Understanding the brain, how it functions and its impact on our individual destiny is an endless quest.  Dr. Steven Siegel, Chair of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine and Chief Mental Health and Wellness Officer for Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC), in Los Angeles, has spent years conducting brain research.   It is a research that continues to be a frontier of learning, much like the exploration of space. 

         The challenge with understanding the human brain is the unbelievable complexity of its millions of cells.  The amazing fact is that Dr. Siegel explains how in embryo our brain is created with an individual pattern which sets the foundation for our nervous system, and our responses to our environment and stresses throughout life. 

          Dr. Siegel urges us to cease the artificial separation of mental illness from physical illness and allow for more comprehensive organic care. The legal and political challenges are embedded in the issues of one’s rights to choose. The contradiction is that in mental illness, the organ that makes decisions about choosing care, the brain, is the organ that is in disrepair and in need.  The answer to this dilemma is still hanging and unresolved.  According to Dr. Siegel, the younger generation who he is seeing at the University is melting away the stigma of mental health and approaching mental illness the same as physical illness.  It gives hope for more humane and effective policies in the future.  

To Contact Dr. Steven Siegel, email - [email protected]