How to use herbs, nutrients and yoga in mental health care. / by Richard P. Brown, Patricia L. Gerbarg, and Philip R. Muskin. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2009. First edition. 441 p. including appendices, references and index.
A useful text for practitioner and discerning, inquiring, patient alike, authors Brown, Gerbarg, and Muskin have given us a welcome partner in CAM, or complimentary and alternative medicine for psychotherapy and mental health disorders and diseases. How to use herbs, nutrients and yoga in mental health care is written by medical doctors: the book delivers detailed information on the effects of herbs and other natural resources in cases of mood, anxiety, learning, psychotic disorders, certain illnesses, substance abuse and adverse reactions to chemical substances in medicines. The work’s ten chapters address each of these areas, describing named conditions, and give an account of the nutrients, herbs and yoga programs that would offer appropriate treatment. Tables are provided in each chapter for reference to the suggested substances in the text. Tables in the Appendices provide guidance for purchasing brand name products that have received the authors’ approval for quality. A glossary of medications lists all the allopathic medicinals noted in the text. Reference sources, about 60 pages in length, include recent journal articles as well as monographs. The index points to all the instances of herbs, yoga, Ayurvedic and Chinese medical terms used in the text, in addition to terminology of diseases and disorders and chapter themes.
In each of the ten chapters the Reader encounters treatment of a disorder, grouped by associative diseases. So you have the chapters Mood Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Disorders of Cognition and Memory, etc. Each chapter begins with an outline stating the headings of each section and names of specific substances or instances of therapy. Throughout are illustrations of benefits in the form of clinical pearls; each chapter is completed with a table entitled “treatment guidelines” that thoroughly describes the nutrient, vitamin or herb by its proper name, its clinical uses, daily dosage, and safety information. For the authors’ suggestions and references to manufactured products, see the Appendix.
Rhodiola, St. John’s Wort, Valerian, and Lemon Balm are most often seen as mood enhancers and as anxiolytics. Chamomile, Kava, Ginkgo, and Valerian are added to this list for anxiety disorders such as PTSD and sleep disorders. For cognition impairment and memory, adaptogens such as Schizandra, Rhodiola, Siberian Ginseng, Ashwaganda, and Maca, among others, are proposed for clinical use, since they have been traditionally sought out for their anti-aging properties. For treatment of attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities, Ashwaganda, Ginkgo, American Ginseng, and Bacopa are listed. For Sexual disfunction and other lifes stage issues, more than 14 herbs are suggested, along with vitamins, minerals and nutrients. For medical illnesses and substance abuse, more vitamins and nutrients are sought than herbal remedies. The last chapter, “CAM to Counteract Medication Side Effects” is divided into sections that address bodily systems and suggest that more than 16 herbs can be applied in cases where specific reactions to medications are causing health problems such as restless leg syndrome, pedal edema, hair loss, insomnia, weight gain, hyperhydrosis, or dry mouth, etc.
SAM-e (substance S-adenosyl-L-methionine) and melatonin are classified as nutraceuticals, “… a special class of supplements that have been found by the FDA to be safe enough for sale over the counter in the United States without a prescription.” p. 18. The book offers information on nutrients for anxiety, cancer, fertility, menopause, mood disorders, premenstrual syndrome, schizophrenia and substance abuse.
Yoga asanas and yogic breathing are seen as important to complement any substances taken to improve health. The authors suggest participating in yoga to reinforce the relaxation response. As they explain, “When the therapist encourages the patient to engage in mind-body practices, the patient is being supported to learn how to master anxiety through self-soothing.”—p.114 In chapter three, the authors delineate the positive effects of yoga for anxiety disorders, illustrating the benefits a patient receives from the mind-body connection; in other chapters for depression, attention deficit disorder, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, cognition and learning, and for schizophrenia.
I liked this book as it proves that its hypothesis is medically sound. And I also liked the idea that medically based therapies can embrace patients engaging in their own physiological support. As well, its format and presentation are similar in style to a textbook in psychology or biology, thus the work fits into the handbook category. The authors anticipated practitioners’ questions and confered a working platform for clinical application. The book respectfully promotes the use of complementary alternative medicine in psychology, a field that has recently broadened its therapeutic base to include alternative as well as mainstream medicine.
The authors advise the practitioner to approach new therapies with caution when allopathic treatment methods are in place and are working well. Their hypotheses are offered in good faith for instances when mainstream medicine is not working well or requires extra support not available from more chemically derived medicine.
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