A disconnection from one's soul may present in many ways: anxiety, depression, obsessions, excessive worrying, suicidal thoughts, self-destructive behaviors, psychosis, mania, addictions, and phobias, among many other presentations Dr. Anna Yusim may see in her medical office.
Traditional medical and psychiatric practice may attribute the above symptoms or illness to chemical imbalances in the brain that need to be fixed with medications. A deficit in serotonin leads to depression. Prozac increases serotonin and so cures depression. It's as easy as that. Or is it? In many cases, although medications can treat the symptoms resulting from a disconnection from one soul, they rarely treat the underlying etiology, which is the disconnection itself. Only by looking inside oneself and aligning with the deepest part of yourself can you address the root cause of the problem instead of the symptoms that result from it.
Complete healing and fulfillment entails unearthing the root cause of the pain.
In Dr. Anna Yusim medical practice, only about half of the patients she treats are on medication, which is a relatively low percentage for a psychiatrist. For certain patients, however, medications are a lifeline without which they feel they could not survive. Work of the soul is hard to do, even impossible, if you are so depressed that you cannot get out of bed, or so sleep-deprived from insomnia that you can barely function, or so anxious that you cannot leave the house, or in an opiate withdrawal so painful that you don't know if you will even survive the day.
Engaging in soul work is necessary for complete healing, but it is predicated on first being able to function in this world. When clinically indicated, psychiatric medications can sometimes be the very tools that allow one to emerge from the darkness.
In Dr. Anna Yusim’s work, she delves deeply into the psychological and spiritual tools has have used with her patients and in her own life, to help them and herself connect to the soul and find greater fulfillment.
In much of medicine, there is a longstanding, unfortunate split between science and spirituality.
Valeria interviews Dr. Anna Yusim an award-winning, nationally recognized psychiatrist, speaker, and author with a private practice in New York City. She is a Lecturer on the Clinical Faculty of the Yale Psychiatry Department. After working as a neurobiology researcher with Dr. Robert Sapolsky Ph.D. and completing her studies at Stanford, Yale Medical School, and the NYU Psychiatry Residency Training Program, Dr. Yusim felt that something was missing from her life. In her quest to find it, she traveled, lived and worked in over 50 countries, while studying Kabbalah, learning Buddhist meditation, and working with South American shamans and Indian gurus.
Dr. Yusim has published over 70 academic articles, book chapters, scientific abstracts and book reviews on various topics in psychiatry. She has received numerous awards and distinctions including the National Institute of Mental Health Outstanding Research Resident Award, the American Psychoanalytic Association Fellowship, the William Webb Fellowship from the Academy for Psychosomatic Medicine, the American Psychiatric Institute for Research & Education (APIRE) Janssen Research Award, the Seed Research Grant from the American Medical Association, First Prize in the Sermo Resident Challenge, the Carta Fellowship from the World Psychiatric Association, the Janet M. Glasgow-Rubin Award for Women Leaders at Yale Medical School, the William F. Downs Fellowship for International Research, the Max Kade Fellowship, the Samuel F. and Sara G. Feinman Scholarship for Leadership, the Foreman Fleisher
Foundation Scholarship for Academic Excellence, the Golden Award for Top Thesis written in the Humanities at Stanford University, the Hoefzer Prize for Top Essay Written in Stanford University Course, the Bessie F. Lawrence International Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation Scholarship.
