My proposed dissertation topic met with nothing but opposition. The
professors on my doctoral committee had never heard of the word
orthomolecular, and all of them were certain it wasn't an accepted,
traditional area of research. Research in academia is supposed to be
based on the works of a previous researchers who arrived at
hypothesis based on data obtained by strictly following scientific
methodology. "Scientific" data requires control groups, matched
populations, statistical analysis, etc. In my case there was no
previous work my dissertation committee would accept, because the
available data did not originate from a medical school or psychology
department they recognized.

Due to a lot of determination and perseverance I finally did succeed
in getting my thesis accepted, and triumphed over my doctoral
committee. And I graduated with a dual Ph.D. in both counseling
psychology and gerontology. My ambition was to establish the
orthomolecular approach on the west coast. At that time I knew of
only two clinics in the world actively using nutritional therapy.
One was in New York and the other, was a Russian experimental
fasting program for schizophrenics. Doctors Hoffer and Osmond had
used orthomolecular therapy in a Canadian mental hospital as early
as 1950, but they had both gone on to other things.

The newly graduated Dr. Isabelle Moser, Ph.D. was at this point
actually an unemployed mother, renting an old, end-of-the-road,
far-in-the-country farmhouse; by then I had two small daughters. I
strongly preferred to take care of my own children instead of
turning them over to a baby sitter. My location and my children made
it difficult for me to work any place but at home. So naturally, I