48
Friday, June 6, 1986
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
THE JEWISH NEWS
sychologist F. Paul Pearsall,
having recently tested his own
theory of self healing, may be the
best advertisement for his new book
Super-Immunity: Master Your Emo-
tions And Improve Your Health.
Recently, the 44 year-old chief of
Sinai Hospital's Problems of Daily
Living Clinic did recuperative time
at home following eye surgery for a
detached retina. Though a self-
confessed "reading junkie," the one
thing he could't do for several weeks
was read. It would have been self-
destructive to torture himself with
"Why me?" and "Why did it hap-
pen?" types of queries.
Instead, he viewed those weeks
as a period of introspection and
learning. "Healing is a very active
process, not something that happens
to you," he explains, "but something
you do. You help yourself heal. I lis-
tened to music like crazy, all kinds
with the exception of Country West-
ern, and I selected music for my
edu-concerts (lectures with popular
tunes employed to illustrate con-
cepts)." He also managed to fulfill
speaking commitments during this
trying time in his life.
He discusses the focus of his
book, Psychoneuroimmunology
(PNI), a new, "explosive" research
field which has surfaced during the
last ten years. PNI deals with the
brain's interaction with the immune
system. The brain is actually a
gland, an apothecary of healing
chemicals. We know now that how
you think and feel affects the im-
mune system," Pearsall explains.
The book, scheduled for release
in November, is not just a mere
how-to effort, but a heavily-
documented work which gives the
reader many easily understood case
studies. Among them are a story.of a
man dying of lymphoma who takes a
drug called Krebiozin and miracul-
ously recovers, then reads in a
newspaper that the drug is useless.
He died within a month. Pearsall
also cites a study conducted by Har-
vard psychologist, David McClelland,
a well-known PNI researcher who
instructed a group of students with
cold symptoms to think of people
they loved and people who loved
them. The result was that the stu-
dents didn't get colds.
According to Pearsall, both of
these examples demonstrate the
power of belief. Pearsall, a non-Jew
who declines to list any religion, "be-
lieves strongly in the power of belief.
What you believe is not important.
That you believe is what is impor-
tant."
Closer to home, Pearsall's agent,
Susan Cohen, brought the "Psycho-
Immunity" manuscript to her father,
then a hospital patient with cancer
and a dismal prognosis. He read the
book and is actually better and at
home now.
"I spent seven years researching
the book and if my dream comes
true, the book, which is really about
the magnificent healer within each
of us, should help thousands." And
helping people appears to be Pear-
sall's life mission.
Dr.
Norman
In
1971,
Rosenzweig, chairman of the De-
partment of Psychiatry at Sinai,
hired the young psychologist to set
up a new clinic where people could
seek professional help without being
diagnosed as psychiatric patients.
The format would include programs
organized around transitional crises
in the life cycle to include everyday
categories like marriage, divorce,
pregnancy, children, sexual dysfunc-
tion, problems of the drug abuser's
family, graduation, work related
problems, menopause, retirement,
elderly parents, survivors of loss,
phobias, etc.
As head of the Problems of
Daily Living Clinic, Pearsall's role is
to administer to the clinic's staff of
ten, including psychiatrists, physi-
cians, psychologists and social work-
ers. He also sees hospital patients,
teaches residents, supervises interns
and sees 12-15 clients a week.
Pearsall believes the clinic is
special, it is education more than
long-term analysis, with the ulti-
mate goal of teaching clients to be-
come their own therapists. It has a
team approach to treating husbands
and wives who are seen by both a
male and female therapist, and it
has a holistic approach to family
therapy.
Pearsall readily admits his ap-
proach to psychology differs from
that of his colleagues, but his march-
ing to a different drummer is some-
thing he takes pride in. The clinic
uses knowledge, imagination and
sophisticated administration, and
won the 1973 Rush Gold Medal for
preventative psychiatric medicine.
As clinic psychologist Dr. Barbara
Conway puts it, "Dr. Pearsall de-
mands excellence of his staff and of
himself.
RVIVAL
RIVAL
Sinai Hospital's Paul Pearsall
and his. Problems of Daily
Living Clinic work to put the
joy back into life
BY MAIDA PORTNOY
Special to The Jewish News.