Christiane Northrup, MD

The 2001 Golden Lectureship was the inaugural lecture, and we were honored to have Dr. Christiane Northrup as the recipient of the Lawrence and Nancy Golden Lectureship at the University at Buffalo.

Dr. Northrup is the best selling author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom. Published in 1998, this book was praised by the New York Times and made the best sellers list.

Her second book, The Wisdom of Menopause, was similarly well received, especially by the millions of women who wanted to know more about their unique medical and psychological issues.

At the time of the lecture, in 2001, Dr. Norhtrup was also editor of a monthly newsletter called Health Wisdom for Women.

Dr. Northrup has been something of a television regular. She was featured in four PBS specials and interviewed on the Oprah Winfrey show, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News (with Tom Brokaw), the View and Good Morning America.

Dr. Northrup’s lecture focused on what she calls scientific reductionism as the origin of the mind and body split. She carefully crafts an explanation for the separation of mind and body issues and explains how this has interfered with medical practice and scientific understanding of most medical problems faced today. Of course, most of her examples came from the medical issues faced by women who have perhaps suffered more from reductionist thinking. Dr. Northrup then provided the audience of medical students and faculty with a discussion of healing versus curing. She described the important role of physicians in meeting the spiritual and psychological needs of patients as part of the healing process.