riordanclinic | On one particular day in the early 1970s, Olive was sitting under a
hair dryer reading a review about a new book, Nutrition and Your Mind,
by George Watson. The review stated that nutrition, or the food you eat,
has an effect on your mind. This struck a chord in Olive. She did not
believe that wallowing in your childhood and reliving traumas in your
life would lead to a healthy mind. She differed with her former
classmate, Karl Menninger, who became famous for starting the Menninger
Clinic in Topeka. She couldn’t wait to read this book and immediately
ordered it.
After reading the book, she began to formulate an idea
that would eventually lead to The Center for the Improvement of Human
Functioning. She had Clifford Allison, executive director of the Garvey
Foundation, get in touch with Bill Schul, a freelance writer who had
ties to Menninger Clinic, to study what was being done on the effect of
nutrition on the mind. Although Bill thought the book was interesting,
he did not think he was qualified to make that kind of study. Allison
assured him that he was the correct person for the job since he would
not be defending any discipline or philosophy, he would not be bringing
any bias to the effort. Bill devoted more than six months to this
research effort.(32) Except for one flight to the west coast the rest of
the 12,000 miles covered during the course of this study were by car
and commercial bus. Bill visited Centers in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri,
Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, New York,
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Colorado, Arizona, and California. After
reading many books and research articles and interviewing leaders in the
field of nutrition, with the help of the International Academy of
Metabology, Inc., Bill was ready to give his preliminary findings. In
November 1973 Bill presented Olive with the results of his research in a
printed report, Preliminary Study: the effects of nutrition on the mind
and related subjects. Bill authored a book, Frontiers of Medicine, from
that research. He also recommended to Mrs. Garvey that he do some
additional research into holistic medicine, which he thought was going
to become the way of the future. Another book, Psychic Frontiers of
Medicine, was published as a result of that study.
In the first
study Bill focused on the state of treatment for mental diseases. Then
he presented theoretical concepts between the mind and body.
Psychosomatic medicine was also touched upon, along with the emerging
practice of treating the whole person rather than the symptoms.
Nutrition and the mind deserved several pages of the study as well as
allergy and human ecology. He had included recommendations as to how a
new type of medicine could be delivered, along with the estimated costs.
0 comments:
Post a Comment