What Is Integrative Medicine?
Integrative medicine is commonly defined as a combination of conventional treatment and complementary methods, sometimes offered at a center for integrative medicine, that facilitate the body’s innate healing response.
Having spent 45 years developing this emergent field, I will add to that: A good integrative medicine doctor can combine different methods, knowing how much of each to apply with different clients at different points…
Genuine Care
But a great integrative medicine practitioner connects deeply with you and brings genuine care to every meeting.
I call this somatic empathy and it facilitates an even more powerful healing response from the body, because the practitioner listens and attunes deeply to you.
If you want to advance your career in integrative medicine, explore my courses and certifications.
My belief comes from my decades of experience as an integrative medicine practitioner and a licensed psychotherapist with a PhD in Behavioral Medicine, an MPH from Harvard, an abundance of other credentials, and a flourishing practice treating complex cases.
My Goal is to Share My Wisdom and Methods With as Many People as Possible Who Can Benefit
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I have helped people who have tried everything to improve their energy, vitality and mental well-being.
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My Unique Protocol
Learn more about my unique protocol, The Brainbow Blueprint®
Advance Your Career
If you want to advance your career in integrative medicine, explore my courses and certifications
How Can Integrative Medicine Help You?
Integrative medicine can restore optimal physical and mental health by combining functional, nutritional, naturopathic, and other proven methods.
Many hard-to-treat ailments can be targeted with integrative medicine, including fibromyalgia, IBS, depression, migraines, and more.
Integrative Medicine for Mental Health
My expertise is integrative medicine for mental health, including the treatment of PTSD and complex trauma recovery, especially with complex combinations of emotional and physical illness. I have helped thousands of clients with the following diagnoses:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Stress, Trauma, and PTSD
- Bipolar Disorder
- Insomnia
- Chronic Pain
- ADHD
- OCD
- Cognitive Decline and Memory Loss
- Body Image & Eating Disorders
- Digestive Disorders
“Dr. Korn has the knowledge of an encyclopedia (or two!), and also has the heart of a teacher and mentor.”
Ilyse Keeley, LCSW, CMHIMP
Cracking the Tough Cases
I am known for cracking the tough cases, treating people who have tried everything to improve their energy, vitality, and mental well-being. I succeed through the art and science of bio-individuality, using proven protocols to tailor a unique program for each client using the BrainBow Blueprint®.
If you work with me you’ll receive these benefits:
- Reduce the effects of trauma, accessing more calm, freedom, and growth
- Improve your mood with food, understanding the power of food to nourish and heal
- Boost your energy, becoming better able to pursue your work and relationships
- Improve your sleep, increasing your level of focus and clarity in your daily life
- Reduce pain, easing access to your body and mind’s ability to relax and be in the flow
- Receive support to stay off, reduce, or get off pharmaceuticals you may no longer need, lightening your metabolic load and reducing or eliminating side effects
Integrative Medicine with Heart
A healing approach that encompasses integrative and conventional therapies producing greater well-being than any one form of medicine alone.
— Dr. Leslie Korn
The right kind of integrative medicine can help you make these and other radical shifts for the better in your life.
With the mind-body-spirit approach I’ve pioneered, known as the Brainbow Blueprint®, I’ve supported thousands of women, men, and children in recovering from trauma, reducing or eliminating psychiatric drugs, and enjoying optimal health.
Integrative Nutrition: Improve Your Mood with Food
What you eat has been proven to affect how you feel. But contrary to all the myths you have heard, there is no one right diet for everyone.
You may be a carnivore, vegetarian, or omnivore, yet if you’re not putting the right fuel into the engine of your innate, unique biology, over time you can develop depression, anxiety, or more.
But there is a bright side because the reverse is also true: there are easy steps you can take to improve your condition – even if you have PTSD or other challenging mental health diagnoses.
Eating the right foods for your biological system is key, and I can guide you in discovering what those foods are and the right amounts of them for your system.
I invite you to take my short quiz and learn how your system metabolizes food — including what percentages of macronutrients — protein, fat, and carbohydrates — will make your engine purr.
Take the quiz here and receive 3 individualized tips on how to fuel and help your body and mind.
Integrative Medicine Leads to Mind-Body Integration and Better Health
Conventional medicine focuses on illness and symptoms, and usually addresses them without treating their underlying causes. It can provide short-term benefits, like using medication to help you get better sleep or improve your mood…
But by leaving the root cause untreated, these benefits may easily be undone. Your mood starts feeling “off” again, or your sleep doesn’t continue to improve, so you end up just as irritable, depressed, or off-balance.
These kinds of stories are common, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the issues in play remain hidden from view.
If you struggle with complex or chronic health conditions, it’s not that you lack willpower. It is directly tied to the fact that most Western physicians aren’t trained to investigate deeper causes – let alone treat them during 20-minute sessions – to bring the body back to a state of health.
Inflammation
Doctors typically don’t treat inflammation, for example, even though research now shows it is a root cause for many issues ranging from depression to bipolar, PTSD, IBS, allergies, and chronic headaches.
Using a full integrative assessment, including taking both psychological and physical health histories, I can help put all the factors together and take in the whole picture.
I provide my clients with truly holistic support, including education, tools, practices, and more, as we discover the roots of the problem and treat them to stimulate healing.
In our work together, I may suggest:
- Nutritional therapies
- Herbal medicine
- Somatic therapies
- Detoxification protocols
- Talk therapy and coaching
- Specific exercises
Questions and Answers on Integrative Medicine
Alternative medicine is any practice used in place of conventional medicine. Integrative medicine is complementary to conventional medicine rather than serving as an alternative.
Integrative medicine includes the functional medicine approach, a systems biology-based approach that determines how and why illness occurs and focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease.
In addition, integrative medicine may also draw on traditional cultural medicine, looking to ancestral methods of healing to support the client in their health journey.
Integrative medicine may include the use of supplements and herbs, shifts in one’s diet, massage therapy, hydrotherapy, biofeedback, meditation, acupuncture, exercise, human/animal relationships, and more. My Brainbow Blueprint® offers an individualized roadmap for using the right kinds of integrative medicine for you and your unique condition.
The 5 domains are a classification structure developed in 2000 by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), now named the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). In this model, modalities are identified by where they fit into systems: alternative medical systems, mind-body interventions, biologically based treatments, manipulative and body-based methods, and energy therapies.
While these distinctions may be helpful for some, they must be matched carefully to the individual’s needs. The Brainbow Blueprint® draws on modalities from all 5 domains via a person-centered protocol. It works as a holistic and person-centered system of care rooted in and responsive to each client’s physical and psychological history and wellness goals.
Most university hospitals now offer integrative medicine clinics and clinics exist in the US in Atlanta, San Diego, and New York City, as well at University of Arizona, the Mayo Clinic, and the Cleveland Clinic. Before returning to private practice, I founded and directed an integrative clinic for over 25 years in Mexico and then in Olympia, Washington. The clinic offered psychotherapy, body-oriented psychotherapy, nutritional services, neurofeedback, yoga therapy, and three different types of bodywork including massage, Polarity therapy and craniosacral therapy.
If you’re looking for integrative mental health care, I encourage you and your practitioner to study the Brainbow Blueprint® as it provides a leading-edge range of natural treatment options that work in harmony with each other and with other methods.
Find out more about my certification courses.