The Strands of Health: A Guide to Understanding Hair Mineral Analysis

This new book by Rick Malter, Ph.D. is an introduction to understanding hair tissue mineral analysis (TMA) and its role in preventing disease and maintaining optimal energy and health. This book relates nutrient minerals to chronic fatigue and other common health problems that are poorly understood by traditional medicine and psychiatry. Drawing on over 20 years of personal and professional experience with hair TMA, Dr. Malter explains how the mind and body are closely connected by the effects of stress and other life style factors on nutrient minerals. This is a comprehensive book that will help you to make sense out of the vast amount of health and nutrition information that often seems contradictory and confusing. If you take vitamins and minerals, this book is essential reading.

Dr. Rick Malter earned his Ph.D. in clinical and educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1971. Earlier, he earned the A.B. degree in 1958 and, in 1964, the M.A. degree in Human Development, clinical psychology from the University of Chicago. He earned a certificate in School Psychology in 1967 and passed the Illinois Psychologists’ licensing examination in 1969. He became an Illinois Licensed Nutrition Counselor in 1996.

Dr. Malter worked as a school psychologist until 1976. After meeting Dr. John Cooper, Dr. Malter trained with Dr. Cooper until 1979, learning about Dr. Cooper’s concept of the Judge in personality (a phenomenological concept). In 1979, Dr. Malter started his own group practice in suburban Chicago. Dr. Malter’s practice involved individual, group, and family therapy as well as psycho-educational assessments of children, adolescents, and adults who showed symptoms of Learning Disabilities and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). He has a special interest in auditory memory and language processing components in ADD.

Dr. Malter expanded Dr. Cooper’s Judge concept into an integrated new model that also incorporated the concept of the "Inner Child" and the Jungian "Warrior" archetype. Imagery and art therapy were integral aspects of Dr. Malter’s counseling and therapy work with people. This new integrated model that focused on the Judge concept is described in the book Shrinking the Judge: Freeing the Inner Child that Dr. Malter co-authored with his wife, Rosalie, in 1996. In 2001, Dr. Malter retired from his private practice to Cottonwood, Arizona.

Dr. Malter has also specialized in nutrition consultation for Learning Disabilities, ADD and stress management. Since a person’s Judge reactions tend to intensify under increasing stress, Dr. Malter used nutritional data from hair tissue mineral analysis (TMA) to assess the mind/body connection between stress reactions and psychological dominance of the Judge. He often recommended selected nutritional supplements to reduce the intensity of the person’s stress response and, therefore, to reduce the psychological dominance of the Judge. He believes very strongly in an integrated mind/body approach using clinical nutrition and his Judge, Inner Child, Warrior model for bringing about major psychological and emotional changes in a healthy manner without the negative side effects of drugs and medications. Hair TMA is a powerful laboratory tool that helps us to see more clearly how stress and mineral imbalances eventually lead to disease and dysfunction. But, this powerful too! l may also serve as a scientific guide to using nutrition to reverse adverse health trends before they make us sick or dysfunctional.