Why Many are Called, but Few are Chosen

Patients at times ask me an innocent question: if alternative medicine works so well, why are there so few physicians who do this kind of work? I wondered also when I was just starting out in orthomolecular psychiatry. I think this question deserves a thorough look . . .

Not all doctors, as you know, are the same. What’s more important, not all doctors’ hearts are the same.

I remember sitting in the library at the University of Utah as a pre-medical student. Across from me was a young man who was also a “pre-med.” We were talking about what we wanted to do if we were to get accepted into medical school. He looked at me with a confident gleam in his eyes and said, “I’m going to be a plastic surgeon, and I’m going to charge exorbitant fees for everything, because people think that the more you charge, the better the service.” I was struck speechless, wavering between admiration and shock.

Once I got into medical school, I saw the same habits that got so many students in, continuing, although these habits were neither necessary nor admirable. One common weakness that I noticed was that of being dishonest for the sake of appearances.

An example of this occurred during a physical examination rotation during my first year of medical school. There were four of us in the group, surrounding a fellow medical student, and the attending physician asked us if we could see our fellow student’s thyroid. Everyone said that indeed they could see the student’s thyroid–except me. The instructor kept pointing to the spot on the student’s throat, where the thyroid was supposed to be clearly visible, expecting me to be able to see it. And I obstinately stuck to my unseeing status. During my junior year rotation in endocrinology, however, I overheard an attending say to his colleagues, “The only thyroid these first years can see is one that’s enlarged!” At that moment I wondered if the other students who could “see” the thyroid weren’t just agreeing that the emperor had new clothes.

As I continued with my training, I saw the bizarre and twisted world of medicine– like a competition consisting of body builders who only exercised one side of the buttocks, but who neglected all other parts of the body– elevating and rewarding all the body builders with the biggest one-sided buttocks. Memorization was one major muscle on that buttock. Questioning was not.

Finally, after ten staggering years of training, as I struggled out of my highly educated corsets, I encountered another factor that posed as a selection barrier for doctors choosing alternative medicine . . .

A patient had been having uncontrollable jerking and spasms of muscles in his body for many hours, delaying a trip to the Emergency Room because of financial concerns. When the jerking did not stop, he finally gave in and went to the E.R. for help. Although the physician in the E.R. initially talked about his condition as a type of seizure, he changed his mind after he had seen the results on the EEG (electroencephalogram). After the EEG, he pronounced the patient as pretending to have seizures. He insinuated that the patient wanted to have his muscle jerks for attention, and he summarily referred him to a psychiatrist. The patient was incensed by the E.R. physician’s attitude.

Over the course of treatment, the patient’s problem with episodic “pretend” seizures disappeared with an anticonvulsant and reappeared when the patient became negligent about taking his medication. They were obviously linked to a physical problem regardless of what the insensitive EEG was unable to detect. The E.R. physician was so confident that he already knew everything–that everything could be detected through his trusted EEG– that he lost an opportunity to learn something new from the patient.

The “obstacles” to a physician choosing alternative medicine are not created artificially by selection committees. These obstacles exist because each physician, before they would consider alternative medicine, must pass tests of character. Like a warrior being tested by his teachers upon graduating from a mystical martial arts school in the mountains, these tests are both of brawn and heart.

The physicians that pass these obstacles have to demonstrate an uncommon level of courage, love, unselfish service, and humility. Physicians in alternative medicine must have the ability to be open-minded and flexible, to question accepted dogma, to maintain humility in the face of the unknown, to be advocates for patients despite the risk to their own licenses, and to have an ongoing love of learning as well as a healthy dose of curiosity. Alternative medicine offers few attractions to those who are greedy, hypocritical, rigid, and overconfident. It is definitely not for know-it-alls.

Yes, there are many good doctors in traditional medicine. Many are kind, do their best, and care deeply for their patients. But when the moment comes when these doctors encounter information that could be important, life-saving truths, but would cost them dearly to embrace . . . Let’s say that to embrace these truths they may become pariahs to their own colleagues, may face a severe loss of income, may flounder in the unknown for years, and may even lose their licenses . . . Then, how many of these kind, well meaning doctors would pass the obstacles that measure the readiness of their mind and heart for the challenges inherent to practicing alternative medicine?

Is it any wonder then that so many are indeed called to this work, but so few are chosen? Knowing the many obstacles that stand between the tradition-bound physician and alternative medicine, perhaps we should exclaim instead, “Why are so many physicians now going into alternative medicine!”

Joy from Knowing a Boy

Justin writes: “I am an 11 year old boy in the 5th grade. I started with Dr. Lee-Bloem when I was five years old and on lots of medication. Back then I didn’t feel well, and I was tired all the time. I have been taking vitamins and minerals since I was six years old, and I feel healthy and better.”

In a few weeks Justin will be moving away to another state, starting a new life, and meeting new friends. As I think of Justin, I remember the experiences Justin, his mother, and I have been through.

I met Justin before I ever used nutritional supplements or heard the word “orthomolecular.” He had been on medications, including antipsychotics since two and a half years old. By the time he came to see me, he had been on medications for three of his five years. His mood cycled several times a day, sometimes several times an hour. He was aggressive and irritable. His mother could not discipline him.

We used medications, but they did not resolve his symptoms. Then in 2002, we began using nutritional supplements. We took him off his medications, and over time he blossomed. Things continued to improve as his mother began to change his diet, taking out the sugar that made his mood swings worse. The daily complaints from school stopped. During his first year on supplements, I remember how happy I was that he received an award from school for “Most Improved Student.” Then he began to get A’s and B’s in his classes. Then his mother reported that he was testing above grade level in many subject areas.

Even when he was ill he had a love for animals and insects. Now his gift with the sciences and his love of nature is leading him towards a desire to help the environment and the creatures that live in it.

Sure, he still rolls his eyes about having to take his supplements, but he likes me. And he takes his supplements and likes to chat with me about how the energy healing feels when he receives it. I only see him rarely now when his mother brings him in to see me for a “check up.”

I will really miss his handsome face, clear eyes, and ready smile. When I think of him, I realize that one life is all it takes to make my work worthwhile.

The Continental Drift Principle

Sometimes, in the midst of the healing process, I stop and realize that I have run across what I call the Continental Drift Principle. What is the Continental Drift Principle? It’s when I find that I have been busily planting palm trees while all the time the continent has been drifting to the Antarctic.

Like all of life, healing happens at different levels of being. We see the patterns of life repeat in the spinning, circling motion of the atoms, the sun, the solar system, the galaxy, and so on. The pattern is repeated, but at grander and grander levels. So in healing, there are patterns that need to be attended to, each at a different level of being.

Planting palm trees when the entire continent is drifting to the Antartic happens when a healer starts healing with nutritional supplements and forgets to examine the patient’s readiness to be healed. Of course, every patient consciously desires healing, but there are many who are not ready to be healed. Subconsciously, many patients may feel only deserving of suffering, abuse, illness, and perpetual worthlessness.

A practical example is found in the day to day work of a social worker. Social workers understand the importance of the patient’s social milieu. A doctor can give perfect directions on how to take a pill, what to eat, or when to take the regimen, but nothing will happen if the patient can’t afford to buy any of it, or lives with parents who won’t allow the intervention to be used. So it is that there is an inner milieu within the patient that either fosters healing or destroys healing.

Energy therapists have called it “massive reversals.” When a patient has a massive reversal, his or her muscle tone will weaken when making a statement such as “I want to live” or “I want to be happy.” It suggests that the patient’s energy system is “reversed” when it comes to recognizing these statements as truths. Psychotherapists recognize it as subconscious drives that undermine positive transformation. The patient’s milieu for healing encompasses the energy healer, the orthomolecular physician, the psychotherapist, and the family constellation. All relationships are included.

When I recognize the Continental Drift Principle, I stop and tell the patient that I am seeing a pattern–a big pattern–that encompasses the healing process. I tell the patient all the levels in which this pattern manifests in the patient’s life, and we begin to look at it and start to use the tools that are available to start to heal it.

I recall a woman in her 40’s who had been in my care for nearly two years. She had made progress in many areas of her life, but she would still get into cycles of despair and anxiety–cycles that could not be broken with medication, supplements, energy healing or a combination of all three. One day we realized that her big pattern involved a life long pattern (since early childhood) of “on again, off again” relationships– feelings of being abandoned, helpless, and fearful, alternating with being the center of attention, functioning, and on track. As a child, this pattern was created by a mentally ill care provider. But as an adult, her pattern extended to her mental health treatment with me, her career, and her emotional functioning. Her relationship with me reflected her relationships in life–at times available and other times not. In order to heal, she had to recognize and resolve the bigger pattern that unconsciously repeated itself at so many levels of her life: biochemically, interpersonally, and socially.

Another patient in her 50’s had experienced abuse throughout her life, and she married an abusive husband. After seeing me, she experienced good health, and was medication free for several years. After a period of radiant health, she got into a car accident that gave her severe whiplash and that immediately returned her to a state of depression, anxiety, and medication use. Circumstances required that she see a chiropractor for a cervical spine adjustment, which her husband forbid her. As I counseled her to see a chiropractor and to stand up for her needs, she “stood up” for herself by telling me to take a hike and never talk to her again. With that she returned to what was essentially the same state that she had worked so hard to escape from. When I thought of her choice, I realized the importance of not just healing a person’s body, but also healing the soul. To me, it seemed that she was still captive to the the lessons derived from abuse.

As a doctor and energy healer, healing goes beyond biochemical regimens and physical recovery. Healing must include both the planting of palm trees and the redirection of drifting continents. Through multiple levels of healing patients will have the best chance for achieving complete, deep, and permanent health.

Evidence of Energy

Energy when applied by an energy healer cannot be seen, cannot be measured, cannot be touched. Yet people who work in the field of energy medicine continue to use this approach and tout its effectiveness. From seemingly out of “nothing” comes a force that heals.

Over the course of several years, I have provided energy healing for patients through a variety of methods. One method, that of sending healing energy through the palms of my hands, has garnered for me an interesting list of sensory experiences reported to me by patients. I believe that it is helpful to catalogue these sensory experiences as a way to further our understanding of the existence of healing energy.

These comments were shared with me right after I applied energy to the patient generally along the top of the head, and often a few inches above the chakra points along the spine. Children were the most sensitive to energy healing. They, along with a few adults, could hear the energy being delivered. Some patients could feel energy along one side more than another, or feel it being “blocked” along a certain point along the chakra system.

Visual Experiences:

Patients have their eyes closed during these energy applications. So whatever they report seeing, was seen while their eyes were shut.

1. Colors: gold, green, purple, blue, violet, red, yellow, and white.

2. Movement of colors: swirling, entwining, lotus shaped, spots of light, approaching light, and lines of light.

3. People: religious figures, dream-like scenarios.

Sensory Experiences:

1. Markedly noticeable increases or decreases in body temperature.

2. Tingling in certain locations, or a tingling flow through the body.

3. Feeling out of the body.

4. Feeling tired or relaxed.

5. Tickling feeling.

6. Forceful pressure as if I had touched them or pushed them (although the hand is hovering several inches above the patient.)

7. Burning sensation.

8. Opening of “little windows” all over the body.

9. Feeling light and floating.

10. Feeling cleansed.

Auditory Experiences:

1. The sound of a train braking.

2. A high frequency sound.

3. A soft sound.

4. A rhythmic sound.

5. The sound can be louder in one ear than another.

Tactile Experiences:

1. A joint in the hip shifted slightly.

2. A bone in the neck shifted.

3. Feeling one’s abdominal region wriggling.

4. Heavy pressure or pushing sensation

5. Feeling the healer’s hand on top of the head after it had been removed.

Emotional Experiences:

1. Peaceful.

2. Happy.

3. Marked decrease in anxiety.

4. Trance-like state

Physical Experiences:

1. Normalizing blood pressure.

2. Spontaneously deeper breathing.

3. Needing to urinate afterwards.

4. Bowel movement afterwards.

5. Feeling hungry afterwards.

6. Oil oozing from tips of fingers.

7. Swelling and reddening of extremities.

As I recorded these reports from patients, I included what healing intention was performed, how it was performed, and sometimes, how long it was performed. With these notes, I was able to see a connection between sensations reported and the energy work that was being done.

For example, on more than one occasion when working on detoxification, patients reported a burning sensation, redness, swelling, and oozing of oil from the tips of the fingers. In another situation, a patient with a history of interstitial cystitis reported sensing a decrease in body temperature during the energy work. It was so marked that the patient thought I had thrown open the doors to the outside and was allowing the winter wind to blow through my office! Her experience made me wonder if the experience was somehow associated with an anti-inflammatory response.

These reports from patients helped me to:

1) see a connection between intention, energy, and a physical response or sensory experience.

2) see a pattern between what is being healed and the physical sensation or experience produced.

3) provide further evidence that thoughts are not “nothing,” but act like a force that has an immediate effect on physical matter.

4) correlate the changes in patients’ sensations over time with their gradual recovery.

As Drs. Masaru Emoto and William Tiller both showed in their research on the effect of thoughts on water: thoughts do transform matter; and in energy healing, thoughts are one of many tools that have a direct and immediate effect on healing.

Never Assume Anything!

Of course, looking back on it, I could smack myself on the forehead and mutter, “What a stupid thing to do!” But at the time, the significance of my clinical decision did not seem so important.

Evey was a young mother with severe post-partum depression and anxiety. She couldn’t sleep, had obsessive thoughts of self-harm, and had not bonded with her son after delivery. When she started her supplements, most of her troubling symptoms resolved within one week. She was ecstatic, and I was rather pleased myself.

After the second week of treatment, she announced that she had stopped her hemp protein supplement, because I had accidentally mailed one that was plain rather than vanilla flavored. She was at the time taking 4 ? teaspoons per day. I told her that it was fine, and that I would mail her the right flavor of hemp protein, and she can get back to it as soon as she receive it. Between delays caused by holiday mail schedules (and perhaps also due to being lulled into a false sense of security), a week passed by before she began her hemp protein again. She had weathered the week quite well, but she began to notice towards the end of the week that some of her anxiety and nausea was coming back.

By week four, things became a mess. Evey’s biochemistry was off track. Some of her supplements needed to be decreased, and some changed from needing to be decreased to needing to remain. The result was a confusing picture of anxiety, nausea, lack of motivation, and decreased appetite with the muscle testing showing a paradoxical need to DECREASE some of her supplements while keeping other supplements on board that initially she was ready to stop. Who would’ve known that 4 ? teaspoons of hemp protein for one week could be so important!

With muscle testing to guide us, some of Evey’s supplements were decreased, while other supplements had to stay on board a while longer. With these adjustments, Evey called back after two days with the report that she “had a great day yesterday. Everything was much improved.”

The lessons learned are the following:

1) Never assume that changing or dropping one supplement among many would have little effect on overall functioning. All supplements work together as a whole. One can’t ride a tricycle without the third wheel!

2) People who respond very fast to supplements often have a tendency to also need a rapid reduction in supplements very soon after the supplements have been started. For example in Evey’s case, many of her supplements needed to be decreased by the fourth week of use.

3) Always double check with muscle testing before passing clinical judgment on how to adjust supplements. The biochemistry is too complex to take any chances. Muscle testing will help in guiding the clinician when medical training causes the doctor to want to use MORE and not LESS to achieve wellness.

4) Don’t ever get lulled into a feeling of confidence and security when a patient’s condition improves “simply and quickly” with the use of supplements. Just because a patient gets well quickly and easily DOES NOT mean that the patient can easily remain well due to increased physical resilience. Resilience may take more time than the process of getting rid of negative symptoms.

An Analogy of the Universe

How does the universe work in people’s daily lives? Can it be pleaded and cajoled into meeting our prayerful and worshipful requests? Or is it one of those forces that work like a clock, set at the beginning of time, completely oblivious to human suffering?

As I listen to the tales of individuals who seek my help, I wish I had a magic wand powerful enough to help everyone heal successfully. I wish that I could understand how to use the power of the universe better in my work and to help my patients do the same. The bottom line is, I wish I could figure the universe out so that people that I care about, myself included, wouldn’t need to suffer so much.

Recently, I learned a lot from two women who are fanatically devout. One woman informed me that God told her what clothes to wear, what to eat, and whom she should marry. Another woman obeyed her religious tenets without question and was a Good Samaritan at all times. They did, however, have some glaring flaws. The first one seemed to me to be too dependent on God to tell her what to do. The second woman was kind to everyone, but could hardly refrain from saying a self-derogatory comment the moment she spoke.

The first woman had a very chaotic life. She was dependent on welfare, had unstable relationships, and her children suffered from her “God-driven” life. The second woman prospered financially, but she was often filled with guilt for not being good enough, and she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. When I looked at their lives, I wondered about the universe and God, and came to the conclusion that a God-centered life, though admirable, was not enough for a happy life. There was something missing in these women’s lives, and the missing piece was important.

One day during one of my sessions with a patient, my musings on the universe came to a rewarding though somewhat ridiculous analogy of its workings. I shared my thought with my patient, and it made sense to her as well. I shared it with another patient, and he was so impressed he was speechless. So here it is. (Drum roll please)

The universe is like the anonymous matching donor during a telethon.

The woman who waited for God (the universe) to make everything work for her, lived in a universe that was waiting for her to make everything work for her. The woman whose inner life was filled with self-hatred met the fate of an illness that attacked self. The man who complained he was treated with disrespect and thoughtlessness was getting back what he did to himself so often without thinking.

“Now wait,” you’ll say. “What about all the people who worked hard, but were never rewarded? How is the universe matching their efforts?” I have thought of this as well, and my belief is that in all things there is a direct consequence which comes as a result of the thing thought, done, felt, seen and so on. The consequence is not what we would look for in life as a noteworthy reward, but for all acts there is an inherent, but subtle consequence.

This concept is embodied in the analogy of the man who pushed against a boulder. Every day the man pushed against the boulder, but it never moved. After many months, the man stopped pushing, thinking that nothing had been gained from all his efforts. But something had been gained. After months of pushing, his strength and muscles had become greatly developed, every effort he had made was matched by his newfound strength.

When we think of the universe as the anonymous matching donor in a telethon, it brings us face to face with the missing piece, the important piece that allows each of us to be happy: our self. Begin with the small step of donating a piece of unconditional love to yourself and watch the universe give it back to you unconditionally. Move into the unknown with integrity and a humble regard for the highest good, and the universe honors you and people are humbled by your presence.

Remember to give that which you want to return to you. Begin with yourself.

Amino Acids: Key to Comfort for Withdrawal

“You’re not on any medication?” I feel an inner sigh of relief. This one is going to be easy. It’s just the illness I have to battle. I don’t have to battle withdrawal as well.

“You’re on medication?” My mind starts to run over all the clinical experiences I’ve had taking people off medications, and I begin my line of questions: “What medications are you on? How long have you been on them? What are your dosages?”

Withdrawal . . . who would have guessed that a little capsule or pill could be, upon reduction, so deadly? But since I have begun using certain amino acids and have found certain companies who provide “Targeted Amino Acid Therapy” withdrawal has been much, much easier to manage-at least for psychotropic medications.

The amino acids that have been used at medicinal dosages for the purpose of restoring the patient back to a state of balance and give the patient a fighting chance during medication withdrawal are specialized in their actions. Some calm, some detoxify, and some excite. Which to pick, and how much to take depend on the medication being withdrawn. In helping patients withdraw from anticonvulsants and antipsychotics, I find taurine and theanine to be really indispensable-though I hold a very high opinion about the usefulness of energy medicine techniques for withdrawal. When coming off of an SSRI or a SNRI (Cymbalta or Effexor XR), 5-HTP and tyrosine are similarly indispensable.

Without these amino acids to rebuild deficient neurotransmitters, people who have been taking psychotropic medications for years will have great difficulty during withdrawal with the symptoms that these medications are supposed to treat. These withdrawal symptoms will feel just like the illness, but worse. They will disappear rather quickly as the medication is returned to the original dosage. Of course, it’s hard to tell when this happens whether the symptoms are from the original illness or contributed to a great extent by the patient’s physiological dependence on the medication. The argument is perhaps of importance to the pharmaceutical company, but not to the patient. The patient wants to get off the medication one way or the other, whatever the reason, and it is the doctor’s job to figure out a way to do so without putting the patient on another medication.

The best way to help the patient with the goal of being medication free is to use a generous foundation of supplements that heal the underlying causes which has been contributing to the patient’s illness. By doing so, the patient gradually progresses to a higher level of wellness. At the same time, the patient will need to take supplements to target the specific areas that will need support during withdrawal. For withdrawal from psychotropic medications, the emphasis will need to be in supporting the nervous system’s neurotransmitter system-as thoroughly as possible. For some patients who have been on high dosages of very addicting medications, using supplements will not be enough or the amount needed to ease withdrawal would be too much in volume without also using Tapas Acupressure Technique, Emotional Freedom Technique, visualization, and/or Infinite Intention Technique-all tools within the field of energy medicine.

When dealing with medication withdrawal, all the skills of a practitioner will be called to bear against the withdrawal process. Otherwise, we will fail to see the patient through to the end of their desired journey-inherent health rather than indefinite drug dependency.

What is Holistic Psychiatry? Interview with Dr. Rachael Sand

On November 14, 2008, Dr. Rachael Sand, a specialist in holistic psychotherapy, interviewed Dr. Alice Lee-Bloem on the topic of holistic psychiatry.

Episode Title: Holistic psychiatry, much more than medication.

Summary: Dr. Rachael Sand, a clinical health psychologist, discusses with her guest, Dr. Alice Lee-Bloem, how the use of nutritional healing and energy medicine techniques can free people from a dependency on medications. Dr. Alice Lee-Bloem is a traditionally trained psychiatrist who has expanded her practice to include the integration of orthomolecular psychiatry (nutritional supplementation) and energy medicine. Her clinical goal is to help patients to no longer be patients. For more information, see: www.holisticpsychiatrist.com.