As a mental health activist and practitioner in the field of conflict trauma, and as a writer and journalist too, Justine’s work has been based predominantly in South Asia for thirty years. She studied in the UK, Australia, the US, and India across various psychological and philosophical disciplines, ranging across Eastern philosophy and Western psychology. These included alternative approaches such as the ‘Being with Dying’ programme with Roshi Joan Halifax in the US in Santa Fe, neuroscience and Buddhism at Princeton, alongside studying at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Regents University, London. Beyond conventional and integrated qualifications, Justine also has diplomas in yoga therapy, trauma therapy and trauma release, and Reiki.

After a major earthquake in the Kashmir Valley in October 2005 Justine began to work in rural clinics, hospitals and schools, researching ways of treating traumatic stress that could harness local knowledge and pre-existing social systems. In 2008 she founded Healing Kashmir (now Healing Minds Foundation) an integrated mental health organisation based in Kashmir’s summer capital, Srinagar, with outreach centres around the state, a suicide helpline, a statewide primary mental health care programme, and paramedic training, mental well-being models in schools and colleges, and national and international internship programmes.  Justine continues to oversee as a trainer and senior advisor.

During her training and study in this field, Justine worked with New Bridge in the UK for twenty-four years, from 1988-2012, a foundation focusing on the rehabilitation of life sentence prisoners during their sentences and as they approach release. She also continues as an advisory director to the NGO in India that she wrote about in Goat, Development Research and Action Group. DRAG sets up schools in slum areas of Delhi that have been over-looked by the government and bigger international agencies, usually due to the control of slum politics.

As a journalist and writer, she is the author of seven books, ranging in subject from war to Hindi film. The Ochre Border, 1995, records the reopening of the Tibetan frontier-lands. Her second, Scoop-Wallah, 1999, is the story of her time as a journalist on an Indian newspaper in Delhi. It was short-listed for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 2000 and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Goat: A Story of Kashmir and Notting Hill, 2000, is set in both Notting Hill and Kashmir, a warzone and a white-hot corner of London, the disparate pair drawn together by the fashion world’s obsession with the fine pashmina weave of the Kashmir Valley. This was also serialised on BBC Radio 4. Bollywood Boy, 2002, was an international bestseller, taking a closer look at the fame culture in the Hindi film industry, and the darker side of an industry that pumps out high-octane escapism for the largest film audience in the world. The Wonder House, 2005, is a novel set in Kashmir against the background of the conflict, and based on Justine’s experience of frontline coverage, time spent in militant training camps, and amongst the extremists. It was short-listed for the Author’s Club best first novel in 2006. In the Valley of Mist, 2009, a return to non-fiction, charts the conflict across two millennia through the prism of Kashmiri family life. This too was broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and it was Runner-Up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2010. Her most recent book, Dust, is a novel set in the aid world in Pakistan and the UK. Dust was published in November 2021. 
She has written regularly for The Financial Times, The Times, Vanity Fair and Condé Nast Traveler, The Times of India and The Oldie.

As a documentary presenter Justine started at Channel 4 in 1996 on the BAFTA-nominated series Urban Jungle. She has worked on several BBC strands in India for both BBC and BBC World. She was a presenter on Travel TV for four years before co-presenting ‘Jerry Hall’s Gurus’ for the BBC with Jerry Hall on a series about Eastern philosophy’s journey to the West.

Justine practices as a therapist in the UK, the US and India, focusing on psychological trauma. She also lectures and teaches regularly in the UK, US and India. She is currently a visiting lecturer at Sai University (India). Recent lectures include The National Health Conference (UK) The Oslo Freedom Forum (Norway), The San Francisco Freedom Forum (US), Georgetown (US), Sarah Lawrence College (US), New York University (Gallatin School), Tufts University (Institute of Global Leadership), Asia Society (US), Royal Society of Asian Affairs (UK) and The Royal Geographical Society (UK).

 Justine became an ‘Lifetime INSPIRE fellow’ at Tufts University (US) at the Institute of Global Leadership in 2013, a fellow at the Center for Humanities (CHAT) at Tufts 2015-2016. She was a fellow with Humanity United in 2014-16, and she is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (UK). She is an on-going contributor to the Field Guide, a mental health guide for refugees, both living in camps and in transition to other countries, developed at the ‘Beyond Conflict’ conflict resolution programme.  She continues to study Eastern and Western philosophy, psychology, and conflict trauma.

To contact in relation to books and publications, please contact literary agent:
Katie Fulford, Bell Lomax: katie@bell-lomax.co.uk

To contact in relation to public speaking, please contact speaking agent:
Caroline Rose Management: info@caroline-rose.co.uk

For all other details please contact:
info@justinehardy.com