We look at the whole picture, the entire lived experience that influences health.
Our work examines health through many lenses that intersect, and it often helps people who are underserved or experiencing trauma — for example, veterans suffering from PTSD, children with serious illness, low-income residents grappling with systemic racism and neglect, and others.
The Nova Institute for Health is a heart-centered think tank that takes action for the good of people, places, and the planet. We look at the whole picture, the entire lived experience that influences health.
A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, the Nova Institute was founded in 2007 by Professor Brian Berman, MD, a pioneer in the field of integrative medicine. Cultivating a broad, transdisciplinary community of thought leaders and partners, the Nova Institute has established an international reputation as a place for exploration and discovery.
If we look at the grand, interconnected challenges of our times—the unequal burden of disease, poor nutritional quality of the food system, racial, social and economic injustice—we see the urgency for taking a more upstream and integrative approach that will ultimately promote well-being and flourishing.”
After founding the United States’s first academic health center program for integrative medicine (The Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine) in 1991, Professor Brian Berman helped ignite and lead a profound change in medical practice that focused on whole person care. Professor Berman was honored with the prestigious Bravewell Leadership Award for Integrative Medicine in 2005 in acknowledgement of his leadership.
With the founding of The Institute for Integrative Health in 2007, the focus of this work broadened to look at all the factors that create health or drive illness and the eventual need for medical care.
Since then, Professor Berman and his team of thought leaders have inspired innovative, evidence-based research, strategic partnerships, scientific publications, and action in academic medical centers and communities that have led to significant advances in health and healing. Professor Berman’s team has:
Been awarded decades of funding from the National Institutes of Health for research that has shown the safety and effectiveness of integrative approaches to health;
Nurtured a community of integrative and innovative thought leaders who have authored close to 1,000 scientific, peer-reviewed publications;
Made breakthroughs in research about the healing potential of art and nature, nutrition, and more comprehensive primary care;
Pioneered research methodologies and metrics that evaluate the real-life impact of holistic care for those suffering from chronic illness as well as trauma;
Opened the Green Road at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the nation’s largest wild healing garden, which has provided more than 12,000 servicemen and women and their families with a way to find respite and sustenance through an encounter with nature;
Published Building Bridges, Defining Metrics, a consensus report from divergent stakeholders on how to successfully implement and evaluate community-based programs aimed at improving the health of urban and disadvantaged youth; and
Helped establish influential professional and scientific networks and organizations, such as the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health and the Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field, that promote global collaboration and nurture advances in clinical care and research endeavors.
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Over the past thirty years, we’ve been part of a movement to shift the primary approach to health from a focus on disease to a more complete approach. As reflected in our tagline, “For Health of People, Places, and Planet,” how we are building on “person health” and looking at the context of peoples’ lives and communities as well as the health of the planet we all share.
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Healing is facilitated through safety, persistence, and trust.
Resources support us as we heal. They include reframing, responsibility, and positivity. “Making connections enabled participants to acquire and refine resources and skills that were essential in their healing journey. People also brought their own personal strengths to the journey.”
“Connection to others was an essential part of all the healing journeys.” Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of us need close relationships. Friends and family add meaning and value to life and help support us, in good times and bad.
When we experience relational trauma, relationships can feel scary, but reestablishing safety and trust in relationships is where the healing happens. (To be clear, we do not mean reestablishing safety and trust with abusers, but rather finding other healing relationships.)
“When safety and trust had been established, people were able to connect with helpers. The nature of the behaviours of helpers that fostered healing ranged from small acts of kindness to unconditional love.”
Healing probably means different things to different people, but one definition that emerged from the study is: “The re-establishment of a sense of integrity and wholeness.”
Healing was an emergent property that resulted from each individuals’ complex healing journey, a result of bridged connections between resources and relationships. “…they gradually found relief from suffering and began to exhibit emergent characteristics: a sense of hope, self-acceptance, and a desire to help others—the immediate precursors to healing.”
In varying degrees, “they were able to transcend their suffering and in some sense to flourish.”
Suffering is the ongoing pain from wounding.
There is debate about whether or not one actually needs to experience suffering on the path to healing.
Wounding happens when we experience physical or emotional harm. It can stem from chronic illness or by physical or psychological trauma for which we do not have the tools to cope, or a combination of those factors.
“The degree and quality of suffering experienced by each individual is framed by contextual factors that include personal characteristics, timing of their initial or ongoing wounding in the developmental life cycle and prior and current relationships.”
Characteristics: How predisposed someone may be to wounding/how many tools and resources someone may have to deal with trauma/illness.
Lifestages: Developmental timing plays an important role in the impact of trauma — young children often do not have the same resources as older adults.
Relationships: Relationships can provide solace and support for those suffering, while lack of healthy relationships can prolong suffering.
