Mysteries of the Brain, Mysteries of Healing
An Interview with Professor Bruce Price, M.D.
Summer, 2005
 Dr.
Bruce H. Price is Chief, Department of Neurology at McLean Hospital
in Belmont, MA. McLean maintains the largest research program of any
private psychiatric hospital in the world and is consistently cited
as our nation’s preeminent psychiatric hospital. Dr. Price is
also Assistant Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School teaching
medical students, psychiatry and neurology residents, and behavioral
neurology/neural psychiatry and neuropsychology fellows. Dr. Price
specializes in neuropsychiatry and cognitive and behavioral neurology.
He is interested in the relationship between disorders of the brain
and mind, the causes and treatment of neuro-psychiatric diseases and
psychopathology, the biological basis of violence, the effects of
use of MDMA (ecstasy), and the prevention/enhancement of aging brains.
Bruce, his wife Eileen, daughter Shannon, and son Doug are Process
graduates.
Raz Ingrasci: You have been interested in brain
functions and malfunctions as a specialist in neurology. On the
one hand, the brain is a biological organ, but it’s also a
social organ. I think more and more people are recognizing that
the brain governs everything including our personality, our temperament,
our sense of self, and that it can be changed not only through disease,
surgery and chemistry and so on, but that it grows and changes as
a social organ through social interventions, through learning, and
through experience. I’m hoping you’ll comment on the
interface between nature and nurture, and then how the brain changes
through the Process experience.
Dr. Bruce Price: Let me give some background
first to tell you why I arrived where I am now and what’s
the driving force, because that plays into issues that the Hoffman
Process helped me to recognize. I can’t remember a moment,
even in my childhood, when I wasn’t driven by the question
of what makes people do and feel what they do and feel. As a kid
growing up in Wichita, Kansas, the world wasn’t too large
for me at that point, but the question was a huge one.
In college I majored in a combination of sociology, psychology
and anthropology and the theme here is my attempt to integrate.
So again it’s that question: ”My God, isn’t the
brain the most fascinating organ in the universe?” That was
my first attempt to integrate three different disciplines into one
cohesive look at human behavior. My mother thought I should be a
people doctor, so who was I to question her? Originally I wanted
to be a veterinarian because I had an affinity with animals that’s
very deep, but she put me into the human channel and that’s
just as well. Then I did medical school in internal medicine for
four years and was really going to be an inner city doctor to wipe
out hypertension, obesity and diabetes until I reckoned that the
problem was far bigger than me. But that was part of my zeal from
being very involved in the student movement of the ‘60s and
‘70s. So, I do think I still have that sense of service to
humanity that’s my drive.
RI: In our experience of the Hoffman Process
we find that high achievers often find that their drive is a combination
of an unconscious need to please one or both parents and to prove
their value to their parents. Another element is their “calling”
to serve. Perhaps, one of the contributions that the Process can
make to high achievers is to help them reorient their motivation.
When the true self is activated, one is following one’s calling,
which you said you were aware of since your earliest memories. Would
you agree with that?
BP: Yes. Here’s my small story for what
it’s worth. Clearly my life has been spent in part to make
my mom proud and also fill in her gaps of sadness. So that’s
been my fuel, unconscious until the Hoffman Process. One revelation
I had was: “Thank you mother, now I’m pleased with where
your fuel drove me, immensely pleased, but now, from here on out
it’s about my actualizing my own path, with my own motivation”.
RI: That’s wonderful. Trying to meet those
unconscious needs produces stress, burnout, and lacks meaning. And
it reduces what’s called a “healing presence.”
How important do you think “healing presence” is for
a doctor?
BP: The Hoffman Process really gave me a burst
of new energy. It made me thankful for what I’ve done and
the position I’m in to help a lot of people. It clearly redefined
me as a healer, not just a physician and, really, what it unlocked
was a sense of spirituality.
The brain is a pretty awesome organ and I’m a pretty serious
and hard-bitten scientist and I embrace laws of biology. I’ve
had arguments with God, or at least those who are proponents of
God in various religious forms, but what the Process helped me do
is to redefine spirituality. Spirituality is not the equivalent
of organized religion. I was giving the various organized religions
that I’ve experienced way too much power, to say that’s
their territory, not mine. If you redefine spirituality in terms
of love, sense of inner connection, wisdom, humanity, creativity,
hope, kindness, and goodness, that is a whole different acceptable
paradigm to me.
RI: Did you find those qualities within yourself?
BP: Suddenly, I said, “Yes.” It’s
one of those “aha” moments that makes such sense. So
a direct change in my practice of medicine is that I now directly
inquire about my patient’s sense of spirituality and I go
beyond the usual: “Religion please.” I need to know
if there’s an every-day presence of that because I deal with
a lot of very difficult brain diseases and I need to understand
their sense of spirit and that sense of hope. I now assess much
more intensely now the sense of connection with the family and just
how supportive they are, how abandoned does the patient feel vs.
how supported? Those are huge prognostic factors, both in terms
of quality and quantity of life.
RI: What you’re saying is very interesting.
When the researchers at the University of California measured Process
results they, of course, noted significant decreases in negative
affect and significant increases in positive affect. They also measured
spirituality, not religiosity, but spirituality. What they saw was
that increases in spirituality and forgiveness in the Process participants
predicted decreases in depression and other negative affects. To
me, that says that there’s some kind of healing force at work
here.
I think it’s fair to say that spiritual experience is subjective.
But it turns out that a lot of the things that we really value in
life, like love, family, belonging, and meaning are subjective experiences.
Perhaps one of the outcomes of the Hoffman Process is for people
to recognize that our subjective experiences are important and powerful
and should not to be dismissed as irrational. Behind that for me
is trust. Trust is a big one. Trust in something beyond our intellect.
BP: That actually has a direct post-Hoffman implication
for me, to relax a little bit about myself and “let it rip”
and not be so entirely caught up in the intellectual critique. It’s
almost a letting go, a “letting be” of feelings of love,
connection, and joy.
Behind that, for me, is trust. Trust is a huge issue.
RI: Exactly, and your willingness to be in the
presence of this mystery, this force. So it seems to me that is
a pretty big step for a brain scientist.
BP: Yes, and I would hope that it’s immediately
felt by my patients. It is the sense of an emotional bond not, “just
the facts, ma’am”… the sense that I am a healer
and a certain sense of mutual comfort and trust, which, in and of
itself, has therapeutic value.
RI: Are you involved in teaching doctors?
BP: Yes, I teach Harvard Medical students, Interns,
Residents, and Fellows. I probably teach 50-60 students per year.
One of my greatest prides and joys is to try to be as good a mentor
as I can.
RI: How has your Hoffman Process experience affected
your teaching?
BP: I think I’m lighter on my feet. I think
I’m more willing to share emotions and the joy of learning,
which is, after all, why I committed to medicine. The learning curve
is so amazing and steep and beautiful and unending. So, it’s
that renewed energy. It’s like remembering why I have devoted
myself to medicine in the first place. This is at a time when burnout,
amongst physicians, is epidemic, as surveys have shown. So this
has helped me push upward and forward with energy and not collapse
downward.
RI: You talked earlier about how you’ve
discovered there’s a difference between religion and spirituality.
There are also differences between ways of understanding being human.
We are living in a fractionated society in which traditions sometimes
keep us in chains and prevent us from changing. And yet, to navigate
our way through life, we need to own our full humanity.
BP: I’ve been combining disciplines since
college. First, anthropology and psychology in college, then clinical
brain science as a physician. My new challenge is to integrate spiritual
and emotional wisdom into practice and to model this for all of
my students. The continued growth beyond my current reality is my
new aspiration.
RI: So, to navigate our way through life, we
need to own our full humanity.
BP: Yes, that’s why I like the Process
definition of responsibility which is “freedom to respond,”
the ability to respond in an informed manner. It also helped me
to realize the power of music and the power of shared experiences,
the sense of community from which we emerge. In neurology –
and this is in contrast to psychiatry and psychology – we
actually get to touch our patients. The neurological exam is a very
physical and somewhat intimate exam and I’ve recently realized
how powerful touch itself can be to the healing process. It conveys
a sense of, “Look, I really care and we are in this together.”
I hadn’t noticed that, in practicing medicine for 25 years,
until the Hoffman Process. I had another Esalen moment and realized,
“Wow, that’s amazing.” I think in a way it’s
too bad it isn’t part of traditional psychology and psychiatry.
I recognize the potential for boundary violations, but I think it
needs to be revisited.
RI: What I’m hearing is that you are more
present to the mystery of the healing presence, the mystery of how
healing occurs, and more aware that your own emotions, your ability
to connect with the person, and your interest in connecting with
the other person, and seeing them as a whole person who has some
illness, are all incredibly important to you now.
BP: Yes. And to be comfortable with the mystery
all the time, wanting to understand it more because I do think there
are some principles by which it operates and if we can find these
well, my goodness, shouldn’t we infuse all health care providers
with that, with those tools?
RI: Have you found you’re willing to follow
your intuition a little more since you’ve done the Process
and has that been helpful?
BP: Yes, my emotional intuition, which I had
previously guarded against because I thought it might be too subjective
for medicine. To use a metaphor, my heart now wanders in search
of connection. So there are intuitive forces in play that lead me
in places I hadn’t gone before.
RI: This is interesting and I’d like to
say it’s just wonderful that your interests led you into taking
the Hoffman Process.
BP: Well, thanks to my two children and my wife.
As I said, the brave soul that I think I am, I sent my two children
to the altar first!
RI: My perception of doctors is that they’re
often so committed to their practices that their family lives suffer.
Has your family life benefited from the fact that so many of you
have done Hoffman? Is it the kind of contribution that other doctors
could benefit from?
BP: Yes. I am in a relative position of luxury
because I’m a senior physician at this point. I have lots
of people working with me and I do have the luxury of some choices
and some ability to modify my lifestyle substantially. I’m
not sure I would have been able to do that 10 or 15 years ago, though
that doesn’t mean you can’t. Maybe I just couldn’t
or wasn’t informed enough to do that. But most doctors I’m
aware of have a very unbalanced life and in that imbalance something
has to give and it’s usually the individual or the family.
And that impairs your ability as a physician, as we know. It’s
all circular.
RI: Are you an advocate for the idea that as
you heal yourself you become a better healer.
BP: Yes, there’s little doubt about that.
Here’s how I incorporate the Hoffman Process into my day.
In the shower I do my “three Ishes and one Om.” Once
a week I do my Quadrinity check and then I hear myself say: “Bruce,
don’t take yourself too seriously.” I need to remind
myself to Skip and Whistle, because those were my childhood experiences,
which brought me such pure joy. Skip and whistle. I try to do this
discretely because at a psychiatric hospital, it could be misinterpreted!
“There goes Skipper the whistler.”
RI: Those are your keys to tapping into your
own joy.
BP: Yes, and joy is so contagious. So contagious.
RI: As you know Bruce, we’ve done a survey
of health care professionals who’ve done the Process and we
find that physicians responded in very high levels, in the high
80 percentages, that they do feel more present, self aware, more
compassionate. All the physicians and health care professionals
who participated in this survey have done the process a year or
more ago, many of them 5 or 7 or 8 years ago.
BP: That’s what’s amazing. Multiple
moons ago I went to Esalen” and it was beautiful. Three months
later I still said, “That was great,” but it hadn’t
fundamentally changed me. I then did Outward Bound, which is a little
different obviously, but a great high, lots of good feelings about
yourself, but it doesn’t have the enduring power that I think
the Hoffman Process does.
RI: Well, the research shows the changes are
still there a year later and I think the reason is that we are working
at a level that must effectively change the brain.
BP: Yes, and by the way, I’d like to give
you some huge things we’ve learned about the brain that require
us to abandon many of our previous dogmas about how the brain operates.
First, the mind and brain are indivisible. That’s profound
for doctors to be saying, because it turns out we’re the product
of the interaction between genes and environment and there’s
a remarkably complex interplay between brain structure, and ******
social forces. So, I can say that the Hoffman Process most likely
fundamentally alters brain function. The question becomes how long?
RI: You’re saying the changes can last
for years.
BP: Clearly the Hoffman Process works through
neurobiology. The extraordinary thing we have found out about is
the concept we call “plasticity:” that the connections
and functions of the brain at all its levels of organization respond
to social forces. We can actually take normal people and look at
them and see what’s going on inside. For example, we think
we actually know, in general, where romance is mediated in the brain
and where complex mental thoughts occur and how they’re organized
and change over time.
Brain imaging technology allows us to study the brain in action.
It would be remarkably interesting to study participant’s
brains pre- and post-Hoffman.
RI: That’s very exciting. Thank you, Bruce.
I know that everyone will find your perspective to be enlightening.
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