03-20-15 Seeing With the Mind’s Eye ~A Conversation with Dr. Michael Samuels
Michael Samuels, M.D., a physician, artist, guided imagery specialist, and author is one of the foremost experts in body, mind, spirit medicine today. His best selling books The Well Body Book, Well Baby Book, Well Pregnancy Book were amongst the first books in self help and holistic medicine. As a physician, he has worked with guided imagery and patients with life threatening illness for over 25 years. His book Seeing With the Mind’s Eye was the first book on guided imagery and is the classic in the field. As Director of Art As A Healing Force an organization which networks artists and healers he is a leading expert on art and healing and creativity and healing.
Michael attended Brown University where he studied Yoga and shamanism under Kees Bolle, Carlos Castanada’s teacher. He then went to New York University College of Medicine and became a research immunogeneticist studying how white blood cells make antibodies. . After his residency, he was in the Public Health Service as a physician on the Hopi and Navaho reservation. After the Indian reservation, he moved to Bolinas, California, and left medicine to become a photographer. He learned about art and healing through this period as a professional artist and teacher. He taught photography at art centers and had exhibitions in galleries.
He went back to medicine as a public health physician for Marin County, California, and when two oil tankers collided under the Golden Gate Bridge, he set up a county clinic to treat the volunteers who were cleaning up the beaches and cleaning oil off wildlife. Into that clinic came many alternative therapies such as body work and meditation, and after the oil slick he set up Headlands Clinic, one of the first integrative health facilities in the world. It had massage, body work, relaxation, mediation, guided imagery, and with Rolling Thunder, native American shamanic medicine. Since he worked with Rolling Thunder, Michael has never taken payment from a patient for medical services, because it is sacred work. http://www.michaelsamuels.com
