Leslie Korn spent 10 years living among indigenous people in the jungles of Mexico, and that experience honed her awareness of the link between nutrition, physiology, and the sense of well-being that we call optimal mental health. It informs her writing and pioneering work using nutrition and natural medicine in the treatment of mental health, cognitive function, chronic illness, and pain.
Since psychotherapists are not routinely trained to factor in the role of nutrition, Leslie’s focus on why and how to incorporate nutritional interventions is especially important and useful right now. This is how Leslie explains it:
The primary principle to understand is this: Where there is mental imbalance or mental illness, there is always digestive illness. Our mental health is predicated not only on our experiences in the external world, but on our internal landscape. And that internal landscape is biochemical. So whether we’re working with someone who is simply extremely stressed or someone dealing with chronic depression, anxiety, panic, or PTSD, there are always biochemical and physiological components. Those components are always affected by nutrition.
Here, Leslie illustrates how the body’s response to chronic stress can feed depression, and she lays the groundwork for including the biological and physiological systems as part of effective treatment.
Rich Simon
Richard Simon, PhD, founded Psychotherapy Networker and served as the editor for more than 40 years. He received every major magazine industry honor, including the National Magazine Award. Rich passed away November 2020, and we honor his memory and contributions to the field every day.
Leslie Korn
Leslie Korn, PhD, MPH, LMHC, ACS, RPP, NTP, NCBTMB, is a renowned integrative medicine clinician and educator specializing in the use of nutritional, herbal and culinary medicine for the treatment of trauma and emotional and chronic physical illness. Her clinical practice focuses on providing clients effective alternatives to psychotropics. She is licensed and certified in nutritional therapy, mental health counseling, and bodywork (Polarity and Cranial Sacral and medical massage therapies) and is an approved clinical supervisor. She is the author of the seminal book on the body and complex trauma Rhythms of Recovery: Trauma, Nature and the Body (Routledge, 2012), Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health (W.W. Norton, 2016), Eat Right Feel Right: Over 80 Recipes and Tips to Improve Mood, Sleep, Attention & Focus (PESI, 2017), Multicultural Counseling Workbook: Exercises, Worksheets & Games to Build Rapport with Diverse Clients (PESI, 2015) and The Good Mood Kitchen (W.W. Norton, 2017). Her latest book, The Brainbow Blueprint: A Clinical Guide to Integrative Medicine and Nutrition for Wellbeing, will be out the spring of 2023. To learn more, go to her website: drlesliekorn.com.
