Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
www.pharmpress.com/fact
Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2004; 9: 5–6
Dr Astin received his PhD in Health Psychology from the University of California, Irvine USA. From 1997 to 1999 he was a research fellow in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program at the Stanford University School of Medicine. From January 2000 to June 2002 he was the director of mind–body research at the Complementary Medicine Program, University of Maryland School of Medicine. In July of 2002 he took a position as research scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. His research and clinical work has focused on several related areas: (i) the use of mind–body therapies, particularly mindfulness meditation, to treat various health-related problems, (ii) psychosocial factors associated with use of complementary and alternative medical therapies, (iii) the psychological construct of control and its relationship to mental and physical health and (iv) the role of spirituality in healthcare. His research has appeared in such journals as Archives of Internal Medicine, JAMA and the Annals of Internal Medicine. He is the co-author (with Deane Shapiro) of the book Control Therapy: An Integrated Approach to Psychotherapy, Health, and Healing. Along with his scholarly pursuits, Dr Astin is also an accomplished singer, songwriter and recording artist, having produced five albums of original music that are distributed worldwide.
Q What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
JA: Engaging, brainstorming and inquiring passionately with others, and witnessing the kinds of creativity, insight and discovery that frequently emerge in surprising and unexpected ways.
Q What is the greatest danger to CAM?
JA: What probably bothers me most about the field is that in some ways it really isn’t a field at all because it represents such a heterogeneous group of therapies, many of which have nothing to do either practically or conceptually with one another other than the fact that they share the dubious honour of being ‘something’ other than conventional medicine (whatever that term means). While it is sometimes not a popular opinion in the CAM field, I tend to fall into the camp that believes there should be one type of medicine – that which truly contributes to the health and well-being of people. My hunch is that we will discover in the end that the brand of medicine that is most beneficial is not conventional or CAM but ‘integral’ in nature, integral not necessarily meaning a medicine that combines CAM and conventional treatments (though it could) but integral from the standpoint of recognising the bio/psycho/social/spiritual nature of human beings (both patients and practitioners) and considering that health and illness is always a complex interplay of these factors.
Q Which form of CAM would you refuse to use?
JA: Chelation therapy comes immediately to mind. I would think twice before receiving cervical spinal manipulation. I find myself a bit more hesitant to experiment with different herbs owing to our lack of knowledge regarding potential adverse affects and also because of the lack of standardisation in so many of the products now being marketed, at least in the US, which results in the unfortunate reality that we don’t really know what it is we’re ingesting too much of the time.
Q What makes a good researcher?
JA: Not assuming one already knows the answer. Being willing to think critically, both about one’s subject matter and about the possible biases he or she may be bringing to bear upon that subject matter. Being excited about learning and discovery, and, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, striving to keep an open mind without letting one’s brains fall out.
Q What does your mother-in-law think about you working in CAM?
JA: She actually finds it very fascinating and is curious to know what the field is finding out as she is quite open herself to experimenting with various CAM therapies.
Q What stimulates your creativity?
JA: Feeling my connection to that great mystery that I consider to be the source of all life and all creative activity.
Q What makes you happy?
JA: To know and experience this human life, as this most extraordinary of privileges and blessings awakens both a profound happiness and contentment and a feeling of sacred obligation to waste not a moment of it in any activity that is somehow not an expression of that. To awaken myself (and to see others awaken) to the tremendous and yet largely unrealised and unrecognised potentials that lie within us as human beings brings the deepest thrill and joy.
Q What depresses you?
JA: Seeing others who don’t realise the tremendous potential – the great reservoirs of creativity, joy and passion – that lie buried within them and who falsely believe they are somehow victims, not realising that they are the very ones holding the keys that can unlock that same potential.
Q What is your biggest regret?
JA: In some ways, I don’t believe there is any time to indulge in regret, only time to be true to our highest principles and then be willing to rededicate ourselves to not betraying that which is deepest and is wisest within us whenever we find we have strayed from that.
Q What was the most embarrassing moment in your life?
JA: Probably in junior high, in the eighth-grade basketball team. I had sat on the bench most of the year, finally got in at the end of a game, all alone on a fast break, panicked at the last second and suddenly forgot how to make a simple lay up, throwing up instead an air ball that went into the stands.
Q What is your favourite book/film?
JA: The film Pleasantville is one of my favourites. Despite our families’ efforts to not get overly caught up in our pop culture, which is filled with so much craziness and nonsense, I must confess that we have become fairly serious Harry Potter junkies. It is quite remarkable literature, I believe, not to mention great fun to share with our eight-year-old daughter.
Q Which living person do you admire most?
JA: I have been profoundly inspired of late by a visionary philosopher and spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen.
Q What is your favourite quote?
JA: There are many but I like this one from T.S. Eliot: ‘A condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.’
