James S. Gordon

Over two years since the devastating January 12, 2012 earthquake, half a million Haitians still live in tent camps where food, water, employment, and hope are in short supply. Robbery and rape haunt the night. The impact on the psychological well-being of the tent-dwellers is calamitous, with soaring incidences of...

So much happens to all of us in the Jacmel training as we go deeper, become more aware, take chances, and connect over five days.

Our faculty faces fears of not performing well, of not sleeping at night, and of missing what is muffled in translation. We take the chance...

The Missing Twin: Part One

The loss of life here in Jacmel is far less than in Port-au-Prince but the burden is still heavy. There are of course the ordinary deaths that come with age, and the losses of younger people cut down by accident, sudden illness, or murder. And...

By the second day there are actually 135 participants -- almost 180 of us altogether. The ones who didn't come to the opening are present and others from the waiting list have found a way. There are 13 in most of our small groups.

The view from Soeurs Salesiennes school where we are doing our training opens out to the sea of Haiti's south coast. Nuns glide quietly over the grounds and little girls in white blouses and blue jumpers with beribboned hair skip hand in hand.

Valentine's Day often offered choices and called up anxiety as well as affection. Was it presumptuous -- or misleading -- to send a card to X? Would Y feel hurt if I neglected her? What kind of card could best, most honestly and lovingly convey feelings that were sometimes complex...

An unfamiliar mixed emotion overtook my 9-year-old son, Gabriel, and me as we watched the New York Giants close out the San Francisco 49ers last Sunday.

For almost four hours, we'd been sitting in a San Francisco home -- lone Giants fans happily slapping palms and shouting encouragement surrounded...

On a recent trip to London, The Guardian interviewed me during Depression Awareness Week about the UK release of my book "Unstuck". The reporter was particularly interested in Center for Mind-Body Medicine's Global Trauma Relief program and our work to bring...

Visiting Leogane the day after the inauguration, we are plunged into the canyon between the promise and its fulfillment. The city, which was the epicenter of the earthquake, is desolate, a combination of "the hour before the shootout" in the Westerns, and a scene...

May 14, 2011 in Port-au-Prince felt like January 20, 2009 in Washington DC: a new president producing unexpected smiles, and tears, too -- and in devastated Haiti, a sense of new life.

In one of those happy...

On the night before his inauguration, Haitian president-elect Michel Martelly came to the Karibe Hotel, where our U.S. team and our Haitian program director Linda Metayer were staying. He sat outdoors among us as the band began to play. There were watchful bodyguards, but also a feeling of welcome, of...

I'm not quite sure when or even how it happened but Haiti is starting to feel like home. Not in the sense that I have my family with me, or know where to do grocery shopping, or can lay my hands on the books I love most.

It's something else,...

Sometimes, on this first anniversary of the earthquake, it feels like very large, steady hands are needed to pull together the two sides of the gaping wound that is Haiti, hands that Michelangelo might fashion for this purpose.

On the anniversary of their earthquake, Haitian men, women and children are more likely to tremble anew with fear and contend with reawakened physical, emotional and behavioral symptoms. Chronic headaches and stomachaches that had subsided over months are now returning with renewed force in those living in their own homes...

CMBM Training, Days 2-3, continued

During the training, we do a drawings exercise, a sequence of three pages: one of "one's self," "one's biggest problem" and "the solution to the problem" -- and they are as always a revelation. They display what is inside each person and the images of...

The Training Begins-- Day Two & Three

Tears are everywhere. Like high water behind a dam, you can see them swelling, pressing for release in the stiff bodies and taut faces of men and women who gather for the first day of our training.

We've selected 120 clinicians, educators and...

CMBM Training in Port-au-Prince

Day One

Our team has been gathering for the last two days, long flights and sometimes long delays as well.

Jamil Atti is in from Gaza, Afrim Blyta and Jusuf Ulaj from Kosovo, and Naftali Halberstadt from Jerusalem- psychiatrists and psychologists who have lived through war...

Hello friends,

I have wonderful news to share with you today, an amazing article on our work in Gaza from this morning's New York Times. It gives such an accurate feeling for the touching, powerful and effective work The Center for Mind-Body Medicine is doing in Gaza and for the...

A hundred nursing students come to our hotel. More than 90 of their classmates died on January 12^th in their school building. The sense of sadness and loss are palpable.

They are quiet, expectant, and perhaps a little puzzled at first. What is this "mind-body medicine" all about? And then,...