Our Mission

A national non-profit organization based in Aspen, Colorado, the Aspen Center for Integral Health is a center for the gathering and dissemination of emerging ideas on health and for the promotion of human flourishing. Its mission is to educate the public, doctors and other health care professionals on validated healing therapies and prevention programs. Its primary goal is to facilitate the creation of a more sustainable, comprehensive and compassionate health care model by addressing the four integral dimensions of health- the body, the mind, relationships and environment - which together affect the health of the whole person.

Our History

More than 50 years ago, a couple from Chicago named Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke turned their sights on an old Colorado mining town and saw there the raw ingredients for a modern Athens. They envisioned a place where the mind, the body, and the spirit could flourish, and they called their vision the "Aspen Idea."

In 2000, a group of individuals concerned about the state of modern health care and nutrition came together to form the Aspen Center for Integral Health. Realizing that the Aspen Idea need not be limited to Aspen, ACIH began to reach out to medical professionals, to the general public, and to youth in the schools, increasing awareness of and providing education in validated integral healing therapies.

Founding Idea

ACIH was founded on the concepts of New Medicine, a set of tenets explained by Dr. James S. Gordon in his book Manifesto for a New Medicine. Dr. Gordon, former Chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine policy and Director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., advocates the integration of modern science with the wisdom of ancient healing. New Medicine focuses on the relation of mind and body and the ways in which emotional, mental, social and spiritual factors affect the whole of human health.

As "New Medicine" has matured, it found an intellectual soul mate in integral philosophy, a school of thought represented most prominently by Ken Wilbur. Integral health addresses the entire range of human experience, with an awareness of all aspects of human health and healing.

ACIH advances ideas of integral health by:

• Bringing valid integrative medicine into the view of medical professionals and the general public.
• Promoting the use of preventive medicine in healthy adults as a way to discourage disease and promote health.
• Creating awareness about the effects of environmental hazards on human health.