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The Inner Harmony Group
EDGE RUNNERS
The Inner Harmony Group Edge Runners, a term borrowed from Leland Kaiser, PhD, refers to those people who occupy a zone between the present and future. They inhabit an edge between two eras or cultural mindsets, between a dying world and the new one about to be born. In this feature, EXPLORE celebrates healthcare’s Edge Runners.
eter Amato describes himself as a student of engaged spirituality. Colleagues say he is an integrative medicine pioneer. Others call him a philanthropist, and some members of the press have labeled him a “millionaire playboy turned guru.” But no matter which description you prefer, it’s all true. As a young boy, Amato grew up in Pennsylvania working for his family in their chain of A&A Auto stores. When he and his three siblings came of age, they founded Keystone Automotive, a global automotive distribution company that ultimately rendered the family extremely wealthy. But the good life was a little troubled, and Peter felt restless and unfulfilled. Then, as he was driving down the road one day in his brand new Mercedes, he realized that one more car or one more drink or one more conquest wouldn’t change the underlying unhappiness that colored his life. That’s when he turned inward. “There was a constant therapeutic itch in my life to rediscover who I truly was,” explains Amato. “I found it to be a time to move through denial, fear, and the pride that said all was well. I had no idea what this truly meant, but the calling was from a very deep inner knowing. Then I sat still.” In 1997, after years of study with Tich Nhat Hanh, Amrit Desai, Deepak Chopra, Jon Kabat Zinn, and others, Peter funded and opened The Inner Harmony Wellness Center in Clark Summit, Pennsylvania. The Center offered an integrative approach to health and wellness, combining conventional and alternative care. But
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it also provided a strong educational component designed to “cultivate awareness and empower individuals toward obtaining optimum health and well-being,” explains Amato. Today, the Inner Harmony Wellness Center offers programs in cancer care, cardiovascular health, eating disorders, chronic pain, smoking cessation, weight loss, and stress management. They have had nine years to home their protocols, and, in addition to conventional medicine, they offer acupuncture, chiropractic, energy medicine, massage, nutrition, meditation, mind-body skills, primordial sound, Reiki, yoga, and spiritual counseling. In 2001, Amato opened a second center in collaboration with Mercy Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a third center will open this year in the Pocono Mountains of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. “The unfolding of this model has enabled the Wellness Center to become a laboratory for the future of medicine and well-being,” says Amato. “We see wellness as a state of health created before any disease occurs, a state of being that prevents sickness.” Achieving such a state requires work. “It is a spiritual, as well as mental and physical process,” he says. The Inner Harmony Group, which is a division of the Wellness Center, grew out of Amato’s desire to bring the philosophy of integrative medicine into the corporate world. “Organizations are unbalanced because the people who lead and manage them are in a state of unbalance and disharmony,” says Amato. “It is self-evident that organizations staffed by people functioning at their best will be far more effective and successful than those staffed by unhappy people looking for a way out.” The work started with Inner Harmony’s own staff, but they have since taken their program to the hospice at Mercy Hospital and into small groups at Blue Cross and Geisinger Health System.
104 EXPLORE March 2006, Vol. 2, No. 2
In addition to the business sector, The Inner Harmony Group operates in three other arenas: recovery, healthcare, and education. The healthcare arm, which works in conjunction with the Wellness Centers, received a grant in 2002 from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to work with women recovering from cancer. Forty women participated in the yearlong program, which offered mind-body interventions and stress reduction training. The women, who were evaluated before and after the program, showed significant improvement in five areas—mind, body, emotion, spirit, and interpersonal relationships. Another grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) enabled them to conduct a pilot program on integrative cancer care that used massage therapy, Reiki, and mind-body skills. “The results were good,” says Amato, “and the CDC grant has been funded for a second year. We will be presenting the findings at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting this coming year.” Inner Harmony’s research is conducted by Barry Eisenberg, DO, medical director of the Inner Harmony Center for Integrative Medicine, in collaboration with medical staff from the University of Scranton and Marywood University, both in Pennsylvania. The work in recovery stems from Peter’s own past. He readily admits that he used to have an alcohol and drug problem. “Addiction is the number one problem in the world, but no real investment has been made in the solution. The 12-step was created in the 1930s, so it was built on older paradigms. Hence, we created the Inner Harmony Approach for Enlightened Recovery, which updates the program with what we now know about polarity and consciousness,” explains Amato. “We take the 12-step program and make it come alive. Cultivating a conscious, ongoing contact with a higher power within is at the heart of the work. We are all addicted to something—perhaps thinking?”
Edge Runners
“But in this next iteration, we will be training the teachers to train the students.” Amato’s newest venture is a series of seminars that teach the Inner Harmony Approach to the public. The seminars integrate spiritual concepts, mind-body techniques, breathing practices, yoga, and meditation with the goal of bringing people to a higher state of awareness and function. Amato explains that, “I realized that we must become the source of that which we would like to experience. What is missing in this movement is people’s relationship to themselves as a whole person. There is a denial or disconnect as a people. Our work recontextualizes and frames reintegration with Self in a fresh language but, more importantly, as a direct experience, moving beyond the mind, intellect, and ego.” Although much of The Inner Harmony Group’s work is carried out by others, Amato teaches these courses himself. “This I what I am most passionate about,” he says. “It’s simply who I am.”
Peter Amato Last year, The Inner Harmony Group entered yet another arena— education. They received a grant from the federal Department of Education to deliver a program in the Pennsylvania public schools (grades two through four) that targeted stress alleviation, ability to focus, impulse control, aggression reduc-
Edge Runners
tion, and methods to maximize the joy of learning. One hundred sixty children went through the program, which ultimately resulted in improved test scores and better relationships. “The program, which is really about developing a relationship with silence, has been now been refunded,” says Amato.
For more information on The Inner Harmony Wellness Centers, please visit their Web site at http://innerharmonywellness. com. For more information on the Inner Harmony Group, please visit http://www. innerharmonygroup.com. Matters of Note and Edge Runners are both written by Bonnie J. Horrigan, editorial director for EXPLORE and author of Voices in Integrative Medicine: Conversations and Encounters (Elsevier 2003).
EXPLORE March 2006, Vol. 2, No. 2 105
The Inner Harmony Group Edge Runners, a term borrowed from Leland Kaiser, PhD, refers to those people who occupy a zone between the present and future. They inhabit an edge between two eras or cultural mindsets, between a dying world and the new one about to be born. In this feature, EXPLORE celebrates healthcare’s Edge Runners.
eter Amato describes himself as a student of engaged spirituality. Colleagues say he is an integrative medicine pioneer. Others call him a philanthropist, and some members of the press have labeled him a “millionaire playboy turned guru.” But no matter which description you prefer, it’s all true. As a young boy, Amato grew up in Pennsylvania working for his family in their chain of A&A Auto stores. When he and his three siblings came of age, they founded Keystone Automotive, a global automotive distribution company that ultimately rendered the family extremely wealthy. But the good life was a little troubled, and Peter felt restless and unfulfilled. Then, as he was driving down the road one day in his brand new Mercedes, he realized that one more car or one more drink or one more conquest wouldn’t change the underlying unhappiness that colored his life. That’s when he turned inward. “There was a constant therapeutic itch in my life to rediscover who I truly was,” explains Amato. “I found it to be a time to move through denial, fear, and the pride that said all was well. I had no idea what this truly meant, but the calling was from a very deep inner knowing. Then I sat still.” In 1997, after years of study with Tich Nhat Hanh, Amrit Desai, Deepak Chopra, Jon Kabat Zinn, and others, Peter funded and opened The Inner Harmony Wellness Center in Clark Summit, Pennsylvania. The Center offered an integrative approach to health and wellness, combining conventional and alternative care. But
P
it also provided a strong educational component designed to “cultivate awareness and empower individuals toward obtaining optimum health and well-being,” explains Amato. Today, the Inner Harmony Wellness Center offers programs in cancer care, cardiovascular health, eating disorders, chronic pain, smoking cessation, weight loss, and stress management. They have had nine years to home their protocols, and, in addition to conventional medicine, they offer acupuncture, chiropractic, energy medicine, massage, nutrition, meditation, mind-body skills, primordial sound, Reiki, yoga, and spiritual counseling. In 2001, Amato opened a second center in collaboration with Mercy Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a third center will open this year in the Pocono Mountains of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. “The unfolding of this model has enabled the Wellness Center to become a laboratory for the future of medicine and well-being,” says Amato. “We see wellness as a state of health created before any disease occurs, a state of being that prevents sickness.” Achieving such a state requires work. “It is a spiritual, as well as mental and physical process,” he says. The Inner Harmony Group, which is a division of the Wellness Center, grew out of Amato’s desire to bring the philosophy of integrative medicine into the corporate world. “Organizations are unbalanced because the people who lead and manage them are in a state of unbalance and disharmony,” says Amato. “It is self-evident that organizations staffed by people functioning at their best will be far more effective and successful than those staffed by unhappy people looking for a way out.” The work started with Inner Harmony’s own staff, but they have since taken their program to the hospice at Mercy Hospital and into small groups at Blue Cross and Geisinger Health System.
104 EXPLORE March 2006, Vol. 2, No. 2
In addition to the business sector, The Inner Harmony Group operates in three other arenas: recovery, healthcare, and education. The healthcare arm, which works in conjunction with the Wellness Centers, received a grant in 2002 from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to work with women recovering from cancer. Forty women participated in the yearlong program, which offered mind-body interventions and stress reduction training. The women, who were evaluated before and after the program, showed significant improvement in five areas—mind, body, emotion, spirit, and interpersonal relationships. Another grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) enabled them to conduct a pilot program on integrative cancer care that used massage therapy, Reiki, and mind-body skills. “The results were good,” says Amato, “and the CDC grant has been funded for a second year. We will be presenting the findings at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting this coming year.” Inner Harmony’s research is conducted by Barry Eisenberg, DO, medical director of the Inner Harmony Center for Integrative Medicine, in collaboration with medical staff from the University of Scranton and Marywood University, both in Pennsylvania. The work in recovery stems from Peter’s own past. He readily admits that he used to have an alcohol and drug problem. “Addiction is the number one problem in the world, but no real investment has been made in the solution. The 12-step was created in the 1930s, so it was built on older paradigms. Hence, we created the Inner Harmony Approach for Enlightened Recovery, which updates the program with what we now know about polarity and consciousness,” explains Amato. “We take the 12-step program and make it come alive. Cultivating a conscious, ongoing contact with a higher power within is at the heart of the work. We are all addicted to something—perhaps thinking?”
Edge Runners
“But in this next iteration, we will be training the teachers to train the students.” Amato’s newest venture is a series of seminars that teach the Inner Harmony Approach to the public. The seminars integrate spiritual concepts, mind-body techniques, breathing practices, yoga, and meditation with the goal of bringing people to a higher state of awareness and function. Amato explains that, “I realized that we must become the source of that which we would like to experience. What is missing in this movement is people’s relationship to themselves as a whole person. There is a denial or disconnect as a people. Our work recontextualizes and frames reintegration with Self in a fresh language but, more importantly, as a direct experience, moving beyond the mind, intellect, and ego.” Although much of The Inner Harmony Group’s work is carried out by others, Amato teaches these courses himself. “This I what I am most passionate about,” he says. “It’s simply who I am.”
Peter Amato Last year, The Inner Harmony Group entered yet another arena— education. They received a grant from the federal Department of Education to deliver a program in the Pennsylvania public schools (grades two through four) that targeted stress alleviation, ability to focus, impulse control, aggression reduc-
Edge Runners
tion, and methods to maximize the joy of learning. One hundred sixty children went through the program, which ultimately resulted in improved test scores and better relationships. “The program, which is really about developing a relationship with silence, has been now been refunded,” says Amato.
For more information on The Inner Harmony Wellness Centers, please visit their Web site at http://innerharmonywellness. com. For more information on the Inner Harmony Group, please visit http://www. innerharmonygroup.com. Matters of Note and Edge Runners are both written by Bonnie J. Horrigan, editorial director for EXPLORE and author of Voices in Integrative Medicine: Conversations and Encounters (Elsevier 2003).
EXPLORE March 2006, Vol. 2, No. 2 105