doctor-gods tended to belittle and denigrate nurses. No wonder--so much of\r\nnursing care consists of unpleasant chores like bed baths, giving enemas and dealing\r\nwith other bodily functions. \r\nI also studied the state-of-the-art science concerning every\r\nconceivable medical condition, its symptoms, and treatment. At the university hospital\r\nnurses were required to take the same pre-med courses as the doctors--including anatomy,\r\nphysiology, biochemistry, and pharmacology. Consequently, I think it is essential\r\nfor holistic healers to first ground themselves in the basic sciences of the body's\r\nphysiological systems. There is also much valuable data in standard medical texts\r\nabout the digestion, assimilation, and elimination. To really understand illness,\r\nthe alternative practitioner must be fully aware of the proper functioning of the\r\ncardiovascular\/pulmonary system, the autonomic and voluntary nervous system, the\r\nendocrine system, plus the mechanics and detailed nomenclature of the skeleton, muscles,\r\ntendons and ligaments. Also it is helpful to know the conventional medical models\r\nfor treating various disorders, because they do appear to work well for some people,\r\nand should not be totally invalidated simply on the basis of one's philosophical\r\nor religious viewpoints. \r\nMany otherwise well-meaning holistic practitioners, lacking\r\nan honest grounding in science, sometimes express their understanding of the human\r\nbody in non-scientific, metaphysical terms that can seem absurd to the well-instructed.\r\nI am not denying here that there is a spiritual aspect to health and illness; I believe\r\nthere are energy flows in and around the body that can effect physiological functioning.\r\nI am only suggesting that to discuss illness without hard science is like calling\r\noneself a abstract artist because the painter has no ability to even do a simple,\r\naccurate representational drawing of a human figure.\r\nThough hospital life had already become distasteful to me\r\nI was young and poor when I graduated. So after nursing school I buckled down and\r\nworked just long enough to save enough money to obtain a masters degree in Clinical\r\nPsychology from the University of British Columbia. Then I started working at Riverview\r\nHospital in Vancouver, B.C., doing diagnostic testing, and group therapy, mostly\r\nwith psychotic people. At Riverview I had a three-year-long opportunity to observe\r\nthe results of conventional psychiatric treatment.\r\nThe first thing I noticed was the 'revolving door' phenomena.\r\nThat is, people go out, and then they're back in, over and over again, demonstrating\r\nthat standard treatment--drugs, electroshock and group therapy--had been ineffective.\r\nWorse, the treatments given at Riverside were dangerous, often with long term side\r\neffects that were more damaging than the disease being treated. It felt like nursing\r\nschool all over again; in the core of my being I somehow knew there was a better\r\nway, a more effective way of helping people to regain their mental health. Feeling\r\nlike an outsider, I started investigating the hospital's nooks and crannies. Much\r\nto my surprise, in a back ward, one not open to the public, I noticed a number of\r\npeople with bright purple skins. \r\nI asked the staff about this and every one of the psychiatrists\r\ndenied these patients existed. This outright and widely-agreed-upon lie really raised\r\nmy curiosity. Finally after pouring through the journals in the hospital library\r\nI found an article describing psycho tropic-drug-induced disruptions of melanin (the\r\ndark skin pigment). Thorazine, a commonly used psychiatric drug, when taken in high\r\ndoses over a long period of time would do this. Excess melanin eventually was deposited\r\nin vital organs such as the heart and the liver, causing death. \r\nI found it especially upsetting to see patients receive electroshock\r\ntreatments. These violent, physician-induced traumas did seem to disrupt dysfunctional\r\nthought patterns such as an impulse to commit suicide, but afterwards the victim\r\ncouldn't remember huge parts of their life or even recall who they were. Like many\r\nother dangerous medical treatments, electroshock can save life but it can also take\r\nlife away by obliterating identity. \r\nAccording the Hippocratic Oath, the first criteria of a treatment\r\nis that it should do no harm. Once again I found myself trapped in a system that\r\nmade me feel severe protest. Yet none of these specialists or university professors,\r\nor academic libraries had any information about alternatives. Worse, none of these\r\nmind-doctor-gods were even looking for better treatments.\r\nThough unpleasant and profoundly disappointing, my experience\r\nas a mental hospital psychologist was, like being in nursing school, also very valuable.\r\nNot only did I learn how to diagnose, and evaluate \u003cb\u003e ......Buy Now (To Read More)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eProduct details\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEbook Number\u003c\/b\u003e: 4343 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor\u003c\/b\u003e: Moser, Isabel A. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRelease Date\u003c\/b\u003e: Aug 1, 2003 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat\u003c\/b\u003e: eBook \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage\u003c\/b\u003e: English \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eContributors\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eContributor (Author)\u003c\/b\u003e: Solomon, Steve, 1942- \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Moser, Isabel A. \/ eBook \/ English","offer_id":43212413534365,"sku":"gb-4343-ebook","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/products\/4343_e2f89cf8-6df4-41e2-aa56-862283ea84c3.jpg?v=1671277854","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/how-and-when-to-be-your-own-doctor-gb-4343","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}