About
Short Bio:
Lissa Rankin, MD, is an OB/GYN physician, author of 7 books, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute and the non-profit Heal At Last, and an encaustic artist who researches radical remission, trauma-informed medicine, and spiritual healing. She teaches memoir writing for therapeutic purposes, in addition to being an educator of Internal Family Systems (IFS). Her TEDx talks have been viewed over 6 million times, and she starred in two National Public Television specials. Lissa is currently co-writing her eighth book with Harvard psychiatrist Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv about the link between relational trauma and medical illness, focusing on how healthy boundaries and Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy can help reverse diseases related to nervous system dysregulation caused by traumatizing relationships. Lissa lives with her partner Jeff Rediger and her housemate April Sweazy in the Bay Area, now that her daughter has flown the nest. She thrives on daily hikes in nature, dancing with her Bay Area dance community, singing, writing, DJ’ing music whenever she can, and healthy gourmet cooking.
Long Bio:
Lissa Rankin, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Mind Over Medicine and six other books, is a former OB/GYN physician, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute training program for doctors and therapists, radical remission researcher, and founder of the health equity, trauma healing based non-profit Heal At Last. After leaving her job in conventional medicine in 2007, Lissa began experimenting in her integrative medicine practice with what really helps resolve symptoms in people with chronic illness who have failed to improve with either conventional medicine or alternative medicine. All roads led to the same conclusion: People who are not responding to other treatments often have untreated, unhealed trauma, and treating that trauma can sometimes lead to seemingly miraculous radical remissions.
Upon realizing this epiphany, Lissa became a passionate ambassador for raising awareness about the importance of treating trauma as both preventive medicine and medical treatment for hard-to-treat mental and physical illnesses. Because old school psychoanalysis (talk therapy) and therapies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) do not effectively treat trauma on their own, and because medication, surgeries, and even most alternative medicine or spiritual healing techniques, such as acupuncture, meditation, or energy healing, only treat the symptoms of trauma, Lissa became a devoted student of many forms of trauma therapy, including Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.’s Internal Family Systems (IFS), Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing, Lawrence Heller’s NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), and Asha Clinton, Ph.D.’s Advanced Integrative Therapy (AIT.) She also teaches about spiritual bypassing recovery for those who have used spirituality as a way to avoid healing their trauma.
In addition to her public health advocacy and health care reform activism, Lissa leads workshops- online, at US retreat centers like Esalen, 1440, Omega, and Kripalu, and internationally. During the pandemic, Lissa played a public role in debunking “Conspirituality,” the Covid denialism, anti-vaccination propaganda, and conspiracy theories promoted by many wellness, yoga, mind-body medicine, alternative medicine, and spirituality influencers who got “red-pilled” during 2020. This shakeout anchored her as a physician influencer to trust who is grounded in science, open to the mystical, spiritually aware, and trauma-informed. Lissa is currently co-writing her eighth book with Harvard psychiatrist Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv about the link between relational trauma and medical illness and how healthy boundaries and Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy can help reverse diseases related to nervous system dysregulation caused by relational trauma. Lissa lives with her partner Jeff Rediger and her housemate April Sweazy in the Bay Area, now that her daughter has flown the nest. She thrives on daily hikes in nature, dancing with her Bay Area dance community, singing, writing, DJ’ing music whenever she can, and healthy gourmet cooking.