Dr Mark Atkinson MBBS, BSc (HONS), FRIPH, HPC

Dr Mark Atkinson is an Integrated Medical Doctor and one of the UK’s leading experts in integrated medical approaches to mental health and emotional wellbeing.

After graduating in medicine from St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, and having spent a number of years working as a hospital doctor, Dr Mark took the decision to deepen his understanding of complementary and alternative approaches to healing. Traditional medical education, while enjoyable and valuable, didn't provide him with the knowledge and tools to address the underlying emotional, psychological, spiritual, environmental and social challenges that were so obviously influencing the health and wellbeing of so many of his patients. This realisation sparked a transformation in the way he worked with his patients. He now champions a personalised, person empowering whole-person approach to well-being, one that is committed to helping individuals experience their fullest potential for health, healing and personal growth from a place of self-acceptance and self-awareness.

Dr Mark has a busy private practice in Farnham, Surrey from which he provides personalised, integrated medical programmes to his patients. In addition to his clinical work, Dr Mark is the Founder and Co-Director of The British College of Integrated Medicine, Chairman of The British Society of Integrated Medicine, Founder of The Academy of Human Potential, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and Royal Institute of Public Health, and a member of the British Medical Association and the British Holistic Medical Association. He is also an award winning writer, author of The Mind-Body Bible, a lecturer and an experienced workshop facilitator.

My Approach

My goal as an integrated medical doctor is to provide you with a personalised health programme designed to address the underlying factors that are preventing you from experiencing your fullest potential for health, healing and personal growth. How we achieve this depends on you.

For example let’s take the case of depression. The conventional approach is to medicate the person with depression, based on the idea that depression results from an imbalance in neurotransmitters (chemicals that communicate mood). Now this works for a lot of people – but – it doesn’t address the underlying cause of depression. Imbalances of neurotransmitters are not the cause of depression, but the correlates of depression. They occur because of something else - there is a reason that they are imbalanced. Discovering what that those reasons are is part of my job.

One person’s depression for example might be due to a combination of negative thinking styles, significant stress and lack of social connections, another person’s might be related to a combination of nutrient deficiencies, blood-sugar instability, hormonal imbalances and food sensitivities, and another person’s related to addictions and an emotionally traumatic event from the past. The solution for these three people requires an approach that takes into account these very different underlying contributors.

For example

The first person would probably respond best to a combination of stress reduction techniques, guided imagery (to help them rehearse the steps to creating meaningful relationships/friendships), physical exercise and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy

The second person would probably best respond to a healthy eating programme, supplementation including natural antidepressants and hormone balancing approaches, and temporary avoidance of the foods to which they are sensitive.

The third person would probably best respond to a 12-step programme, life skills training and detraumatisation using EmoTrance and/or the Rewind Technique (see below)

You can see that despite all three people having the same diagnosis – depression – each of them have unique reasons for experiencing depression – and because of this, they each require an individualised and flexible approach. This approach is often referred to as integrated medicine – the type of medicine that I practice. 

Can I help you?

My particular area of expertise is the treatment of people with

• depression

• anxiety

• emotionally-induced pain

• emotional trauma

• stress-related illness

• low self-acceptance and self-worth
  

How Do I Assess Your Situation?

I go into this in some detail in the consultations section, but essentially to get an idea of what might be contributing to your health problem, and as importantly, preventing your bodymind from healing, I use a combination of the following:

• Detailed and comprehensive questionnaire

• Evaluation of potential physical, emotional and environmental contributors to your situation using a series of mini-questionnaire

• Scales – to assess severity of the problem – and to monitor your improvement

• Examination

• Testing for nutritional/biochemical imbalances, hormonal problems, food sensitivities, toxicity, gastro-intestinal problems and various other issues

What Approaches Might I Use In Order To Help You?

Here is a summary of the different approaches that I might use with you. The exact combination will depend on you and the condition that you have.

Nutritional Supplementation involves the use of specific nutritional products to help the body overcome a particular health problem. Most people benefit from being on a multivitamin-mineral and essential fatty acid formula, but to really target a particular problem, specific nutrient’s, nutrient combinations and/or herbs may be recommended.

Dietary and lifestyle advice provides the foundations of my health programme. This includes advice on the diet that is best suited to you, for example some people need to be on a high protein, low carbohydrate diet, and others thrive on a low protein, high carbohydrate diet. I might also take a look at issues such as exercise, sleep, your environment, habits, hygiene, and relationships and so – essentially anything that is relevant to helping you achieve your health goals.

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy - gets it name from one of its core messages: to accept what is out of your personal control, while committing to do whatever is in your personal control to improve your quality of life. The aim of ACT is to help people create a rich full and meaningful life, while effectively handling the pain and stress that life inevitably brings. ACT does this by:

      teaching you psychological skills to deal with your painful thoughts and feelings effectively – in such a way that they have much less impact and influence over you. (These are known as mindfulness skills.)

      helping you to clarify what is truly important and meaningful to you  - ie your values - then use that knowledge to guide, inspire and motivate you to change your life for the better.

Guided Imagery is one of my favourite mind-body tools. It focuses and directs the imagination in a way that can help bring about specific conscious goals, support healing and provide insight into a particular life situation or challenge. I use guided imagery with most of my patients.