Is positive thinking really so healthy that, as Martin Seligman (2000) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi passionately thus argued, "we believe that a psychology of positive human functioning will arise, which achieves a scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving individuals, families, and communities"? This optimistic view on positive thinking for health can be contrasted with an opposing view by Barbara Ehrenreich (2009), who "extensively critiqued 'positive psychology'" and showed "how obsessive positive thinking impedes productive action, causes delusional assessments of situations, (...) and people are then blamed for not visualising hard enough and thus 'attracting' failure even in situations when 'masses of lives were lost'." (WK 2013; R Byrne 2006) Contrary to these opposing views (and other ones as will be discussed in the book), health care (in relation to mental health and physical health in the context of mind and body) are neither possible (or impossible) nor desirable (or undesirable) to the extent that the respective ideologues (on different sides) would like us to believe. Surely, this questioning of the opposing views on health care does not suggest that the study of health care is worthless, or that those fields (related to health care) like medicine, chiropractic, health system, dentistry, health info tech, nursing, psychiatrics, clinical psychology, occupational therapy, pharmacy, allied health, and so on are unimportant. Needless to say, neither of these extreme views is reasonable. Instead, this book offers an alternative (better) way to understand the future of health care, especially in the dialectic relationships between mental health and physical health in the context of mind and body -- while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favouring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). More specifically, this book offers a new theory (that is, the interconnected theory of health care) to go beyond the existing approaches in a novel way and is organised in four chapters. (shrink)

Systemic Constellation Work is a rapidly growing experiential healing process that is being embraced by a variety of helping professionals, both traditional and alternative, worldwide. This book explores the history, principles and methodology of this approach, and offers a detailed comparison with psychodrama - the original mind-body therapy - explaining how each method can enhance the other. Constellation work is based on the notion that people are connected by unseen energetic forces and suggests that the psychological, traumatic and (...) survival experiences of our ancestors are genetically passed forward to the next generation and may live within us. Using insightful case studies from a variety of client groups, this book shows how Systemic Constellation Work can expand the possibilities of psychodrama techniques, and can be successfully integrated with psychodramatic enactment, guided imagery, ritual, concretization and other methods of healing and personal growth. This book will be essential reading for students and practitioners of psychodrama and Constellation work, as well as counselors, mental health professionals, experiential therapists, creative and expressive arts therapists and alternative practitioners looking to widen their knowledge of mind-body therapies. (shrink)

Enhancing body awareness has been described as a key element or a mechanism of action for therapeutic approaches often categorized as mind-body approaches, such as yoga, TaiChi, Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, Body Awareness Therapy, mindfulness based therapies/meditation, Feldenkrais, Alexander Method, Breath Therapy and others with reported benefits for a variety of health conditions. To better understand the conceptualization of body awareness in mind-body therapies, leading practitioners and teaching faculty of these approaches were (...) invited as well as their patients to participate in focus groups. The qualitative analysis of these focus groups with representative practitioners of body awareness practices, and the perspectives of their patients, elucidated the common ground of their understanding of body awareness. For them body awareness is an inseparable aspect of embodied self awareness realized in action and interaction with the environment and world. It is the awareness of embodiment as an innate tendency of our organism for emergent self-organization and wholeness. The process that patients undergo in these therapies was seen as a progression towards greater unity between body and self, very similar to the conceptualization of embodiment as dialectic of body and self described by some philosophers as being experienced in distinct developmental levels. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bernard Mandeville and the Therapy of “The Clever Politician”Harold J. CookAs the institutional authority of the learned physicians of Augustan London waned, new threats to the classical foundations of medical practice appeared. 1 Patients had more freedom to chose from a variety of practitioners and practices, giving both consumer demand and the advertising skills of suppliers an even more powerful hand in medical affairs. While the burgeoning medical marketplace (...) developed mostly because of the profound socio-economic and political changes of the late Stuart period, intellectual transformations were at play, too. The new science appeared to encourage empiricism and the development of new remedies based on experimentation, devaluing university education in medical classics, but conversely the new science could strengthen physicians’ claims to superiority over mere patients and practitioners. Medical materialists, for instance, could turn the classical advisor/client relationship into that of an expert contolling a passive recipient (patient) for his or her own good.One contemporary debate that shows the implications of materialism for medical relationships is the theory of the passions. The passions linked mind and body. According to most classical accounts, one could (or should) control the passions by applying reason, resulting in both a virtuous and a healthy life. But according to a strong version of materialism, the mind could not hope to control the passions. A doctor therefore could no longer appeal to patients’ reason; rather, he had to manipulate the patient’s passions for his or her own good. Hence for a materialist, the doctor was not an adviser to the patient but an expert therapist, not a teacher of health and virtue but a “clever politician” who ordered bodily passions. Some versions of the new science, then, favored [End Page 101] the expertise of physicians while undermining older views about learned authority. Such an outlook is clear in the work of Dr. Bernard Mandeville, whose famous Fable of the Bees shows how the “clever politician” played on passions to make the body politic run smoothly. Mandeville held coherent views on politics, economics, moral philosophy, and medicine. Like many doctors of his time, he fought to establish his expertise in the new science. His views are expressed most clearly in the theory of the passions. By examining his discussion of the passions in both his social commentary and his medical dialogues, we can note similarities among his various writings and glimpse one of his fundamental positions on medicine and humanity.The Fable and its CriticsTo many English minds of the early eighteenth century, no one exemplified materialism’s threat better than Dr. Bernard Mandeville. Mandeville’s famous slogan, the subtitle of his Fable of the Bees—“private vices, public benefits”—seemed to epitomize materialism’s inherent immorality. The book seemed to argue that what most people recognized as human vices were the main engines of the collective good. Mandeville’s famous book pictured human nature as animalistic, in which the passions held sway over reason. In Mandeville’s world, it appeared, reason became little more than the ability to rationalize, the instrument of hypocrisy, merely letting people cover their true motives (grounded as they were in the passions) with empty words pretending to more exalted ends.His Fable had begun as a little, anonymous, satirical poem in 1705, titled “The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turn’d Honest.” It began by speaking of “A Spacious Hive well stockt with Bees, / That liv’d in Luxury and Ease.” Many of the bees were knaves, with no calling free of deceit, but while “every Part was full of Vice, / Yet [was] the whole Mass a Paradise; /... Such were the Blessings of that State; / Their Crimes conspir’d to make them Great.” Avarice, prodigality, luxury, pride, envy, vanity, folly, fickleness, and inconstancy employed millions, encouraging ingenuity and industry and creating pleasures and comforts “To such a Height, the very Poor / Liv’d better than the Rich before.” But many of the thriving bees complained, shouting for honesty and virtue. When Jove “rid / The bawling Hive of Fraud,” economic collapse followed, with the consequent end of arts and sciences as well; population declined; the hive’s territory decreased; and the remaining bees toiled long and... (shrink)

How should we deal with mental disorder - as an "illness" like diabetes or bronchitis, as a "problem in living", or what? This book seeks to answer such questions by going to their roots, in philosophical questions about the nature of the human mind, the ways in which it can be understood, and about the nature and aims of scientific medicine. The controversy over the nature of mental disorder and the appropriateness of the "medical model" is not just an (...) abstract theoretical debate: it has a bearing on very practical issues of appropriate treatment, as well as on psychiatric ethics and law. A major contention of this book is that these questions are ultimately philosophical in character: they can be resolved only if we abandon some widespread philosophical assumptions about the "mind" and the "body", and about what it means for medicine to be "scientific". The "phenomenological" approach of the twentieth-century French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty is used to question these assumptions. His conception of human beings as "body-subjects" is argued to provide a more illuminating way of thinking about mental disorder and the ways in which it can be understood and treated. The conditions we conventionally call "mental disorders" are, it is argued, not a homogeneous group: the standard interpretation of the medical model fits some more readily than others. The core mental disorders, however, are best regarded as disturbed ways of being in the world, which cause unhappiness because of deviation from "human" rather than straightforwardly "biological" norms. That is, they are problems in how we experience the world and especially other people, rather than in physiological functioning - even though the nature of our experience cannot ultimately be separated from the ways in which our bodies function. This analysis is applied within the book both to issues in clinical treatment and to the special ethical and legal questions of psychiatry. Written by a well known philosopher in an accessible and clear style, this book should be of interest to a wide range of readers, from psychiatrists to social workers, lawyers, ethicists, philosophers and anyone with an interest in mental health. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thomas Aquinas and Cognitive TherapyChristopher Megone (bio)Keywordsemotions, rationality, cognitivism, Aristotelian psychology, powersGiuseppe butera has written a stimulating and persuasive defence of the view that Aquinas’s philosophical psychology (APP) can provide “a profound and cogent philosophical framework for cognitive therapy (CT).” In this short commentary, I respond to Butera’s claims from the perspective of one possible reading of the moral psychology of Aristotle, one of Aquinas’s major philosophical influences. Given (...) the general debt that Aquinas owes to Aristotle, as noted by Butera, this may provide a helpful slant on Butera’s interpretation of Aquinas.Indeed although Butera offers Aquinas as an alternative source for a philosophical underpinning of CT, rather than the Stoics cited by Beck, one might think that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle could in any case be put forward as equally fruitful areas for inquiry in this context. Thus, one might think that Socrates’ moral psychology, which led him to the cognitivist claim that virtue is knowledge, provides a commitment to a CT-related perspective that both predated and itself influenced the Stoics. And one might then expect to learn things of relevance to CT from the ways in which Plato and Aristotle responded to that Socratic cognitivist outlook.From such an Aristotelian perspective, then, Butera’s approach is very welcome. He makes a strong case for considering Aquinas’s broadly Aristotelian conception of the human person as a desirable alternative to any account that depends on Cartesian substance dualism (of mind and body). On the Aristotelian account, by contrast, the human person is itself a single substance comprised of form (the soul) and matter (the body), the ensouled body constituting a substantial unity. The soul is a set of essential powers, the powers each human has which makes him/her a human being. These powers are necessarily linked in such a way as to comprise that unity and enmattered in a body, each enmattered set of powers constituting an individual member of the species.As Butera also notes, Aquinas follows Aristotle in supposing there to be five basic kinds of human essential powers—vegetative or nutritive, locomotive, sensitive or perceptual, appetitive or desiderative, and rational. Taken together, these distinguish humans from other species. And broadly speaking Aquinas thinks of the distinctively human motivational features as having three parts, non-rational appetites or desires, appetites or desires open to reason, and the purely rational intellect.Within this broad framework, Butera offers an account of APP and in particular of the emotions whose treatment is so important with CT. Given that this account is broadly congenial from an Aristotelian perspective, I offer three main comments. First, Butera makes interesting methodological claims, which I briefly explore. Second, and most [End Page 373] substantially, I examine Butera’s claims about emotions in APP in terms of some Aristotelian points about the acquisition of emotions. Third, I suggest that these latter points bring out a slight tension between the way in which Butera endorses CT at the outset of his paper and his slightly more qualified remarks at the end of it.MethodIn footnote 1, Butera talks of “the differences and complementarity of the methods employed by philosophers and scientists.” However, although he fairly notes that the ambitions of his paper far exceed its scope, so he cannot be expected to have elaborated this theme, his methodological comments do raise some questions as to how exactly we might understand the relation between the two modes of inquiry. He suggests, as noted, that APP can provide the philosophical underpinnings for CT. He goes on to indicate that APP can provide a deeply rooted and highly articulated philosophical explanation for the effectiveness of CT (347). This consists in showing that the principles and methods of CT can be philosophically grounded by APP (348), which he exemplifies by identifying seven points of contact between CT and APP.Butera contrasts this approach with that of Beck, who is content for CT to be “an empirically grounded system of psychological principles and therapeutic methods” (347). So what does the philosophical material add? According to Butera, “employing the rational, dialectical method of the philosophers, [Aquinas] is able to sound depths inaccessible... (shrink)

Interoception, the ability to feel the body’s internal sensations, is an essential aspect of emotional experience. There is mounting evidence that interoception is impaired in common mental health disorders and that poor interoceptive awareness is a major contributor to emotional reactivity, calling for clinical interventions to address this deficit. The manuscript presents a comprehensive theoretical review, drawing on multidisciplinary findings to propose a metatheory of reinforcement mechanisms applicable across a wide range of disorders. We present a reconsideration of operant (...) conditioning through the co-emergence model of reinforcement, which is a neurophenomenological account of the interaction between cognition and interoception, and its consequences on behavior. The model suggests that during memory processing, the retrieval of autobiographical memory (including maladaptive cognition) is dependent upon its co-emerging interoceptive cues occurring at the encoding, consolidation and reconsolidation stages. Accordingly, “interoceptive reinforcement” during emotional distress is a common factor to all emotional disorders and a major cause for relapse. We propose that interoceptive desensitization has transdiagnostic benefits, readily achievable through the cultivation of equanimity during mindfulness training and can be integrated in cognitive and behavioral interventions to permit a transdiagnostic applicability. We summarize the contributions of this approach into 10 specific and testable propositions. (shrink)

This book represents an outstanding contribution to the field of somatic psychology. It focuses on the relationship between body and emotions, and on the linkages between mindfulness-based emotion studies and neuroscience. The author discusses the awakening of somatic intelligence as a journey through pain and trauma management, the moral dimensions of somatic passions, and the art and practice of embodied mindfulness. Issues such as the emotions and the body in relation to Buddhist contemplative practice, against the background of (...) the most recent findings of current neuroscience, are expanded in the book. A broad review of the Darwinian-Jamesian heritage on emotion studies is a unique contribution to the tradition of the somatogenic strands of emotions, and provides a contrasting focus to the ideogenic emotions in Sigmund Freud. This work provides an invaluable resource for students of psychology and philosophy, psychotherapists and meditation teachers, students, and for anyone with an interest in the field of somatic psychology. (shrink)

Rooted in the ancient holistic disciplines or energy sciences, and becoming established in the work of early psychodynamic pioneers, this new discipline, with the current growth of its bodymind methodologies, draws from phenomenological philosophies, depth psychologies, and from the latest neuroscience. This unique text explores both the remarkable history and the contemporary burgeoning of somatic psychology, and addresses the theoretical challenges that must be met if it is to realize its impressive potential. --Book Jacket.

While the ancients described the world as a single organism and the medieval view was theological in nature, modern thought has envisioned the world as a mechanism composed of smaller mechanisms. Raziel Abelson argues that this mechanistic explanation, when applied to human action, is dangerous because it "threatens us with a kind of spiritual annihilation...;[and] it undermines our belief in freedom of the will and with it the reality of choice, value, and moral responsibility." In Lawless Mind, he presents (...) a theory about the relationship between mind and body in order to show how voluntary actions can be causally explained while still allowing for free will.Abelson attempts to reconcile the centuries-old debate between determinists and free-willers by making a distinction between two kinds of causality. "The impact of this [mechanistic] view on psychology, ethics, and politics is such as to replace moral judgment with the search for causal mechanisms. In psychology it results in reducing moral wisdom to medical therapy, in politics it reduces statesmanship to game theory and rational persuasion to behavioral modification, and in ethics it reduces moral responsibility to social conformity. If we are all programmed automata, as mechanism suggests, then the way to improve our performances is to hire a mechanic of the mind to tinker with our wiring. Is this the way to think about ourselves? I shall try to show that it is not."Abelson's novel theory of mind and psychological causality provides solutions for problems in metaphysics, ethics, psychology, and the social sciences. The issues addressed include free will and responsibility, mind-body interaction, models of psychotherapy, causal explanations in sociology, and the difference between minds and computers. Author note: Raziel Abelson is Professor of Philosophy at New York University and author of Persons: A Study of Philosophical Psychology. (shrink)

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the United States at a cost of $560–$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs about and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy can (...) be efficacious for CP. However, CBT generally does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been recognized as an effective, non-pharmacologic treatment for a variety of CP conditions. However, little is known about the neurologic mechanisms underlying ACT. We conducted an ACT intervention in women with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected pre- and post-ACT, and changes in functional connectivity were measured using Network-Based Statistics. Behavioral outcomes were measured using validated assessments such as the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the NIH Toolbox Neuro-QoLTM scales. Results suggest that, following the 4-week ACT intervention, participants exhibited reductions in brain activation within and between key networks including self-reflection, emotion, and cognitive control. These changes in connectivity strength were correlated with changes in behavioral outcomes including decreased depression and pain interference, and increased participation in social roles. This study is one of the first to demonstrate that improved function across the DMN, SN, and FPN may drive the positive outcomes associated with ACT. This study contributes to the emerging evidence supporting the use of neurophysiological indices to characterize treatment effects of alternative and complementary mind-body therapies. (shrink)

This book critically assesses the implications of modern medicine's claim to be a natural science. Medicine models its scientific and clinical self-understanding on an obsolete positivist conception of science, reality, and consciousness. In this view, the body is modeled as a biological machine, disease as breakdown of the machine, and therapy as physical measures to fix the machine. The problems besetting medical science and practice are rooted in the inadequacy of the positivist philosophical assumptions regarding the nature of science, (...) reality and consciousness To base the diagnostic practices and therapeutic regimes purely on knowledge of physical processes in the human body is, in view of this analysis, at best grossly inadequate, at worst thoroughly dehumanizing (Anton van Niekerk: Editorial Foreword). This means that medicine's clinical method cannot be transformed without transforming the underlying view of science, of reality, and of the human person. The book proposes a broader model of science which overcomes the outdated dichotomy between human and natural sciences. Science is viewed as an interdisciplinary exercise generating multiple perspectives. The insights of the human sciences are essential for scientific clinical medicine. Utilizing evolutionary biology and complexity theory, the author proposes an alternative understanding of reality and human consciousness as a basis for a transformed clinical method. Reality is a hierarchy of systems of increasing complexity. Different levels can be distinguished, namely material systems, living material systems, conscious living material systems and self-conscious living material systems. Each level represents a new manner of being which requires a different scientific discourse of understanding. Using this model of reality the author argues against understanding human consciousness as a byproduct of physical processes in the brain. The human person is a self-conscious, complex, psycho-somatic system, whose well-being is conditioned by much more than physical processes. (shrink)

The mind body problem in psychoanalytic theory and practice -- Philosophy and the mind-body problem, influences on psychoanalysis -- Psyche and soma in the work of Sigmund Freud : psychoanalytic foundations -- Psyche and soma in Klein and object relations : contemporary developments -- Psyche and soma in Kohutian, intersubjective, and relational theories -- Attachment theory and neuropsychoanalysis -- Conclusions.

There is increasing recognition within psychoanalysis and related therapies that awareness of the body is important in understanding and treating patients. Psychic Threats and Somatic Shelters explores the ways in which adults and children become acquainted with the range of physical issues that arise within their psychoanalytic or psychological treatments. Nitza Yarom discusses in a practical and clinically focused way the large variety of physical outlets which today's person uses to shelter from the many troubles and restrictions that (...) are placed on everyday life. Her book is divided into two main sections: Somatic shelters, which explores the variety of physical symptoms encountered by patients, including problems with weight and eating; with sensation through sight, sound, smell and taste; in movement through hyper activity or rigidity and through the communication of physical pain. Embodied dialogue, in which the author updates the use of the basic technical principles of psychoanalysis to involve the body in the treatment including transference and counter-transference between analyst and patient. In Psychic Threats and Somatic Shelters the emotional communication of these body narratives are vividly demonstrated in the treatments presented, here the interaction in the consulting room is revealed in bodily resonance and its therapeutic effects. This book is written for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, psychologists, body therapists, family therapists, social workers and art/movement therapists. (shrink)

The #1bestseller that presents a funny, honest, and engaging look at the craziness of modern life, explaining why we're all just a little bit out of our minds. In Sane New World, Ruby Wax - comedian, writer and mental health advocate - shows us just how our minds can send us mad as our internal critics play on a permanent loop tape. 'Don't do that.. why you... you didn't... should have... but you didn't...'. Ruby knows those voices well. She has (...) been on a tough but ultimately enlightening journey that has taken her from battling depression to achieving a Masters Degree from Oxford University in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy. In Sane New World, Ruby helps us all understand why we sabotage our sanity, how our brains work and how we can rewire our thinking - often through simple mindfulness techniques - to find calm in a frenetic world. (shrink)

Mind and Body in Early China critiques Orientalist accounts of early China as a radical "holistic" other, which saw no qualitative difference between mind and body. Drawing on knowledge and techniques from the sciences and digital humanities, Edward Slingerland demonstrates that seeing a difference between mind and body is a psychological universal, and that human sociality would be fundamentally impossible without it. This book has implications for anyone interested in comparative religion, early China, cultural (...) studies, digital humanities, or science-humanities integration. (shrink)

New York Times best-selling author offers a groundbreaking approach to activate the subconscious brain to set yourself free from your past and create a terrific future. Can you remember a time in your life when you felt absolutely confident, happy, and free? Imagine what your life would be like if you could live in that space... In this book, Dr. Mike Dow shares a groundbreaking, life-changing program he created: Subconscious Visualization Technique (SVT). Now, if you think the subconscious brain is (...) some woo-woo pseudoscience, prepare to have your mind blown. The cutting-edge research, protocol, and audio tracks Mike offers will help you speak directly to your subconscious brain and tap into your greatest strengths, gifts, and resources. His program, the first of its kind, starts with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), then incorporates various types of subconscious tools: mindfulness, guided visualization, audio-visual entrainment, and bilateral stimulation of the brain and body. Your subconscious can change the way you digest food, help you access memories and repressed feelings, boost your immune system, and activate mindbody healing so that you don't have to constantly treat your symptoms. Some examples of syndromes that SVT can treat include chronic pain, fibromyalgia, leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), migraines, anxiety disorders, and more! SVT helps you access the best parts of yourself and move into your true self. In short, your subconscious brain can change your life!" -- ONIX annotation. (shrink)

A guide to retelling your personal, family, and cultural stories to transform your life, your relationships, and the world [bullet] Applies the latest neuroscience research on memory, brain mapping, and brain plasticity to the field of narrative therapy [bullet] Details mind-mapping and narrative therapy techniques that use story to change behavior patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities [bullet] Explores how narrative therapy can help replace dysfunctional cultural stories with ones that build healthier relationships with each other and (...) the planet We are born into a world of stories that quickly shapes our behavior and development without our conscious awareness. By retelling our personal, family, and cultural narratives we can transform the patterns of our own lives as well as the patterns that shape our communities and the larger social worlds in which we interact. Applying the latest neuroscience research on memory, brain mapping, and brain plasticity to the field of narrative therapy, Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy explain how the brain is specialized in the art of story-making and story-telling. They detail mind-mapping and narrative therapy techniques that use story to change behavior patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. They explore studies that reveal how memory works through story, how the brain recalls things in narrative rather than lists, and how our stories modify our physiology and facilitate health or disease. Drawing on their decades of experience in narrative therapy, the authors examine the art of helping people to change their story, providing brain-mapping practices to discover your inner storyteller and test if the stories you are living are functional or dysfunctional, healing or destructive. They explain how to create new characters and new stories, ones that excite you, help you connect with yourself, and deepen your intimate connections with others. Detailing how shared stories and language form culture, the authors also explore how narrative therapy can help replace dysfunctional cultural stories with those that offer templates for healthier relationships with each other and the planet. (shrink)

In Mind and Body Robert Kirk offers an introduction to the complex tangle of questions and puzzles roughly labelled the mind-body problem.

To examine the underlying processes of an innovative mind-body practice, Mindful Body Awareness, this exploratory study involved four case studies analyzed phenomenologically using the dialogal method. Mindful Body Awareness combines manual and verbal processing, and is focused on facilitation of client body awareness. Four individuals were recruited to receive weekly 1.25 hour sessions over four weeks. The Helpfulness Aspects of Therapy form was administered immediately after each session to access participants’ perceptions of the therapy experience. (...) In addition, the Scale of Body Connection was used to examine pre- and post-body awareness and bodily dissociation. Analysis involved phenomenology and descriptive statistics. The overall perceived helpfulness of the intervention was evident in the four themes that emerged from the analysis. These themes were gaining interoceptive awareness, personal agency, therapist trust and conceptual framing, and transformation. The participants’ responses were also used to investigate the therapy process across time. A pattern of increased interoceptive depth was apparent, as was a concomitant progression in embodied sense of self. Improvements in body awareness and bodily dissociation were evident for two of the four participants. These findings help to identify primary components of Mindful Body Awareness and suggest the role of these components in the embodiment process. (shrink)

Unconscious Incarnations considers the status of the body in psychoanalytic theory and practice, bringing Freud and Lacan into conversation with continental philosophy to explore the heterogeneity of embodied life. By doing so, the body is no longer merely an object of scientific inquiry but also a lived body, a source of excessive intuition and affectivity, and a raw animality distinct from mere materiality. The contributors to this volume consist of philosophers, psychoanalytic scholars, and practitioners whose interdisciplinary explorations (...) reformulate traditional psychoanalytic concepts such as trauma, healing, desire, subjectivity, and the unconscious. Collectively, they build toward the conclusion that phenomenologies of embodiment move psychoanalytic theory and practice away from representationalist models and toward an incarnational approach to psychic life. Under such a carnal horizon, trauma manifests as wounds and scars, therapy as touch, subjectivity as bodily boundedness, and the unconscious 'real' as an excessive remainder of flesh. Unconscious incarnations signal events where the unsignifiable appears among signifiers, the invisible within the visible, and absence within presence. In sum: where the flesh becomes word and the word retains its flesh. Unconscious Incarnations seeks to evoke this incarnational approach in order to break through tacit taboos toward the body in psychology and psychoanalysis. This interdisciplinary work will appeal greatly to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as philosophy scholars and clinical psychologists. (shrink)

_Minds and Bodies_ is a clear introduction to the mind-body problem. It requires no prior philosophical knowledge and is ideally suited to newcomers to philosophy and philosophy of mind. Robert Wilkinson carefully introduces the fundamental components of the philosophy of mind: Descartes's dualist account of mind and body; monist views including eliminativism; computer science and artificial intelligence. Each chapter is linked to a reading from key thinkers in the field, from Descartes to Paul Churchland.

Descartes thought his mind and body could exist apart, and that this attested to a real distinction between them. The challenge as Almog initially describes it is to find a reading of “can exist apart” that is strong enough to establish a real distinction, yet weak enough to be justified by what Descartes offers as evidence: that DM and DB can be conceived apart.

A cutting-edge anthology that opens the door for emergent voices from African American, Indigenous, Latin American, and Asian embodiment traditions to transform the field of somatics The notion of “body” that underlies most available writings about somatic theories and practices often assumes a universal normality of structure and function that has now come into question. In this collection, viewpoints grounded in neural, hormonal, gender, and physiological diversities challenge convention and open up a more inclusive world of somatics for psychotherapy (...) and many forms of bodywork. The authors embody these differences and have developed their particular somatic practices out of direct experience. Their narratives offer new approaches to the transformation of our social order’s bodily roots enabling a healing of the recurrent traumas of the past. Covering topics such as the autistic body-mind, how the human body is both shaped by and shapes contemporary society, and somatic psychotherapy as a trustworthy resource for healing within the African American community, these poignant essays will help students and practitioners of somatics broaden the scope and efficacy of their therapeutic practices. (shrink)

Chronic pain is of significant global concern. There is growing evidence that body–mind therapies and psychological approaches can contribute toward changing chronic pain perceptions. This is the first model described in the literature that combines a mindfulness-based approach with dance movement therapy and explores the potential psychological and pain-related changes for this client population. In this paper, the results from the pilot study are presented involving patients with chronic headache recruited in an outpatient rehabilitation setting.Methods: In this (...) pilot study, 29 patients with chronic headache were randomized to either the Mindful-Based Dance Movement Therapy group or the waiting list control group. The MBDMT group was offered 10 sessions in a clinical outpatient rehabilitation setting for 5 weeks. Data were collected pre- and post-intervention and 16 weeks after the intervention was finished. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire−9, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, and Numeric Rating Scale were used as outcome measures.Results: The working model of MBDMT identifies nine therapeutic mechanisms. Per-protocol analysis reveals statistically significant reduction of pain intensity and depression scores in favor of the MBDMT group, and these improvements were maintained in the follow-up assessment.Conclusions: The results suggest that MBDMT is a feasible and promising therapy approach for chronic pain patients. The pilot study offered sufficient information and preliminary results in the desirable direction to enable the researchers to move to a randomized controlled trial stage in order to establish the efficacy of the intervention.Clinical Trial Registration: The study was registered in the www.researchregistry.com, registry. (shrink)

The relationship of minds, bodies, and persons has been a central topic of debate in Western philosophy and theology. This article reviews the ongoing debates about the relationship and nature of bodies, minds, and persons among contemporary Christian analytic philosophers and theologians. The first two parts present some general theological constraints for philosophical theories of persons and describe the basic concepts used (substance, property, supervenience, and physicalism). The views themselves fall into three broad categories. Dualists think that persons are either (...) identical with or partly constituted by non-physical souls. On this view, there are immaterial substances and properties. Hylomorphists maintain that persons are composites of bodies and the souls that inform them. Finally, physicalists claim that there are no immaterial parts to persons. Instead, persons are composed of bodies and brains; the mental properties they have supervene on physical properties. (shrink)

….it [is] wholly irrational to regard as doubtful matters that are perceived clearly and distinctly by the understanding in its purity, on account of mere prejudices of the senses and hypotheses in which there is an element of the unknown.Descartes, Geometrical Exposition of the MeditationsSubstance dualism, once a main preoccupation of Western metaphysics, has fallen strangely out of view; today’s mental/physical dualisms are dualisms of fact, property, or event. So if someone claims to find a difference between minds and bodies (...) per se, it is not initially clear what he is maintaining. Maybe this is because one no longer recognizes ‘minds’ as entities in their own right, or ‘substances.’ However, selves - the things we refer to by use of ‘I’ - are surely substances, and it does little violence to the intention behind mind/body dualism to interpret it as a dualism of bodies and selves. If the substance dualist’s meaning remains obscure, that is because it can mean several different things to say that selves are not bodies. (shrink)

Decolonizing the Body explores the traumatic physical and emotional effects of colonization and systemic racism on the body and mind. Written by a woman of color for women of color, it offers body-centered somatic practices to free women from internalized oppression, so they can reclaim confidence, dignity, and self-worth.

Mind and Body in Early China: Beyond Orientalism and the Myth of Holism. By Edward Slingerland. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xiv + 385. $35.

In Minds and Bodies, one of philosophy's most dynamic and versatile thinkers gathers nearly forty review essays written over the past twenty years for publications of a nonspecialized kind. They cover biography, particularly of Russell and Wittgenstein; philosophy of mind, especially consciousness; and ethics, with an emphasis on applied ethics. Lucid and accessible, these essays together form a vivid picture of contemporary philosophy for the general reader, and will be welcomed by those within the philosophical community for their crisp (...) critical insights and rigorous assessments. (shrink)

I expect every reader knows the hackneyed old joke: ‘What is matter? Never mind. What is mind? No matter.’ Antique as this joke is, it none the less points to an interesting question. For the so-called mind–body dichotomy, which has been raised to almost canonical status in post-Cartesian philosophy, is not in fact at all easy to draw or to defend. This of course means that ‘the mind–body problem’ is difficult both to describe and (...) to solve—or rather, as I would prefer, to dissolve. (shrink)

In the 18th century, authors investigating the effect of music on the human body and soul were many. Apart from specialized studies, allusions to this topic are constantly to be found in works on the theory or the history music, or in medical treatises of a general nature. It is indeed in the context of a new vision of the whole man, restored after a dualist tradition had long held sway, that — it is argued — this appeal to (...) music as a cure for all ills of mind and body is to be understood. (shrink)

Descartes's "conceivability argument" for substance-dualism is defended against Arnauld's criticism that, for all he knows, Descartes can conceive himself without a body only because he underestimates his true essence; one could suggest with equal plausibility that it is only for ignorance of his essential hairiness that Descartes can conceive himself as bald. Conceivability intuitions are defeasible but special reasons are required; a model for such defeat is offered, and various potential defeaters of Descartes's intuition are considered and rejected. At (...) best though Descartes shows the separability of mind from body, not (as he claims) their actual separateness. (shrink)

….it [is] wholly irrational to regard as doubtful matters that are perceived clearly and distinctly by the understanding in its purity, on account of mere prejudices of the senses and hypotheses in which there is an element of the unknown.Descartes, Geometrical Exposition of the MeditationsSubstance dualism, once a main preoccupation of Western metaphysics, has fallen strangely out of view; today’s mental/physical dualisms are dualisms of fact, property, or event. So if someone claims to find a difference between minds and bodies (...) per se, it is not initially clear what he is maintaining. Maybe this is because one no longer recognizes ‘minds’ as entities in their own right, or ‘substances.’ However, selves - the things we refer to by use of ‘I’ - are surely substances, and it does little violence to the intention behind mind/body dualism to interpret it as a dualism of bodies and selves. If the substance dualist’s meaning remains obscure, that is because it can mean several different things to say that selves are not bodies. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to (...) be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

H. D. Lewis; I—Mind and Body—Some Observations on Mr. Strawson's Views: The Presidential Address, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1.

Observing dance improvisation provides a unique opportunity to understand how people collaborate together while creating. It is an opportunity to consider how new ideas appear, not simply from the internal processes of a single creator but rather from the interactions between the minds, bodies and the environment acting on and between a group of improvising dancers. Improvisational scores served in this study as a laboratory into group creativity. Using a video-stimulated recall method, which asks dancers to reflect upon their own (...) processes just after completing the score, I explored the interdependency between meta-cognitive strategies such as imagery and sense awareness, group processes, the role of others in one’s own creative processes, and interactions between bodies and with the environment. As a result I describe how dancers build together a common improvisational space, which allows them to co-create and share their ideas mostly in non-verbal, non-propositional ways. I discuss the co-agency of such a process, showing that intentionality is distributed between dancers at each moment of improvisation and that they are mainly focused on supporting the ideas of others. I also discuss the medium of the body and the embodied response as central to dance improvisation practice. (shrink)

A process model of concept development is proposed as a means of understanding the mind body problem. This paper reviews some definitions and views of mind, reiterates Karl Popper's description of the development of scientific as compared to essentialist methods of concept definition, compares the development of physical and psychological concepts, notes an apparent illogic of the mind and body issue, and discusses a range of psychological theories in relation to this process model, that is, (...) Skinner's behavior view, to Pribram's presentation of cognitive theory, to Epstein's theory of the self concept, and to existentialistic views. In terms of meaning and usefulness, mind and behavioral concepts appear to evolve in the same manner. (shrink)

H. D. Lewis; I—Mind and Body—Some Observations on Mr. Strawson's Views: The Presidential Address, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1.

I here address Descartes' account of human nature as a union of mind and body by appealing to The Passions of the Soul. I first show that Descartes takes us to be able to reform the naturally instituted associations between bodily and mental states. I go on to argue that Descartes offers a teleological explanation of body-mind associations (those instituted both by nature and by artifice). This explanation sheds light on the ontological status of the union. (...) I suggest that it affords a way of understanding how mind and body form a true unit without compromising Descartes' dualism. (shrink)