Adams was born on May 28, 1945, in
Washington, D.C., the son of Anna Campbell Stewart (née Hunter) and Robert Loughridge Adams. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Lomax Hunter, was a
Poet Laureate of Virginia. His father, a
United States Army officer who fought in the
Korean War, died while stationed in
West Germany when Adams was 16. He attended
Wakefield High School, where he graduated in 1963, and then completed pre-med coursework at
George Washington University. He began medical school without even earning an
undergraduate degree, and earned his
Doctor of Medicine degree at the
Medical College of Virginia in the
Virginia Commonwealth University in 1971. In the late 1960s, one of his closest friends was murdered by a deranged patient. Convinced of the powerful connection between
environment and
wellness, he believes the health of an individual cannot be separated from the health of the family, community, and the world.
Gesundheit! Institute Soon after graduation, Patch, his wife Linda, and friends started to develop the ideas that eventually led to The Gesundheit! Institute. Originally as the Zanies, they ran as a communal "home" from 1971 to 1984. In 1989 Gesundheit! Institute was founded as a not-for-profit, and has continued to develop to this day. Based in Adams' rural West Virginia property, the institute has since been devoted to fundraising. The latest plan is for a 44-bed community hospital building that will offer free holistic care to "anyone who wants it", along with a teaching facility that can accommodate "120 staff, all living together in the communal ecovillage". Fees from the 1998 movie "made it possible to build three beautiful buildings... in preparation for the big buildings we want for the hospital". These are a farmhouse, workshop and
dacha that accommodate the workshops and courses offered by the institute. The educational philosophy is contained in their "School for Designing a Society (SDaS) – for people who want to change society by means of desire, design, and composition..." and includes courses on caring and workshops on clowning. Adams was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award on January 29, 1997. In 2008, Adams agreed to become honorary chair of the "International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment" or IAACM.
MindFreedom International, a nonprofit coalition that Gesundheit! belongs to as a sponsor group, launched the IAACM to support "creative maladjustment" and social change. Since the 1990s Adams has supported the
Ithaca Health Alliance (IHA) in
Ithaca, New York, founded as the Ithaca Health Fund (IHF) by
Paul Glover. In January 2006, IHA launched the Ithaca Free Clinic, bringing to life key aspects of Adams's vision. Adams has also given strong praise to
Health Democracy, Glover's book written and published the same year. As of 2016, Adams claims to "lecture 300 days out of the year, and have done so for over 30 years in 81 countries, spreading seeds of a love revolution of enlivening community and a call to end capitalism". ==In media==