David Spiegel, M.D. - Biosketch
Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor in the School of Medicine
Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Academic History: B.A., Yale University, 1967
M.D., Harvard Medical School, 1971

Dr. Spiegel has been a member of the Stanford faculty since 1975. He has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of mind/body interactions in medicine, through six books and 340 scientific journal articles and chapters. His primary focus is on linking various psychotherapies with changes in brain function, emotional adjustment, and disease outcome. Randomized clinical trials conducted by his research group have greatly increased our understanding of how people respond to stress and elucidated means for helping medically ill patients through psychotherapy, effectively addressing both psychological and physical problems. Dr. Spiegel is internationally known for his long-term studies of the psychological and physiological benefits of support groups for women with metastatic breast cancer. He has shown that pain and depression exacerbate one another, and that group psychotherapy significantly reduces depression, anxiety, and pain. He was the first to demonstrate that group support for cancer patients results not only significantly enhanced quality of life, but also increased survival time. He has examined the physiological mechanisms underlying such mind/body interactions, involving neurophysiology and psychoendocrinology. Using brain electrical activity mapping (BEAM) and positron emission tomography (PET), Dr. Spiegel has demonstrated that hypnotic alteration of perception changes electrical activity and blood flow in the parts of the brain that process sensory experience. He has shown that clinical use of such sensory alterations can facilitate invasive medical procedures such as radiological arteriography, cystoscopy, and neurosurgery, making them shorter and safer, while patients are more comfortable and need less medication. Dr. Spiegel has also demonstrated how brain-body interactions influence the course of cancer. He found that abnormal daily patterns of cortisol, a stress hormone, predict shorter survival time for women with breast cancer. He is currently Principal Investigator of a Program Project grant on Stress, the HPA and Health in Aging funded by NIA and NCI. This line of investigation links social support and stress to brain and body in cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s dementia, and caregiving, opening new opportunities for therapeutic intervention in medicine that can affect both the quality and quantity of life.
His research is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the Dana Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, and the Nathan S. Cummings Foundation, among others. He is winner of the 1995 Edward A. Strecker Award for significant contributions to clinical psychiatry in the United States, and was the Burroughs Wellcome Visiting Professor to the Royal Society of Medicine in the United Kingdom in 1997. His research on cancer patients has been featured in Bill Moyers' Emmy award-winning special PBS series, Healing and the Mind.