Depression’s Upside: A One-Sided View
Some thoughts on Jonah Lehrer’s article from The New York Times Magazine, February 25, 2010.
In his article on the possible evolutionary purpose of sadness, Jonah Lehrer, a talented writer and knowledgeable scientists confuses an adaptive mechanism –the capacity for greater focus that the rumination of depression may afford – with a therapeutic one. Even more important, he does not address the causes of depression and, in accordance with his emphasis on enhanced problem solving, limits his discussion of therapeutic efforts to cognitive change.
Work with many hundreds of depressed people in my psychiatric practice and tens of thousands more in war, post-war and disaster situations around the world gives me a very different perspective and leads me to different conclusions. So many of us are depressed because we are living at variance with both our genetic programming and our need for meaning and purpose. We are affected so dramatically by losses of relationships, jobs, etc. because we are not sustained by the adequate social support that is a hallmark of traditional societies. We are subject to an unprecedented level of stress and overstimulation in our environment, to toxic food, and sedentary ways of living that are anathema to our evolutionary development and detrimental to our mood. Many of us lack a sense of purpose in our lives, a connection to something greater than ourselves that gives human life meaning, and can give us hope in difficult times.
The symptoms of depression – both the rumination on what went wrong and why that Lehrer focuses on, and the lethargy, hopelessness, decreased interest in sex and food that go along with it – are best understood and responded to not as an evolutionary advantage but as a wake-up call. They let us know that it is time to address the conditions that are creating the imbalances in our lives; to use food and exercise, meditation and imagination to improve our biology and enlarge our perspective, and to reach out to others—therapists, clergy, family and friends—who can help us. The true purpose and challenge of our depression is to wake us up to what is wrong in the way we live, to point us toward ways to become more fully human.
Celebrating Hope and Healing in Haiti–Day 2
In Haiti three days of “memorializing the dead,” of prayer and fasting have begun.
thousands gather to memorialize the dead
Haitians gather for sermons
the cathedral in ruins
great faith and hope for the future
"Healing the Wounds of War" in Christian Science Monitor
Dear friends,
The Christian Science Monitor featured an article on our Healing the Wounds of War program in the Middle East! Ilene Prusher interviewed some of our Gaza trainees, and myself, to write this thoughtful piece. She also notes that it is the one-year anniversary of the Israel siege on Gaza, “Operation Cast Lead,” which devastated the people and landscape of Gaza, and from which they are still struggling to recover a year later.
Here is an excerpt of the article, but I hope you check out the original, with some pictures and related stories on Gaza and the Middle East, here.
Gaza war anniversary: How one group helps victims overcome trauma
By Ilene R. Prusher Staff writer / December 28, 2009
Jerusalem
Rawya Hamam was watching her son deteriorate. Hisham wouldn’t sleep, clung to her incessantly, and said he wanted to go back into her belly so he’d be safe. “Grandma is lucky she died so she doesn’t have to live here now,” the boy told his mother.
It’s not a normal statement to expect from a five-year-old child, but neither were these normal times. A year ago, at the outbreak of war between the militant Palestinian group Hamas and Israel, anything resembling a normal life disappeared into a violent maelstrom that wreaked unprecedented destruction on the Gaza Strip. More than 1,400 Gazans were killed, according to a Palestinian count, in a campaign the Israeli army named “Operation Cast Lead,” with the aim of getting Hamas to stop the daily launch of occasionally fatal rockets onto Israeli communities. Thirteen Israelis were killed in the three-week war. . . . keep reading
We’re so thankful for the recognition of our work in Gaza, alleviating psychological pain and suffering, and all of the work we do, both in the Middle East and here in the US teaching health and mental health professionals to learning to handle their stress and incorporate mind-body techniques into their practice through our Mind-Body Medicine Training as well as our Healing Our Troops program. These warm, caring professionals we train use their skill and wisdom to help families recovering from disaster, like those who survived Hurricane Katrina, as well as working with troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.
(If you kept reading my post, don’t forget to check out the rest of the original CSM article with pictures and related stories on Gaza and the Middle East, here.)
Jim
My Everyday Foods
Dear Friends,
Each year at our Food As Medicine conference—it’s coming up November 19-22nd in Miami, is fabulous, and you can find out more here and register by clicking here—our faculty gives a sample daily menu. I thought you might be interested in checking out mine.
Jim
My Everyday Foods
Breakfast: my father, who was a surgeon, used to say (much to the amusement of us kids) that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. He usually ate his well before 7 so that he could be at the hospital early to operate. To my surprise, I now keep the same hours (though I don’t do surgery) and have come to value breakfast, which I once rushed through in haste to move on to the day, as a singular pleasure. I wake very hungry,
stretch for a while (yoga and sometimes Tai Chi), and then prepare a smoothie:
significant quantities of berries, especially blueberries and raspberries, sweet cherries (generally, all these are frozen and organic) together with fresh fruits that are easily available-bananas, pears, peaches, apples. I use soy or hemp milk (I’ve eliminated cow’s milk and gluten from my diet) and add a couple of scoops of Metagenics UltraInflam which contains some herbs (e.g., turmeric and rosemary) as well as other nutrients that help to reduce inflammation (I’ve got sore knees).
Also, I drink a cup of black tea (decaf).
Lunch: Peanut butter is a lunch staple–usually on rice crackers. I also have raw carrots and hummus. I go out to lunch sometimes at local Asian restaurants and may have some sushi. (I try to remember to bring my wheat-less soy sauce.)
Dinner: If I’m cooking for myself, it’s usually pretty rudimentary–corn, potatoes, tomatoes sautéed with onions and garlic, coriander, chili peppers, sometimes with beans.
Occasionally, I’ll have turkey sausage with it. If I go out, which I do a fair amount of the time, I’ll start with a salad, have the fish dish which most appeals to me at that moment, and then maybe some sherbet for dessert.
For treats, I like the Purely Decadent coconut milk “Ice Creams”-especially Chocolate Obsession, Pomegranate Chip and Passionate Mango (the names add a certain something as well).
That is, of course, if my wonderful and over-worked assistants haven’t eaten them in a frenzy of stress reduction.
Again, that web page to check out our Food As Medicine Training is here—and check out the fantastic new Food As medicine blog, with recipes, tips, and directions for healthy cooking and eating, here!
Sweat Lodges and Spirituality: I'm on Talk of the Nation
Dear Friends,
I wanted to let you know that I am going to be on “Talk of the Nation” on National Public Radio tomorrow, Thursday, October 22nd from 2:06-2:40pm EDT. I will be talking about Americans and the search for healing and meaning, the promise and the perils of the spiritual path.
I hope you will tune in if you’re able! Please enjoy the show, and I will be in touch soon again.
Jim
CancerGuides Training in DC in June
Dear Friends,
Our exciting training program, CancerGuides® II will be offered June 11-14, here in DC (along with Food As Medicine). You can help us as we offer our groundbreaking, integrative trainings by telling everyone you know about the programs, posting the fliers in your offices and clinics, handing them out on the street, etc. etc. Download a flier here.
A quick note: CancerGuides II is absolutely appropriate and accessible for cancer survivors and their families, not only for professionals. Everyone will have the opportunity to meet leaders in the field of integrative care, and to get the most up-to-date practical information–about nutrition, yoga, massage, Chinese medicine, and cutting-edge alternative therapies among many other topics. We would love to see you there, and there are generous partial scholarships available. Check out the website (see above) to learn more.
I hope you understand that you all – staff and faculty, along with our Board, and all those who support and participate in our programs – are the foundation for all we do, the juice that keeps nourishing our work, nourishing me, and helping us to grow. I’m so eager to hear from you and to see you soon, or to meet you for the first time at one of our exciting upcoming trainings.
With love,
Jim
CMBM and Saybrook University
Dear Friends,
It’s stunningly, suddenly it seems to me, green here in Washington. It feels like the season and its recent holy days match the message and the mood of our work – change and hope, new growth and greater freedom, leavened by compassion and forgiveness and, for me as well, gratitude for who you are and all we’ve done together and will continue to do. “Old things are passed away…all things are new” is what it says in the New Testament. Thank you.
Some very happy news for us: we’re now partners with Saybrook University, a wonderful cutting-edge program in psychology. Read about it here.
Dennis Jaffe, my old friend who is both a CMBM and a Saybrook Board member, got things started, and Lorne Buchman, the Saybrook President, has embraced our vision from the beginning and made sure that it infuses our partnership. The negotiations were long but we’re all happy now. I am going to be the Dean of Saybrook’s new Graduate College of Mind-Body Medicine and our program (Professional & Advanced Training Programs in Mind-Body Medicine, Supervision by faculty, plus Food As Medicine Training) is going to be required and central to the core curriculum for both Saybrook Masters and PhD degrees in Mind-Body Medicine.
This means a wonderful opportunity for CMBM to reach and teach more bright, eager, and idealistic participants, for those who want our work to be central to an advanced degree to have that opportunity, and for me (and our faculty) to help shape a graduate curriculum which will be exciting, attractive, and fun too. We’ll be getting the word out about the Saybrook degree and they’ll be telling people about Center programs. Dan Sterenchuk, our Director of Finance and Administration, is going to be working closely with me on all this. He’s thrilled and of course so am I; Dan does such an amazing job, makes everything easier and better for everyone he works with, and we enjoy our adventures together. Everyone else at The Center is really excited too.
With love,
Jim
“Unstuck” E-book release!
Dear friends,
I have some exciting news—thanks to numerous requests, my latest book, Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression is being released as an e-book! In my publisher’s own words:
“your e-book will be with retailers tomorrow; it should be on sale within 48 hours on Amazon and by the end of next week everywhere.”
“Unstuck” is on Kindle at Amazon.com here (or will be soon).
A warm thank you to everyone who helped by requesting this format. I hope this additional release will allow me, through Unstuck, to help many more people struggling through depression and anxiety (and perhaps, antidepressants) to move toward health and wholeness.
All my best,
Jim
Lecture at Urban Zen Focus on Nutrition: Nutrition in Hospitals
Title: Lecture at Urban Zen Focus on Nutrition: Nutrition in Hospitals
Location: Stephan Weiss Studio, 705 Greenwich St. NYC 10014
Description: This discussion will focus on the nutritional standards of food provided to patients in hospitals. Sadly, these standards have been notoriously weak. Malnutrition among patients has been identified in numerous studies and hospital food is frequently cited as insufficiently nourishing. This presentation will address what can be done to improve hospital food: nutrition to aid healing and improve health outcomes.
With Roberta Lee, MD.
For more info, see www.urbanzen.org/news/
Start Time: 10:45 AM EST
Date: April 17, 2009
End Time: 11:45 AM ESt
Progress in Gaza
I said that I would write more about our work in Israel and Gaza, but the work-and trying to find funding so that we can continue it-is taking up so much time (joyous, exciting time, to be sure) that I haven’t been able to write.
Still, I thought I would send along this very brief summary that I forwarded to our US Mind-Body Medicine faculty.
Hi everyone,
Just a couple of words from Gaza City: overwhelming, amazing, touching. That’s three words.
We (Jim, Amy, Afrim, Yusuf, Dan and Lee-Ann) had a great visit with our Israeli faculty. They are doing many interesting and exciting projects including groups that combine mind-body skills and Jewish spirituality, joint Israeli Jewish and Arab groups, and many groups for traumatized children and adults in Sderot. In fact, we made a visit to Sderot and had a chance to talk with teachers who are using mind-body skills in wonderfully creative ways with children in the SCIENCE AND RELIGION SCHOOL. The kids have experienced shelling on and off for eight years and are having all kinds of problems with concentration, bed-wetting and anger.
Naftali who heads up our Israeli program, is on the track of a major initiative in the South which will build on the work that he and his team have already done. We are working together on developing cooperative relationships and future funding.
Thanks to Danny Grossman, a friend to whom Aaron and Debbie Kaplan introduced us some years ago, (with able assists from Naftali and Smadar who handle the administrative work in Israel), we were all able to get into Gaza. It took a couple of extra days for Afrim and Yusuf, but Naftali and Tami and Ayelet from our Israeli faculty kept their spirits high while they waited. Once in Gaza, we began with visits with grieving families. There are whole sections of Gaza that have been completely destroyed and many thousands of people who are without homes. “I am very small,” one ten year old girl told us, “but the tent the 20 of us are staying in is even smaller.”
We went on for a day of meetings with our Gaza faculty. The next day, we had more site visits including one to Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, whose three daughters were killed. He’s an amazing man, an OBGYN who works in Israel as well as Gaza and through some miracle of wisdom and compassion, has managed to transform his suffering into a visionary project for the education of girls in Gaza-“not just so they will think, but so they will think freely”-and a mission to promote greater Israeli-Palestinian understanding.
We’re now about to start the 4th day of our PTP. Our Gaza faculty, which Jamil heads up, is doing virtually all the lectures and leading all the groups and our international team is consulting/supervising. The Gaza group is doing an absolutely wonderful job. They are so open-hearted and skillful-I’d say over the last 18 months, they’ve each lead anywhere between 6 and 20 groups and it shows.
Participants (there are over 140 of them) are speaking of issues that they have never before discussed and beginning to solve problems that have troubled them for years-not to mention finding practical ways to ease their high levels of anxiety and deal with nightmares, flashbacks, etc. All of them-faculty and participants-are so eager to learn and to share what they are learning. They are an inspiration to all of us.
There is much more to tell and I will when I have more time. For now, I send all of you my love as well as my gratitude for being with us on this and many other adventures.
Jim
