Where Have All the Healers Gone?

About the Book

Doctor Luke Van Orden has worked in several areas of both clinical medicine and basic medical science. He considers himself a psychotherapist and a “wounded healer”, having had to struggle with his own demons in order to become able to help others. Through his formative years he became disillusioned about the ways that doctors in training become emotionally hardened. He then found that psychiatric training largely failed to produce healers who were emotionally healthy themselves. As medicine became more commercialized he rebelled at the depersonalization of “services” provided to “medical customers.” Where Have All the Healers Gone? tells the story about his own personal growth and his fascinating experiences with patients, many of whom had been badly or unethically treated. Finally, he shares his frustrating experiences with modern medicine as an impersonal corporate business.

About the Author

Van Orden holds a BS in Chemistry, MS in Biochemistry and MD degrees from Northwestern. He received his PhD in Pharmacology from Yale. He was a professor of Pharmacology at the University of Iowa before working as a psychiatrist in state and private hospitals. He completed his psychiatry training at Washington University in 1984 and has been in private practice since that time.