Celebrated Stanford Psychiatrist to Conduct Lecture in Cebu

Cebu City will be the site of two major events when one of America’s most distinguished and renowned psychiatrists, Dr. David Spiegel, professor and associate chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, will be the guest speaker at ‘The Spiegel Lectures. The latter is a series of seminars Dr. Spiegel will deliver for two different audiences: the lay public and the medical community. The topic of the public lectures will be “Mind and Body Medicine – Concepts and Practice”; that for the doctors will be “Stress in Health and Illness”. Both sessions will deal with emotional and physical illnesses with an emphasis on depression and are scheduled on the morning and afternoon, respectively, of September 23rd at the Cebu Doctors’ University Auditorium.

This was announced by Natasha Goulbourn Foundation chair Jeannie Goulbourn and Dr. Ricardo Soler, director of the foundation and overall chair of the Spiegel Lectures organizing committee. The foundation is hosting the lectures.

The Spiegel Lectures are free and sessions for lay people are open to the public. The selected venue has seating limitations making it necessary to confirm seats for guests on a first-request-first-served basis. Requests for confirmed seats for the medical session should be presented to the office of Dr. Enrico Gruet, Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital at 255-5555 or 253-7511) confirmed seat admission passes will be issued. Such requests may also be emailed to <[email protected]>, which will respond, based on seat availability at the time of request, if these can be accommodated through an emailed encrypted pass that must be printed and presented at the gate. Invitations for the public session will be distributed by several Cebu organizations. Requests for limited confirmed seats for the public sessions may also be emailed to the foundation.

Soler describes Dr. Spiegel as being “among the most eminent American psychiatrists and one of the research scientists who helped develop the treatment modality now known as ‘mind-body medicine, a healing approach that takes into account the interactions between the spirit, brain, mind, body and behavior and the powerful ways these factors directly affect health and healing.”

He adds that Dr. Spiegel also pressed for patient care to take into account a long overlooked area - compassionate supportive care for the medically ill which does not make the error of teaching patients that survival is simply ‘mind over matter’. His research has shown, however, that mind matters.

In the press statement, Ms. Goulbourn stated that “The Spiegel Lectures are made possible with the support of the Stanford Hospital and Clinics’ International Medical Services which has so kindly agreed to engage Dr. Spiegel in what could arguably be among the most significant events in the country’s various medical symposia during this decade. To have such an illustrious physician come is an honor for us.” A number of other notables from Stanford, including Ms. Barbara Ralston, vice-president of Stanford Hospital and Clinics’ International Medical Services, will comprise the Stanford team.

The Natasha Goulbourn Foundation is a non-profit organization whose sole mission is to disseminate information about depression. It seeks to inform and educate the public as extensively as possible about this condition. This process helps demystify and eliminate the stigma for mental disorder and promotes integrative mainstream and complementary medical approaches in treating depression. Soler explained that “many do not know what depression is and suffer in silence or in shame. We believe that informing them about it, as we are doing through these Spiegel Lectures, is a worthy first step in helping understand and manage this dreadful condition.”

Spiegel has authored a total of over 300 research papers, chapters in related books and books of his own. His landmark work, Effects of Psychosocial Treatment on Survival of Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer, studied the effects of psychotherapeutic intervention in treating the condition and spawned a new line of research on the health effects of psychosocial support. It was the subject of a segment on acclaimed TV journalist’s Bill Moyers’ Emmy Award-winning PBS TV special, Healing and the Mind – later published as a best-selling book – one of the earliest to deal with the subject. The series explored the fascinating, complex and powerful connection between mind and body in human health.

Among Spiegel’s principles is the importance among sick people in forming strong bonds of mutual support, facing fears of dying and death directly; reordering life priorities; managing relationships with family, friends, and physicians; and, learning to control pain and other symptoms with self-hypnosis. Dr. Spiegel has long had an interest in the use of hypnosis as treatment for medical symptoms and treatment side effects. He and his father, Herbert Spiegel, M.D., co-authored what is now the standard textbook on the clinical uses of hypnosis, Trance and Treatment.

The foundation is also holding a seminar on depression on October 26, 2008 in Hong Kong to address the alarming situation of depression and consequent suicide incidences among the over 150,000 OFWs there. Based on WHO equations, there is a shocking possibility that as many as 14,000 of the 150,000 OFWs in Hong Kong could be suffering from depression. “Moreover, there just seems to be too many Filipina maids ‘accidentally’ falling to their deaths, leading one to suspect that they might have committed suicide resulting from a depressive state,” according to Goulbourn.