Dr. Harold G. Koenig

Harold G. Koenig, MD, MHSc is Director, Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health; Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences; and Associate Professor of Medicine — all at Duke University.
 
Harold completed his undergraduate education at Stanford University, his medical school training at the University of California at San Francisco, and his geriatric medicine, psychiatry, and biostatistics training at Duke University Medical Center. He is board certified in general psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry and geriatric medicine, and is also a registered nurse.
 
Harold is founder and former director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of Religion, Spirituality, and Health, and is now Director of Duke’s current Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health. He has published extensively in the fields of mental health, geriatrics, and religion, with over 350 scientific peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and nearly 40 books in print or in preparation. He is the former editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, and is on the editorial boards of many professional journals.
 
His research on religion, health, and ethical issues in medicine has been featured on over 50 national and international TV news programs (including The Today Show, ABC’s World News Tonight, and several times on Good Morning America), over 100 national or international radio programs (including multiple NPR and BBC interviews), hundreds of national and international newspapers or magazines (including cover stories for Reader’s Digest, Parade Magazine, and Newsweek), and is considered by biomedical scientists one of the world’s top experts on religion and health.
 
Harold has given testimony before the U.S. Senate (September 1998) and the U.S. House of Representatives (September 2008) concerning the effects of religious involvement on public health, and has been interviewed by James Dobson on Focus on the Family and by Robert Schuller in the Crystal Cathedral on the Hour of Power. He has been nominated twice for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.
 
His latest books include The Healing Power of Faith: How Belief and Prayer Can Help You Triumph Over Disease (Simon & Schuster, 2001); The Link between Religion and Health: Psychoneuroimmunology and the Faith Factor (2002); Counseling Families Across the Stages of Life: A Handbook for Pastors and Other Helping Professionals (2002); New Light on Depression: Help, Hope, and Answers for the Depressed and Those Who Love Them (2003); his autobiography, The Healing Connection: The Story of a Physician’s Search for the Link between Faith and Health (2004); Faith and Mental Health: Religious Resources for Healing (2005); In the Wake of Disaster: Religious Responses to Terrorism and Catastrophe (Templeton Press, 2006); Faith In The Future: Healthcare, Aging and the Role of Religion (2007); Spirituality in Patient Care, 2nd edition (2007); Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet (2008) published by Templeton Foundation Press; Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice, Revised edition (2009), Pastoral Care of Alcohol Abusers (2009), and The Handbook of Religion and Health (Oxford University Press, 2011). Harold travels widely to give workshops and seminar presentations in the United States and around the world.
 
Watch A Sense of Purpose, Medical Mysteries: Dr. Harold Koenig, and Spirituality, religion and health parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.