Joan is a distinguished pioneer in integrative medicine and a world-renowned expert in the mind/body connection. Her work has been foundational in an international health-care revolution that recognizes the role of meaning and the spiritual dimensions of life, as integral parts of health and healing.

Eloquent and inspiring in settings that range from hospitals to hospices, from theaters to conference venues, and from boardrooms to houses of worship, she is a credible bridge between faith and reason. Her brilliance, humor and authenticity – in combination with the latest research – make her a compelling and inspiring teacher, speaker and writer.

After graduating magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College in 1967, Dr. Borysenko earned her doctorate in Medical Sciences from the Harvard Medical School, where she completed postdoctoral training in cancer cell biology. Her first faculty position was at Tufts University College of Medicine in Boston.

But after the death of her father from cancer, she became more interested in the person with the illness than in the disease itself, and returned to Harvard Medical School to complete a second postdoctoral fellowship, this time in the new field of behavioral medicine. Under the tutelage of Herbert Benson, M.D., who first identified the relaxation response and brought meditation into medicine, she was awarded a Medical Foundation Fellowship and completed her third postdoctoral fellowship in psychoneuroimmunology.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Borysenko co-founded a Mind/Body clinic with Dr. Benson and Dr. Ilan Kutz, became licensed as a psychologist, and was appointed instructor in medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Her years of clinical experience and research culminated in the 1987 publication of the New York Times bestseller,Minding the Body, Mending the Mind, which sold over 400,000 copies. The 20th anniversary edition, newly revised, was published in 2007.

Author or co-author of 13 other books and numerous audio and video programs, including the public television special Inner Peace for Busy People, she is the founding partner of Mind/Body Health Sciences, LLC located in Boulder, Colorado, and the director of The Claritas Institute Interspiritual Mentor Training Program. She also hosts a weekly Internet radio show, Your Soul’s Compass, for Hay House and is one of the most popular and sought-after speakers in the field of health, healing and spirituality.