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PARTICIPANTS Warren Berland, Ph.D. Author, "Out of the Box for Life" William Bergman, MD Hahnemann Health Associates

Associates in New York City where he specializes in homeopathic medicine, nutrition and stress management. Also joining us is Warren Berland, Ph.D. He's been a practicing psychotherapist in New

York City for nearly 20 years. He's also the author of 'Out of the Box for Life: Being Free is Just a Choice,' a book which details a mind-body process he's developed for dealing with many problems including illness. Okay, let's clarify here. What does it mean when you say spirituality?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD: Well, I think there are a lot of definitions. I see spirituality as, you know, the kind of spirit at the heart that with which we approach life.

LISA CLARK: That inner fire?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD: Yeah, that inner fire. I mean, I think that I believe in God. I believe that there's an infinite intelligence behind the universe. So for me spirituality does carry that kind of conventional view of an original source of creation, but I think a more universal understanding of spirit which we can recognize even in an agnostic or in an atheist is just a spirit with which they approach their work, their life, their relationships.

LISA CLARK: Dr. Berland, your point of view on this?

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: Well, I think people-- very often people have had some kind of moment in their life when they felt a connection with something greater than themselves, a connection with God, a connection when they felt connected with nature, with somebody else, with themselves, where they felt free of the normal constraints. So I think those moments in life with which Andrew Greeley says 80 percent of people have had, really have taught us that there's something much deeper that we can tap into. That we can use. That we can honor. That we want to find in our lives, that gives our life much greater meaning. And that's what I think spirituality is. It's something where we can tap into to find this kind of meaning and purpose in our lives.

LISA CLARK: And what kind of connection can there be between a person's spirituality and their health?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD: Well, I think we're seeing more and more of that as we go inside ourselves and really try to get in touch with our inner resources that we have a power to be able to affect our physical well-being, as well as our emotional and mental well being. So that, you know, the self-discovery which all great philosophies and all great religions and spiritual traditions have spoken about, you know, really finding the true self. But now we see that there's a health and medical implication of that self-discovery because we can tap a resource for self-healing that's present all the time.

LISA CLARK: Is this a hard sell in the medical community that's built on reason, logic, measuring?

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: I think it used to be. I think it's not anymore. I think that people are now yearning for this. We just hear it talked about everyplace and people are buying these books and reading about their kind of spiritual connection. They're wanting that. And there have been a number of studies that have helped to honor this, to talk about this approach. There's an important study that happened a number of years ago at San Francisco General Hospital, where 393 people were prayed for and there was one group in a double-blind study that was prayed for and the other group wasn't. And they found that these cardiac patients had a much greater response-- the ones who were prayed for. They had five times less edema and three times less other physical problems. They were able to get out of the hospital earlier, so it had a profound affect on their body, because they were prayed for by these people.

LISA CLARK: And to clarify, it was not a placebo affect. They did not realize they were being prayed for.

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: That's right, exactly. It was a double-blind study. In my research with patients who survived cancer, more than half of them attributed their spiritual changes in their life to their recovery. They just knew it. They knew that the profound changes they made in their life really made a difference in their getting well.

LISA CLARK: So do you think the medical establishment is opening up to this notion that they're responding to this possibility?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD: Oh, absolutely, I mean, prominent medical doctor Larry Dossey has written a book, 'Healing Words,' it's about the power of prayer. It's a well-documented book. Dr. Herbert Benson, the MD who has pioneered the mind-body research at Harvard Medical School has a book, 'The Healing Mind,' I believe, as well as his former books on the relaxation response, where he very well substantiated documentation of the relationship between belief systems and healing. And Harvard itself is sponsoring symposia.

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: The conference recently, right, on spirituality and healing at Harvard University. I think the field is changing in such a profound way, even at Harvard.

LISA CLARK: Although, some people would link spirituality with a particular religion, it's not necessarily that specific in every case. Yet, do you find in your practice that when people have gotten a life-threatening diagnosis that they are more likely to either return to a spiritual background that they had or to search out something new to help support them along this path?

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: Right, I think both ways. Some people return to, whether it's their Catholicism or a deep faith in heaven-- that they've already had or they've had for years. Some people just really begin on a spiritual path. They somehow know that that's something important for their healing and they begin one. So it's very different for each person, but people do very much look to that part of themselves to heal.

LISA CLARK: How important is a person's physician's point of view in the role that spirituality can play in possibly healing? Is it important for someone who is a strongly spiritual person or becomes a strongly spiritual person to have a doctor that supports that notion?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD: Well, I think so. Of course, in some situations it might be more important than in others. I mean, if you required neurosurgery, I think the competence of the physician would be first and foremost.

If you're going to be involved in a less serious illness, maybe chronic disease, but which is not life-threatening, and the rapport that you have with your physician is going to be, you know, quite important, their belief system and how much it's in harmony with your own could be, I think, a factor. I doesn't mean--we're not talking about having the same religious viewpoint or the same belief system but, again, a certain kind of recognition perhaps that there are forces beyond us that are really working through us, then this could be a factor. Again, I think it depends on the individual. But there've been some studies where they point out that a majority of patients would like to have discussions about this with their doctors. So the more science that proves the connection or even without it, I think people want this. And the trend will be moving that way based on what people are looking for in terms of their doctors and health professionals.

LISA CLARK: Now, some have suggested that a patient's renewed or new interest in spirituality at time of a health crisis may be partly a response to what is seen as an overly technical or detached medical community. Do you ever get the sense that that's what's at play with some of the patients you've encountered?

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: Well, not necessarily. I think that people are certainly wanting a connection, maybe a deeper connection with their physician. They would certainly love that. We all would love that. We'd all love to feel that our doctor really cares. But I think people just innately know that there'ssomething that they need to change about themselves, about their life, and they're looking within themselves to find it. So whether their doctor is somebody who's kind and spiritual is one aspect, but we can't be limited by that. We need to seek out what we know to be most healing for ourselves and find that no matter, you know, what our doctor says, no matter what our old beliefs were, no matter what people around us say about what's possible for our healing. You know, people have gotten well from everything, so I think we really can believe that we can find the source in ourselves of our healing and really trust that.

LISA CLARK: And you have actually done some doctoral studies that highlight this kind of a connection between the patient's belief in spirituality and their recovery rate. What sorts of things have you discovered as you've looked at this?

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: Well, one thing I've found is that people have really made profound changes. When you ask people and it's really something that's amazing too, is my study was only the second study to ever ask people themselves how they got well. You know, you'd think that would be the first thing people would ask is, you know, what did you do to get to recover? But, you know, people haven't done that because we've focused more on, you know, scientific research. But when you actually ask people what they did to get well, most people in my study said that this profound change and a spiritual connection in themselves was really the deciding factor in their recovery. Some people became spiritual psychotherapists. Some people really looked to God, but most made very, very profound changes that they know were instrumental in their recovery that they never could have done had they not sought that path. So that's partly in the research. Also, I've had clients--another client as well, who really made a very profound change in her life. She had a very serious cancer of her bone in her shoulder. And she knew, she always thought that she was going to get sick because her mother did. And she absolutely made profound changes in her life where before she'd been afraid and doubting herself and feeling insecure. The cancer really made her look at these issues and take charge of her life and put her fears aside. And she's been well for about six or seven years now, and she knows she's not going to get sick again because of these changes that she's made.

LISA CLARK: Dr. Bergman, what sort of experiences have you seen with your patients?

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD; Well, it's a matter of recognizing that there is this inherent capacity for self-healing. That each person is endowed with a tremendous potential for being able to recover really from illness, at least to a degree. And even if the illnesses are beyond curability, that there can be a healing on another level, on what we can say a psychological level, on a spiritual level. You know, I think that the two greatest causes of illness are inappropriate reaction to life events, what we would call stress and the impact of environmental toxicity, which is not something that we can talk about in terms of individual choices but rather as a society. We've made choices about how we want to handle the environment. In many cases, I don't think we as a society have been fully responsible for that. And that's why there is a lot of pollution, a lot of environment toxicity and that also has an impact on our system. So when someone gets sick, they can't feel that it's totally within their control. There's the genetic background, or the choices they made, there's the impact of the environment. But the word symptom, whether it's a minor symptom or a major symptom, is actually a Greek word that means signal. So the fact that we're symptomatic, whether it's from a minor illness or a major life threatening illness means that somehow from out of our spirit, from through our body, there's a communication, a signal that something's not right.

LISA CLARK: You know, it's interesting, something you just said about environmental triggers in many of the diseases, and something that you said about people feeling some sort of a spiritual connection to nature. Maybe there's something in there about things that our society misses in terms of the natural world, however you want to phrase it, and maybe that's why the spirituality manifests itself in that way.

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: I think you're right. I think we've gotten so far away from nature, from our roots, from our connection with beauty. And I think if that has made us feel more isolated from ourselves, from each other. And I think that's really an important aspect for people to really reconnect with the beauty of nature, with their sense of feeling connected with that.

LISA CLARK: Some physicians who deal with seriously ill patients might find themselves over a period of time becoming increasingly shut off. And yet, the two of you by the experiences that you've talked about tonight seem to find your own spirituality enhanced by the people that you treat. Is that an accurate assessment?

WARREN BERLAND, Ph.D.: I think it's so exciting to work with people. It feels like--it feels so gifted to have people who are facing, you know, life and death matters to be able to work with them at these emotional times in their life. I feel so lucky to be able to share that. But I also have my own spiritual practice. I have my own spiritual teacher I've been with for the past four years and that's a great source of strength for me. It's one of the most important things in my life, and that's something that I draw upon as well with clients.

WILLIAM BERGMAN, MD: Yeah, and I guess I frame my medical practice and my work with patients as helping them in a journey of self-discovery which also is what I feel I'm about. And I have so much to learn from my patients as I seek to kind of share with them my view that as challenging as an illness may be, it can be an opportunity for us to be able to understand more about who we really are and what our capabilities are. And it's gratifying to be able to kind of reframe what otherwise is, you know, a really miserable situation when people are sick, particularly is they're seriously ill into an opportunity for self-exploration and self-discovery.

LISA CLARK: Treating the whole person. Well, I thank you both for an intruiqing conversation on spirituality and health. Thank you, Dr. Berland, Dr. Bergman. And thank you for joining us for this webcast. I'm Lisa Clark.