Memorial to Daniel P. Brown, Ph.D., ABPH

Abstract

Dr. Dan Brown, one of the leading authorities, mentors and authors in the field of clinical hypnosis and meditation, passed away on April 4, 2022. Dan had been suffering with Parkinson’s Disease, and then in his weakened state he succumbed to colon cancer. He is survived by his wife Gretchen and two sons. He was the author or coauthor of 24 books. Dan received his undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts in molecular biology and his Ph.D. in Religion & Psychological Studies at the University of Chicago. He was awarded a Danforth Fellowship given for promise in teaching excellence, and as part of that fellowship received specialized training in how to teach. In graduate school, the famed hypnoanalyst Erika Fromm, Ph.D., served as his primary clinical mentor, a relationship that lasted for 35 years. Dr. Brown has taught hypnotherapy for close to 40 years. His books on hypnosis included the Hypnotherapy and Hypnoanalysis and Hypnosis and Behavioral Medicine, both coauthored with Erika Fromm and Creative Mastery in Hypnosis and Hypnoanalysis. While in graduate school in Chicago, he commuted to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for parttime studies in the Buddhist studies program, where he learned Tibetan, Buddhist Sanskrit, and Pali. In his first clinical placement as a psychological clerk at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, he studied thought disorder in schizophrenics with Martin Harrow and selfpsychology with Heinz Kohut. He also commuted part time to The Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, where he did work with the staff of the children and adolescent units on the treatment of substance abuse. There, Karl Menninger, M. D. served as an important mentor. In the late 1970s, he moved back to his home state of Massachusetts where he did an internship at McLean Hospital and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Clinical Research at Harvard Medical School at The Cambridge Hospital. His research focused on the long-term effects of mindfulness meditation. In the 1980s Dr. Brown was the Director of Training and then Chief Psychologist at The Cambridge Hospital. There, he helped develop and gain accreditation for an APA-approved clinical psychology internship and post-doctoral training program. His vision was to provide the best young talent in psychology the opportunity to work with a disenfranchised inner city chronic mental health population, which included intensive developmentally informed psychotherapy for patients with major mental illness and complex trauma disorders. His program included intensive multicultural and bilingual mental health training. At the Cambridge Hospital, he developed and directed the Behavioral Medicine Program, a joint venture between psychiatry and primary care medicine. His book Hypnosis and Behavioral Medicine represents the clinical approaches developed in that program. He developed a special interest in psychoneuroimmunology and the psychosocial treatment of immune disorders. As a result he developed a joint exchange between the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL HYPNOSIS 2022, VOL. 65, NO. 1, 79–82 https://doi.org/10.1080/00029157.2022.2068302