ISHK History → Mind/Body Health Newsletter

Mind/Body Health Newsletter

ISHK’s Mind/Body Health Newsletter Informed Thousands of Practitioners and Lay Persons

By the early 1990s there had been an explosion of knowledge about the role of mental and social factors in health and longevity. For example, the lack of social support was determined to be a health risk factor as important as smoking, lack of exercise and high cholesterol. Countless studies showed the direct effect of optimism, self-image, positive mood and social support on everything from susceptibility to the common cold to risk of heart disease. Yet the real impact and benefit of the new knowledge and techniques was slow to reach most practitioners and the general public.

In 1992, under the direction of David Sobel, M.D., Director of Preventative Medicine at Kaiser Permanente, ISHK began publishing the first newsletter dedicated to bridging the gaps between mind and body, research and practice, in the fast-moving new fields of behavioral medicine, psychoneuroimmunology and health psychology.

For nearly a decade, ISHK’s Mind/Body Health Newsletter (originally Mental Medicine Update) was an important resource for more than 35,000 readers—lay persons and practitioners.

Each issue brought updates on new research and reviewed the best new books and tapes. A special pull-out section gave readers in-depth information for a specific health situation, including treatment and prevention strategies and step-by-step instructions for an appropriate mind/body health technique such as self-hypnosis, relaxation exercises, guided imagery, pain reduction, and more. The newsletter was published 4 times a year from 1992–2001.

The best information from the newsletter is now available in the Healthy Mind Healthy Body Handbook by editors David Sobel and Robert Ornstein.