Alan M Dattner, MD

One’s skin is the key junction and boundary between self and not self. This includes the metaphorical as well as the physical. Exploring our collective metaphors about skin can
help us understand unconscious ways we think about and treat our skin.

We say that people who have become immune to rejection are “thick-skinned.” When we want to remind ourselves about the importance of a good personality, we say beauty is
only “skin-deep.” When a person causes us to feel annoyance or affection, we say “they’ve gotten under my skin.”

When someone grows beyond old limitations, they are like a snake shedding its old
skin. The skin is in a constant process of renewing itself. Wherever we go, we literally leave part of ourself as the surface skin cells die.

As a cultural boundary, the color of one’s skin has enabled slavery, racism, and discrimination. For thousands of years, people have tattooed and pierced the skin to send cultural, political, emotional, and spiritual messages to the world, or to mark important touchstones or events in life.

The nine pounds of skin and nerves on the body’s surface occupy a significant space in the brain where we feel pleasure, pain, pressure, itching, and other subtle sensations that make up the landscape of our perception of being
touched.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

__

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

At a recent conference I attended, I heard about a slew of potential harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation in our environment and the dangers of cell phones held to close to the head or used too often. I realized that I must find a way to protect my health in face of unwillingness to give up my cell phone and all of these electronic exposures.

So I created a simple healing affirmation, to keep me healthy. I offer it to you as a healing mantra, or prayer, to protect yourself, as you begin to explore other steps to reduce your exposure to unseen wavelengths.

 “May all of the energies that course through my body be transmuted to empower my health at every level.” 

Feel free to share this as a quote form me.

Small EMF protectors are also available to put on your phone or body and may help reduce the effects of the electromagnetic fields to which you are exposed.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

__

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

The health of the skin, not just its appearance, is an important metaphor for the health of one’s boundary between self and other. Truly healthy skin acts as a membrane that lets the appropriate things in and keeps the inappropriate things out, on all levels. When you meet a person, the first thing you see is their skin.

It may envelop familiar structures which you recognize, but you are actually looking at their skin and not those structures. They could be a “bag of bones” or “muscular”; the skin is what you see wrapping those underlying structures, and the clothing similarly wraps the skin. You see a
lot things besides the overall shape of the skin.

You see changes of texture from old scarring from events in their lives, from acne, or from too much time in the
sun. You see lines from repeated expressions of emotions in the past, and lines from particular emotions they are experiencing in real time as you interact with them.

Changes in skin color can reveal emotions; people get red with embarrassment, green with disgust, or white with fear. Colors reflect their vitality or illness. The pasty pale individual looks very different than the same individual well and full of vitality. The smell of the skin, too, upon release of hormones can communicate anxiety, turn-on, and other biological and emotional messages.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

__

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s), foods which have been genetically "modified", have advantages for farmers and food producers, but offer dangers that have never been seen before and are often unknown.

We should have a right to know what it is that we are eating, so that we can understand where our allergies and illnesses are coming from. The governmental policy of not requiring GMO foods to be labeled is harmful to those who need to know and choose, and will only be changed by an outcry of the public.  Get involved May 25 if you care about knowing what your food really is.

Details here.

And here: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/flyer.html

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

__

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

Our “self” does not completely stop at the brick and mortar layer of the epidermis. In many different ways, part of us extends out beyond that border, much like the headlights coming out from the car. The headlights might correspond to the subtle electromagnetic energy field that emanates from out electro chemical makeup, or to our emotional
nature which attracts and repels others.

We emit chemicals as odors, we breathe and bacteria and other microbes surround us in a kind of haze. We talk of people getting into our space, or getting into our face, when they get too close. And we stay away from infected people because of what they cough and breathe out, and what is on their skin.

Some people concretize this outer layer into an “aura”, and there are some people who claim to be able to see and describe the auras around other people.

Still, the most agreed upon location where it stops being outside or other and starts being you is the outer layer of the skin. And that’s where I work.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

__

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

Our busy life styles make it hard to take the time to sit down and enjoy thinking about the food we are about to eat, and fully appreciate it. Often, we eat on the run, or while focusing on work because we cannot step away from the office during the period of work activity.

The normal process of digestion cannot take place well in that kind of rush, so we do not break down foods as well as we should. That leaves large particles which look more like the food we ate than the amino acids and other building blocks we need.

Those larger particles can get recognized as foreign invaders and excite the immune system to react against them and parts of the body tissues that look like them. Proper digestion starts in the mind. The thoughts of food that make
you salivate when you walk into a restaurant or food store, activate your entire digestive system for the process of breaking down and absorbing your food.

The more you are pre-occupied with other thoughts, or upset or angry, the less you do a good job breaking down
and absorbing the right stuff from your food, so enjoy your food.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

__

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.

As I stood in a grove of flowering trees at the feet of a cherry tree, the entire ground under it covered with pink flower petals, I had a welling up of emotions, felt a few tears in my eyes, and heard my inner voice say:

“You are blessed with appreciation, and being appreciated to go forth and heal yourself and the world.”

I hope that most of you have a chance to stand at the edge of a flowering tree this Spring, and feel, even for a brief moment, the blessing of being in a universe with such beauty in its cycles, to heal your spirit and carry you through barren times, so that you, too, can heal yourself and the world.

Notice, that as a visiting person of importance, the Universe has scattered flowers at your feet in anticipation of your arrival and this moment.

To your health,

Dr. Alan M. Dattner
Holistic Dermatology
New York, New York

__

As always, the content of this blog is for information and education purposes only, and should not be used to prevent, diagnose or treat illness; please see your physician for care.