James Lake

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James Lake, MD

James Lake, M.D., is a Board-certified psychiatrist who practices on the central California coast. He has chaired symposia and workshops at APA meetings and other national and international conferences on complementary, alternative and integrative mental health care.

He has served as a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford and the University of Arizona School of Medicine. He is on the faculty of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and is an adjunct research fellow at Australia’s National Institute of Complementary Medicine.

He founded and chaired the American Psychiatric Association’s Caucus on Complementary, Alternative and Integrative Medicine from 2004 through 2010 and was a founding member and former chair of the International Network of Integrative Mental Health. Lake has completed intensive courses in medical acupuncture, botanical medicine, EEG biofeedback and traditional Tibetan medicine.

Lake has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters on integrative medicine and psychiatry, contributes a regular column on integrative mental health care to Psychiatric Times, and serves on the editorial review boards of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Journal of the Association for Advances in Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology, and Jour of Clinical Psychiatry.

He is the author or editor of 5 textbooks: Chinese Medical Psychiatry: A Clinical Manual, (with Bob Flaws), Blue Poppy Press, 2000; Textbook of Integrative Mental Health Care, Thieme, 2006; Complementary and Alternative Treatments in Mental Health Care (co-edited with David Spiegel), American Psychiatric Press, 2007; Integrative Mental Health Care: A Therapist’s Handbook, Norton, 2009; and An Integrative Paradigm for Mental Health Care: Ideas and Methods Shaping the Future, Springer, 2019.

In addition to his academic writings, Lake has authored a series of 10 e-books intended for patients on safe, effective and affordable non-pharmacologic treatments of common mental health problems including depressed mood, anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse, and sleep disturbances.

You may find links to all of his publications on his website, Progressive Psychiatry.

Articles by James Lake

Urgent Need for Improved Mental Health Care and a More Collaborative Model of Care

This article reviews challenges facing mental health care and proposes an agenda for developing a collaborative care model in primary care settings that incorporates conventional biomedical therapies and complementary and alternative medicine approaches.

An Integrative Collaborative Care Model for People With Mental Illness and Physical Comorbidities

Lake's paper is a brief review of findings on common patterns of comorbidity in mental illness, followed by identification of limitations of conventional treatments, and potential applications of integrative medicine interventions. Advantages and challenges of integrative mental health care, collaborative models of care, review of research highlights of select integrative approaches, and comment on potential cost advantages are discussed.

Integrative Mental Health Care Is Addressing the Limitations of Conventional and CAM Treatments and Current Models of Care

The paradigm of integrative medicine has emerged in response to the limitations of the current model of care. Integrative medicine affirms the importance of the relationship between practitioner and patient, focuses on the whole person, is informed by research evidence, incorporating diverse treatment approaches with the goals of achieving optimal wellness, preventing relapse, and improving outcomes.

Emerging Approaches for Assessing Cognitive Impairment

New research shows the benefits of innovative new approaches for assessment of memory loss and other problems in cognitive functioning including quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG), virtual reality tools, and measuring copper, zinc, iron and vitamin D levels in the blood.

The Integrative Management of Depressed Mood in Pregnancy: What the Evidence Suggests

Depression during pregnancy and after delivery is quite common and can have a huge impact on the baby. Dr. Lake presents the pros and cons of many approaches from referenced research to help new moms.

Diet and Other Lifestyle Factors Reduce Alzheimer's Disease Risk

Positive findings of studies on diet in dementia are confounded by the fact that individuals who follow healthy dietary preferences also engage in other health-promoting behaviors that reduce risk of dementia, for example regular exercise and moderate alcohol consumption. These findings have led to recent studies on so-called ‘multi-modal’ interventions aimed at identifying specific combinations of lifestyle factors that play the most significant roles in preventing or delaying onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dietary Modification and Natural Supplements for Treating ADHD: What the Evidence Suggests

Children and adolescents with ADHD should be checked for deficiencies in zinc, iron and omega-3s. There is emerging evidence that select botanicals may be effective against ADHD. For example, preliminary findings suggest that some compound herbal formulas used in Chinese medicine may reduce symptoms on ADHD.

Articles related to James Lake

An Integrative Paradigm for Mental Healthcare

This crucial volume provides a concise overview of the conceptual foundations and clinical methods underlying the rapidly emerging sub-specialty of integrative mental healthcare. It discusses methods for guiding practitioners to individualized integrative strategies that address unique symptoms and circumstances for each patient and includes practical clinical techniques for developing interventions addressed at wellness, prevention, and treatment.