The Orange County Register
By Jane Glenn Haas
September 13, 2010

This sounds so – well, so “New Age:” Tough-looking ambulance drivers in central Gaza drawing images of their fears with crayons. Ten-year-olds encouraged to close their eyes and imagine a reassuring place. Women who have lost children to political violence dancing away tensions, their black abayas shaking and flowing.

The New York Times reports a classically trained but alternative-seeking American psychiatrist has taught nearly 10,000 people techniques to reduce anger, ease family tensions and give them a sense of control in an environment known for helplessness.

Dr. James S. Gordon, a clinical professor at Georgetown Medical School, graduate of Harvard Medical School, onetime chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy is the professional showing up. He’s a rare American – also a Jew – visiting Gaza since 2002.

Q. Is there something unique about the New Age treatments you are offering in Gaza?

A. I don’t call it a New Age sensitivity. I call it a return to fundamental self care. Traditional forms of healing. These are fundamental and should be available to everyone.

The problem is the medical establishment. This goes against the grain of what is taught in medical schools and threatens their authority and the income of the drug companies. We have a system that essentially says even in the most basic matters of care, doctors and medicine knows best and that’s simply not true.

Western medicine is wonderful. Antibiotics are miracles. But we tend to hope for the same kind of miracles for psychological conditions. The alternative is going back to basics and learning how to take better care of one’s self.

Q. You say the treatments are free and can help the entire family, not just the individual being treated.

A. These are treatments for people under stress. They can then teach the techniques to their children and husbands.

Q. You’ve been studying and promoting acupuncture, other mind-over-body techniques for more than four decades. What’s amazing to me is that you have taken your techniques to hotbeds of stress like Bosnia, Kosovo, post-Katrina Louisiana. You are reporting significant reductions in stress, depression and hopelessness.

A. Yes, and we have just earned a Department of Defense grant to test the techniques with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression.

Read entire article here:  http://www.ocregister.com/articles/people-266220-gaza-techniques.html