How Can Spirituality Be Used in Clinical Practice?

Drew Ramsey, MD: Welcome back to the Brain Food blog. I'm Dr Drew Ramsey. In these trying times, spirituality is an issue that's increasingly coming up in our clinical practices as patients wonder what to make of all the news today.

[Today, I'm going to] speak with one of our experts, Dr Anna Yusim, a psychiatrist and author of a new book, Fulfilled. Anna, thank you so much for coming on. As a clinician, I want to hear how you began to integrate spirituality into your clinical work.

Anna Yusim, MD: Spirituality entered my clinical work when it entered my own life because I found a spiritual path to be quite transformative. I had my own dark night of the soul that led me to soul searching. That search took me to ashrams in India, learning meditation in Thailand, working with shamans in South Africa and South America, and eventually studying Kabbalah here in New York City.

Ramsey: You were that resident who said, "I had a spiritual crisis..."

Yusim: I was that resident.

Ramsey: I had a spiritual crisis in residency, but it sounds like you actually did something with yours.

Yusim:I certainly tried. That ended up defining my life in such a powerful way.