Daniel J. Benor

Daniel J. Benor (born July 13, 1941) is an American physician and psychiatrist residing in Canada, now practicing as a wholistic psychotherapist, teacher and author on many aspects of wholistic self-healing self-healing, editor-in-chief of the peer reviewed, open access International Journal of Healing and Caring, motivational speaker and consultant for wholistic healing research. Benor has always practiced psychotherapy, including wholistic approaches, starting in the days when psychiatry was mostly psychotherapy. Please note that Benor deliberately identifies his work as 'wholistic', to indicate he helps people address issues on every level of their being: body, emotions, mind, relationships with other people and with the environment, and spirit. The more commonly used term, 'holistic', is often applied to the use of complementary/alternative therapy modalities. People might teach more limited aspects of whole person care, such as meditation or biofeedback, or use acupuncture for pain management, and call themselves 'holistic,' but not address the whole spectrum of a person's being.

Personal life

Benor was born in New York City. His mother, Ethel Benor, trained as an Occupational Therapist Occupational Therapist and established the School for Occupational Therapy and Rehabilitation at Hadassah Medical Center Hadassah Medical Center in Israel Israel. His father, Judah Leon Benor, was Assistant Director of Arab Education in Israel, and consultant to the World Bank World Bank of the United Nations United Nations after his retirement. Dr. Benor's younger brother, David Benor, is Associate General Counsel, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Education

Benor relates that when he was searching for a career in his teen years and discovered psychotherapy psychotherapy, he could hardly believe a person would actually get paid for doing something so interesting. He completed a BA in Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), finishing a four-year course of studies in two and a half years. He was the second youngest student in his class at UCLA Medical School David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, completing his studies in five years, with an extra year in psychiatric research at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, under a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health National Institute of Mental Health. He studied psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati University of Cincinnati Department of Psychiatry; (serving in the US Air Force Medical Service US Air Force Medical Service during the Viet Nam War Viet Nam War, after his first year in psychiatric training); Colorado Psychiatric Hospital, Denver Denver, Colorado Colorado; and Denver General Hospital; followed by a Psychiatric Fellowship in Community Psychiatry, at Denver General Hospital. A perennial student of whole person care, Benor has pursued a broad range of trainings in many aspects of healing approaches, including intuition Intuition (knowledge) and spiritual awareness, spiritual healing (as in Therapeutic Touch and Reiki), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) EMDR, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Emotional Freedom Techniques, family systems therapy (Externship at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, a part of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) with Salvador Minuchin and other gifted family therapists), transactional analysis, gestalt therapy, hypnotherapy, meditation, imagery, relaxation, dream analysis, behavioral therapies, and other approaches. Benor developed and teaches a self-healing method he developed called WHEE - Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT, with early research indicating it is as effective as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Benor is a founding diplomat of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine (ABIHM)

Career

Benor worked as a psychiatric psychotherapist in a school psychology service, and in a Kibbutz Kibbutz Child and Family Clinic in Israel, and in various mental health centers in the US, gradually shifting to increasingly wholistic approaches. He preferred to continue in his chosen career of wholistic psychiatric psychotherapy rather than shifting under the pressures of insurance company compensation that led US psychiatrists to abandon psychotherapy for the prescription of psychoactive medications.

Benor worked in England for ten years, where he had a private practice of wholistic psychotherapy half time and half time investigated spiritual healing, and healing through focused intent/ meditation/ prayer (distinguished from 'faith healing'), healing as offered through varieties of healing organizations in the UK and related methods. He founded the Doctor-Healer Network-UK, and wrote a series of books on Healing Research which have been widely acclaimed as the definitive work in this field. He continues till today to facilitate and supervise research in spiritual healing through teaching at Langara College in Vancouver and Energy Medicine University in California.

Benor returned to the US in 1997 and was frustrated by the limited time allowed by US managed care and insurance companies for psychiatric sessions (15–20 minutes, once a month – compared with 1–2 hours weekly that had been covered by insurance in the early years of his psychiatric psychotherapy career). In the wish to continue offering psychotherapy within the very restricted time limitations that were available, he learned two brief, potent methods of therapy: EMDR and EFT. Each had its limitations in Dr. Benor's practice. EMDR produces heavy emotional releases and is therefore recommended for use only in the therapist's office. This limited its use to people in Benor's practice. EFT is safe for home use and was a little better accepted in Benor's practice, but people complained that when they most needed EFT – when they had severe stress or panic reactions – they could not remember the long series of acupressure points to tap on. Others (particularly children) were embarrassed to use EFT in public; and children with ADHD had no patience for the long procedure. Benor found that by combining the right and left side tapping on the body (from EMDR) with affirmations (from EFT), people had an easily learned, easily remembered method that works rapidly and deeply to relieve pains and stress reactions of all sorts. Benor calls this method WHEE: Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT. A pilot research study confirms that WHEE is as helpful for exam anxiety as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and further research with WHEE is in progress. WHEE enables people to identify how their how pain developed; how it is maintained and perpetuated by the unconscious mind and higher self; and how it can be released through wholistic self-healing.

Benor is Editor-in-Chief of the open access, peer reviewed International Journal of Healing and Caring, which fills a unique niche in the literature on healing, offering diverse windows of clinical, theoretical and research understandings of wholistic healing, including also the creative arts as healing. Benor is a Professor at Energy Medicine University in California, where he teaches distant learning courses on WHEE and Phenomenology Research in Wholisitic Spiritual Healing. He also teaches WHEE and Wholistic Transformational Therapy in the Integrative Energy Healing department at Langara College in Vancouver, BC. In 2001 Benor founded and for 7 years was the Coordinator of the Council for Healing, a group of doctors, nurses and other caregivers and teachers involved with healing whose mission is to promote understanding of healing and advance access to healing. See, for instance, the collection of research references of healing on the Council for Healing website. He continues to be an active member on this Council.

Dr. Benor moderates a major informational website on Wholistic Healing Research, which includes references on remarkable recoveries from medically incurable illnesses; spiritual healing research studies; spiritual healing research methodologies; complementary/alternative therapies and integrative care; and numerous articles on wholistic healing. In 2006 Benor moved to Guelph, Ontario, Canada (near Toronto), where he teaches wholistic healing. He is also active in the Transition Guelph group, one of many Transition Town groups around the world, working to develop planetary healing awareness through local initiatives that address peak oil, greenhouse gas emissions, environmental pollution and other challenges to our collective survival.

Guiding Philosophy

Benor believes that each conscious being in the universe is part of a cosmic consciousness. Benor teaches that by understanding and integrating body, emotions, mind, relationships (with other people and with the environment) and spirit we achieve the greatest possible harmonization of our being and achieve maximal health. Benor believes that the best healthcare is wholistic integrative care Integrative medicine, which involves assessments and treatments through complementary/alternative therapies combined with assessments and treatments with conventional medical care. Benor believes that insight and understanding are best achieved through experiential learning. WHEE invites people to connect with their unconscious wisdom to access information about what their body is telling them through physical symptoms. This body dialogue alone is often sufficient for much of people's physical symptoms to lessen. Pains in particular may decrease significantly within minutes through this approach. Then, through reciting affirmations Affirmations (New Age) while tapping on the right and left sides of the body, people often report that their physical symptoms completely clear away. This process is facilitated by including explorations of stresses and supports in people's relationships, and by adding spiritual components to the affirmations. Benor believes that self-healing is involved in all therapies, whether with conventional or complementary/ alternative approaches. He teaches that promoting self-healing is the best way to help people because this empowers them to understand that they can contribute to their own health and healing. "It is better to teach a person to fish than to give them a fish." While the medical profession has labeled self-healing as 'placebo reactions' and tends towards disparaging these as 'sugar pill reactions,' Benor believes that the goal of good treatment is to encourage and promote such self-healings as much as possible. In fact, medications work better when self-healing is activated and encouraged by the doctor, and side effects of medications can be alleviated with self-healing through WHEE.

BOOKS

Benor's writing has focused on research and clinical practice of wholistic healing. His Healing Research Series, volumes I-III are considered classics in the Complementary/ Alternative and Integrative Therapies literature. Each volume has 600+ pages, with over 1,500 references.

Seven Minutes to Natural Pain Release: Pain is a Choice and Suffering is Optional - WHEE for Tapping Your Pain Away. Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2009 (2nd Ed)

Benor, Daniel J, Healing Research: Volume I, (Popular edition) Spiritual Healing: Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution, Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2007 (Orig. 2001)

Benor, Daniel J, Healing Research: Volume I, Spiritual Healing: Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution – Professional Supplement, Orig. Southfield, MI: Vision Publications, 2001.

Benor, Daniel J. Healing Research, Volume II: (Professional edition) Consciousness, Bioenergy and Healing, Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2004. ISBN 0-9754248-0-7

Benor, Daniel J. Healing Research, Volume II: (Popular edition) How Can I Heal What Hurts? Wholistic Healing and Bioenergies, Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2005 0-9754248-3-1 Benor, Daniel J. Healing Research, Volume III: Personal Spirituality: Science, Spirit and the Eternal Soul. Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications (2006)

He has published more than 150 articles and book chapters on Wholistic Healing. Link to: http://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/articles.html

Here are a few of his more popular articles:

Benor, Daniel J. 2010 Alternating Brain Hemisphere Activity and Bilateral Brain Stimulation with WHEE, Hypnosis Research Institute

Benor, Daniel J. Ledger, Karen. Toussaint, Loren. Hett, Geoffrey. Zaccaro, Daniel. 2009 Pilot Study of Emotional Freedom Techniques, Wholistic Hybrid Derived from Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and Emotional Freedom Technique, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment of Test Anxiety in University Students, Explore, Nov-Dec, 5(6), 338-340. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7MF9-4XP1RHH-9&_user=122861&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000010080&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=122861&md5=8c4595637598da2efce5e65c8aab7ba1 (Demonstrating significant effects of WHEE and EFT in only 2 sessions, compared with 5 sessions required with CBT.)

Benor, Daniel J. 2005 Self-healing interventions for clinical practice: Brief psychotherapy with WHEE – the Wholistic hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT, Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 11, 270-274.

Benor, Daniel J. 2005 Clearing the vessel through which healing pours (Editorial), International J Healing & Caring – On line 2005, 5(2), 1-6. Reprinted in Cohen, Marc. The Art & Science of Holistic Health, Melbourne, Australia: Australasian Integrative Medical Association, 40-51.

Benor, Daniel J. 2005 WHEE - the Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT: For stress, pain and allergies, The International Conference on Psychophysiology of Panic Attacks.

Benor, Daniel J. 2003. Survival predictions may hasten death, British Medical J, (quick response) 327(7422), 1048.

Benor, Daniel J. 2003 Wholistic healing: Working as a doctor and as a healer, Positive Health (UK) April, , 87, 16.

Benor, Daniel J. 2002 Energy medicine for the internist, Medical Clinics of North America, 86(1), 105-125. Website copy

Benor, Daniel J. 2001 Spiritual healing research, in: Rankin-Box, Denise (ed), The Nurse’s Handbook of Complementary Therapies, London: Harcourt.

Benor, Daniel J. 1998 Spiritual Healing, chapter in Essentials of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Wayne Jonas and Jeffrey Levin (Eds), Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Benor, Daniel J. 1996 Five questions on intentionality, science, and mind-body medicine. ADVANCES: The Journal of Mind-Body Health Summer, 12(3): 3-39

Benor, Daniel J. 1994 Spiritual Healing and Psychotherapy. The Therapist (UK), 1(4), 37-39. Reprinted in American Psychiatric Association website, section on Complementary/ Alternative therapies PDF

Benor, Daniel J. 1992 Intuitive Diagnosis. Subtle Energies, 3(2), 41-64, Journal of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM). Website copy Re-Entry Protocol for De-Stressing: WHEE for soldiers, rescue workers, children, and others in difficult transitions: For soldiers, children after divorce, released prisoners, people involved in relief programs, and others in stressful, shifting and changing environments. Website copy Wholistic Spiritual Healing: An Ongoing Series, Healthy.net Spiritual Healing as the Energy Side of Einstein's Equation, published on the Esolibris website, focusing on spiritual and esoteric articles, books and e-books (section on Healing Mind and Body). http://www.esolibris.com/articles/healing/spiritual_healing.php

Psychic healing: Research evidence and potential for improving medical care, In: Salmon, J Warren (Ed), Alternative Medicines: Popular and Policy Perspectives, New York/London: Tavistock-Methuen 1984. (This book was selected by the American Journal of Nursing for the 1985 Book of the Year award.)

Benor, Daniel and Ditman, Keith S. 1967. Clinical psychopharmacological research: problems, questions and some suggestions in analyzing reports, Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 7, 63-76.

References

• "Daniel J. Benor". free encyclopedia. 2010. 
• something more about Benor-- http://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/Benor_CV.html
• The Council for Healing-www.councilforhealing.org
• Benor, D. (1994). Spiritual healing and psychotherapy. The Therapist, Winter, 4( 1), 37-39. Brennan, B. (1987). Hands of light: A guide to healing through ...--1994 Spiritual Healing and Psychotherapy
• Representative for the Council for Healing--http://ca.linkedin.com/in/danielbenor

External links

• Wholistic Healing- [1]
• Council for Healing- [2]
• Doctor-Healer Network-UK -[3]

International Journal of Healing and Caring

• Remarkable Recoveries http://www.remarkablerecoveries.com
• WHEE - Wholistic Hybrid derived from EMDR and EFT [4]
• Transition Town Guelph http://www.transitionguelph.org/survey.php?auth=&ndx=If

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Name	Benor, Daniel J.
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Date of birth	July 13, 1941
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