IN THIS ISSUE: Plenary Speakers | Preconference Courses | HOD | Research Colloquium | Professional Dualism | Website | A&E Abstracts | Webinar
And highlight substantive research and advances in the field
Plenary speakers for CLP 2024 have been confirmed.
The annual meeting Promoting Whole Health through Innovative and Integrative Approaches to Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry focuses on evidence-based integrative medicine and holistic health care, and their roles in improving mental health.
This year’s plenary presenters are:
Sara Gottfried, MD, director of Precision Medicine, Marcus Institute of Integrative Health, Department of Integrative Medicine & Nutritional Sciences, Thomas Jefferson University, who will present Novel Approaches to Trauma and Toxic Stress.
Dr. Gottfried is a researcher, speaker, scholar, and physician. She is also the author of New York Times bestselling books on integrative health and well being including: The Hormone Cure; The Hormone Reset Diet; Women, Food and Hormones, and Younger: a Groundbreaking Program to Reset your Genes, Reverse Aging and Turn Back the Clock 10 years; and The Autoimmune Cure.
Dr. Gottfried will share about lessons learned after working in conventional medicine practice for years. Her personal experiences of stress and the consequences on her health, as well as the experience of care from the conventional medical model, motivated her to learn more about the physiology of the stress response and how it effects the mind and body. Through this understanding, she healed herself and translated the solutions to her problems into evidence-based, personalized protocols for her patients. For the past few decades Dr. Gottfried has been teaching and practicing precision, functional, and integrative medicine.
Dr. Gottfried offers a roadmap to both alleviating and curing the consequences of stress and trauma on our mental and physical health by addressing the root cause of the conditions and guiding us to heal the body, mind, and spirit.
At the opening session, we will have our special guests from the American Psychiatric Association. APA’s new CEO and medical director, Marketa Wills, MD, MBA, will present Crystalizing a Vision: Leading Psychiatry Forward, highlighting her vision for collaboration between ACLP and APA members to unleash synergies between the associations during this important moment for psychiatry.
In alignment with the theme of CLP 2024, APA president, Ramaswamy Viswanathan, MD, DrMedSc, FACLP, will present Lifestyle for Positive Mental and Physical Health.
He will introduce the evidence base for lifestyle factors such as physical activity, restorative sleep, nutrition, stress management, and social connectedness in promoting optimal health and preventing mental and physical disorders and encourage C-L psychiatrists to expand their practice to incorporate lifestyle interventions.
Helene Langevin, MD, director, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), National Institutes of Health, will speak on Connecting Mental Health to Whole Person Health.
As NCCIH director, Dr. Langevin oversees the Federal Government’s lead agency for research on the fundamental science, usefulness, and safety of complementary and integrative health approaches and their roles in improving health and health care.
NCCIH, with other institutions, is seeking to establish a Whole Person Research and Coordination Center that will provide infrastructure to help researchers explore how our bodies’ different systems interact with one another.
This research will build on established knowledge of healthy human physiology, rather than computational methods, and on healthy human function rather than diseases. Once built, it will be used as a tool to support the creation of data-driven whole-person models.
Such conceptual maps have been previously built for separate body systems, but none currently exist for the whole person, enabling researchers to explore health in the context of the whole person.
“There is no doubt that improving human health will require deepening our understanding of the whole person,” says the NICCH. “What we know today only scratches the surface of what there is to learn. Creating a unified whole person physiological map will move the field forward and potentially transform our understanding of health, helping researchers chart new routes to healthier lives.”
Gregory Fricchione, MD, FACLP, associate chief of psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital; physician investigator, Psychiatry, Mass General Research Institute; Mind/Body Medical Institute professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; director, Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Fricchione has made important original contributions to the treatment of patients with catatonia and to the management of cardiac patients who suffer from comorbid psychiatric conditions. He is co-author of four books on topics including general hospital psychiatry, catatonia, the connection between depression and heart disease, and stress physiology. He also authored the book Compassion and Healing in Medicine and Society on brain evolution and the relationship between separation and attachment, and its importance for medicine and the human experience. Most recently, Dr. Fricchione has been studying neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying diseases that connect the mind and body. In 2017, Dr. Fricchone was a recipient of the ACLP Hackett Award, which is the Academy’s highest honor.
Dr. Fricchione has most recently been interested in the understanding of epigenetics—how the environment can activate and deactivate certain genes—and discovering how approaches such as meditation, cognitive skills, and positive psychology can predispose to a healthier brain and body. “Whole person care recognizes the addition of patient self-care as an essential component of health and well-being to the traditional components of pharmacotherapy and procedures”. He will share his thoughts on how mind-body approaches form the foundation of modern health care.
See: Preconference Courses to be a Major Draw at This Year’s Meeting