Professional Endorsements

"Overall, the impression given is one of stellar competence, professionalism, harmonized with compassion, care and genuine concern for the welfare of patients. This entire package sends a message that The Center is more than a place of hope, but a place of healing." - Timothy R. Jennings, M.D.

About Timothy R. Jennings, M.D.

Timothy R. Jennings, M.D. has been in private practice since 1997 as a Christian psychiatrist and certified master psychopharmacologist. Dr. Jennings is board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He is a specialist in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, a drug-free treatment for depression.

He is a lecturer, international speaker, and author of the widely respected books The God Shaped Brain and Could It Be This Simple? A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind. Dr. Jennings' dynamic, engaging presentations are filled with moving real life stories, practical Biblical wisdom, and powerful life-changing insights.

"You are the only (holistic) eating disorder program in the world that addresses eating disorders with an approach that specifically targets symptoms using cutting edge treatments. If you have a daughter who goes to treatment and then loses the weight again when they come home, then send them to The Center." - Julia Ross

About Julia Ross

Julia Ross is a pioneer in the field of nutritional psychotherapy and a specialist in the treatment of eating disorders and addictions. She has founded and directed six successful recovery programs since 1980 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of her favorite achievements include starting Northern California's first treatment program for food addicts and the area's first programs for drug-addicted adolescents and their families. Receiving a state award for her work with diabetes and addiction in California's Native American tribal clinics is another of her most treasured achievements.

In 1980, Ross began hiring nutritionists to research the link between biochemistry, emotions, and addiction. By 1986 this exploration had led to the creation of an exciting new model of treatment that combined innovative nutritional therapy and holistic medical care with conventional counseling and education. This new model gave hope to the 90% of addicts of all kinds who were unable to sustain recovery through traditional programs. In 1988 Ross founded The Recovery Systems Clinic in Mill Valley, California, an outpatient program that further developed this model, with a special focus on treating people with dieting disorders and carbohydrate addictions.

Ross is a popular and compelling speaker who has made hundreds of presentations to introduce the public to the extraordinary benefits of nutrient therapy and biochemical rebalancing. In addition to a busy lecture schedule in California and throughout the US and Canada, Julia provides intensive trainings for professionals on how to successfully treat eating disorders, mood problems and chemical dependency. She has frequently taught courses in John F. Kennedy University's graduate psychology program in Orinda, California, and at the University of California, Berkeley Extension's Addiction Counseling Certificate Program.

Ross' best-selling book, THE MOOD CURE, has sold over 150,000 copies in the U.S, the U.K. and Australia. When THE MOOD CURE book proposal was first sent to the New York publishing houses it created a sensation. Seven publishers bid on it because of its unique approach to the top selling subject in America: Dieting. Julia has recently completed a second book, The Mood Cure, released in paperback in 2004 and a finalist for "The Books for a Better Life Award." The many publications that have featured Ross' work include: Psychology Today, San Francisco Examiner Magazine, Alternative Medicine and Natural Health.

Ross has frequently appeared as an expert on radio and television programs. Her first national TV appearance, on a 1997 news segment about the use of amino acid therapy to stop carb cravings, generated 50,000 calls to the producers.

Julia holds an M.A. in Clinical Psychology, as well as a California marriage and family therapy license. She is the Executive Director of The Recovery Systems Clinic in Mill Valley, California.

Review of Dr. Jantz's whole-person approach to treating depression by A. Hoffer MD PhD FRCP(C)

Depression as I knew it in 1950 was not the same as the depressions we see today. It was much more severe, carried a greater suicide risk and was narrower in range. Not as many people were caught in its diagnostic web. It was probably just as common but fewer people with depression thought it was a disease and sought medical or psychiatric help. The patients whose disease w a s so severe they had no option found that treatment was very primitive as the only treatment that was really effective was electro convulsive therapy (ECT) recently introduced into psychiatry and given to patients who had been admitted to hospital. We had no antidepressant drugs. The only treatment that had widespread acceptance was psychotherapy which was rarely very effective but at least provided support to these patients until by unknown natural recovery processes they came out of their depressions. Many controlled studies had difficulty proving that psychotherapy alone was of any great value and it did not matter which particular type of psychotherapy was used. I remember one of my patients, a rancher in Sas-katchewan, who was dreadfully depressed. I was then in my psychotherapy mode and in the hospital I saw him three hours each week . Nothing happened. I got tired seeing no response and I am sure he also dreaded it until one day I began to talk about playing bridge. He was a good player and that became the topic of our discussions. He began to improve and in one month I was able to discharge him well. I still think that he was going to get well anyway and that I made it less tedious for him by talking about something that meant something to him. All that stuff about his childhood was meaningless to him.

We recognized two types of depression. Psychotic depression for which ECT was the treatment of choice and probably still is and neurotic depression for which psychotherapy was the treatment of choice. The vast number of people who now and then suffered moderate or severe depression was left undiagnosed and untreated and apparently they did just as well.

Psychoanalysis was considered an advanced form of psychotherapy and was widely used for dealing with depression. I was never convinced that it was helpful from what I had read and after hearing Dr. Karl Menninger, the great American psychoanalyst tell us at a seminar that in his opinion psychoanalyses was not a treatment but a research procedure. And even if it had worked it was only available in larger centers for the few who could afford the time and money.

The fact that ECT was effective for so many suggested that there was a physiological basis for depression. This was reinforced when the first serendipitous antidepressant was discovered. A drug used for treating tuberculosis also made many patients more cheerful. This led to the amine oxidase inhibitors which are still in use and later the tricyclics such as Elavil. These were followed by the modern drugs such as prozac which in my opinion are not generally any better but provide a much wider variety of choice for the patients who no longer respond to the older medication.

Between 1950 and 1970 psychological theories and treatment were so well ingrained that companies advertising the new drugs insisted that they were there only to be used as adjuncts to psychotherapy. Looking back at that period I believe they were on the right track in making these claims. But the new drugs when they worked were rapidly effective. It took a few weeks rather than months of psychotherapy. Eventually the emphasis was almost entirely on the use of drugs and psychotherapy, which is helpful, fell by the wayside. Psychiatrists still pay lip service to the need for psychotherapy but their behavior does not support this.

The dichotomy physical and psychological was replaced by the trichotomy by introducing biochemistry as another important aspect of depression. Orthomolecular psychiatry showed that there is no single disease called depression. The mood depression, that terrible feeling of sadness, anxiety, futility and suicidal ideas is the end result of a number of biochemical ab-normalities, which had not been recognized. These include those depressions caused by food allergies, by vitamin deficiency by vitamin dependencies, by excess of some toxic mineral, by deficiency of zinc for example. What we now need is a different term-for each one-of these depressions. Eskimos have about a dozen terms to describe snow. Why should a person depressed for years because they are eating a food to which they are allergic be labeled the same way as a person how is depressed because they have lost a loved one or failed in business, or are depressed because they are dying of Cancer. We do not have these terms but we do know much more about these other factors that cause depression and which must be taken into account when treating these patients.

This book by Dr Jantz is really wholistic. He recognizes these factors, which cause depression, as well as the psychosocial factors. Of the ten chapters the first six deals with these psycho-social factors such as pressure of life, family dynamics, relationships and in the remainder of his good book he also deals with biochemical factors. He is practicing orthomolecular psychology using the right diet, the correct nutrients as supplements and putting them all together with an excellent psychotherapy. For the novice in this integrated wholistic approach he has a very useful resource list of books, many of which I have and approve.

I wrote a brief foreword for this book. This I would not have done had I not liked the book.