Science of the SpiritS


Book 2

Writing your way to happiness by editing your personal narratives

Tara Parker-Pope
New York Times
Mon, 19 Jan 2015 17:49 UTC
handwriting
The scientific research on the benefits of so-called expressive writing is surprisingly vast. Studies have shown that writing about oneself and personal experiences can improve mood disorders, help reduce symptoms among cancer patients, improve a person's health after a heart attack, reduce doctor visits and even boost memory.

Now researchers are studying whether the power of writing — and then rewriting — your personal story can lead to behavioral changes and improve happiness.

The concept is based on the idea that we all have a personal narrative that shapes our view of the world and ourselves. But sometimes our inner voice doesn't get it completely right. Some researchers believe that by writing and then editing our own stories, we can change our perceptions of ourselves and identify obstacles that stand in the way of better health.

It may sound like self-help nonsense, but research suggests the effects are real.

Comment: See also:

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Black Magic

Yoga and other New Age practises lead to the Dark Side, says Irish priest

Sheena Jackson
Derry Journal
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 13:24 UTC
Image
Calling down Satanic forces in the Belly of the Beast?
Fr. Roland Colhoun, who is based in the Waterside, issued caution when saying mass in Drumsurn two Sundays ago, when he says he was drafted in at short notice. He said his sermon was based on the devil and exorcism.
"I mentioned a number of things that are part of the new age movement. It's so embedded in our culture now that it has gained a kind of a respectability, but the new age practices, they're certainly not good for us and the Church is very concerned about people employing them and has written specific documents on the new age movement. There is a great body of research (theological, spiritual and physiological) already done on it."
Fr. Colhoun said he mentioned yoga and Indian head massage. "The Indian head massage, while I haven't done a great study into it, the difficulty is that it involves the laying on of hands on another person's head. There is a risk when you do that because that is a rite we use in the sacramental practice for the communication of the Holy Spirit in baptism and confirmation, and ordination as well," said Fr Colhoun, "but if you do that outside of a sacramental rite you're running the risk of communicating a bad spirit, not the Holy Spirit."
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Books

Basic distinctions between criminal sociopaths and psychopaths

Scott Bonn, Ph.D.
Psychology Today
Thu, 22 Jan 2015 23:50 UTC
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Many forensic psychologists, psychiatrists and criminologists use the terms sociopathy and psychopathy interchangeably. Leading experts disagree on whether there are meaningful differences between the two conditions. I contend that there are clear and significant distinctions between them.

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), released by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013, lists both sociopathy and psychopathy under the heading of Antisocial Personality Disorders (ASPD). These disorders share many common behavioral traits which lead to the confusion between them. Key traits that sociopaths and psychopaths share include:
  • A disregard for laws and social mores
  • A disregard for the rights of others
  • A failure to feel remorse or guilt
  • A tendency to display violent behavior
In addition to their commonalities, sociopaths and psychopaths also have their own unique behavioral characteristics, as well.

Sociopaths tend to be nervous and easily agitated. They are volatile and prone to emotional outbursts, including fits of rage. They are likely to be uneducated and live on the fringes of society, unable to hold down a steady job or stay in one place for very long. It is difficult but not impossible for sociopaths to form attachments with others. Many sociopaths are able to form an attachment to a particular individual or group, although they have no regard for society in general or its rules. In the eyes of others, sociopaths will appear to be very disturbed. Any crimes committed by a sociopath, including murder, will tend to be haphazard, disorganized and spontaneous rather than planned.

Psychopaths, on the other hand, are unable to form emotional attachments or feel real empathy with others, although they often have disarming or even charming personalities. Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people's trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people. Psychopaths are often well educated and hold steady jobs. Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature.

Comment: Psychopathy is untreatable. According to the experts, they are politicians, judges, church leaders, doctors, even teachers. To understand the suffering caused worldwide by these human-like beings, see:

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Sherlock

Spotting the sociopath in your midst

Joshua Krause
Ready Nutrition
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 14:34 UTC
psychopath work
© unknown
They always know how to get what they want from you. They know your weaknesses better than anyone, even yourself. They can always turn a no into a yes, and they don't seem particularly concerned with laws, safety, or right and wrong. They're the most predatory members of our society, and they'll take what they want, and hang you out to dry.

They're also a bit more complicated than all that.

In recent years, the term "sociopath" has become a loaded word. Uttering it creates an immediate knee jerk response in the listener, and for anyone who doesn't have any real world experience with a sociopath, hearing that word probably brings to mind a barrage of Hollywood villains, cop shows, and serial killers. Unfortunately, the media's portrayal of this mental condition couldn't be further from the truth.

Comment: It's best to cut off all contact with the psychopath, but first one must know how to identify them. For more on sociopaths and psychopaths see: There is also Robert Hare's books Without Conscience and Snakes in Suits as well as Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door.

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Life Preserver

Learning to silence critical self-talk

Terry L. Ledford, PhD
PsychCentral
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 23:49 UTC
self critic
Self-nurturing means, above all, making a commitment to self-compassion. - Jennifer Louden
When does your internal critic show up? Is it when you spill your coffee? When you forget to buy the bread? When you speak too harshly to your children? Is it when you made the C when you were striving for the A, or is it when you didn't get invited to the party?

There are many opportunities for the internal critic to sneak in and remind you of your faults, your failures and your frailties. For some, the internal critic appears with such regularity that it does its dirty work unnoticed. Anything we experience regularly tends to drop out of our awareness. We don't usually notice our breathing, our eyes blinking or the sensation of the shoes on our feet because those things happen to us all the time.

Comment: Self-criticism and perfectionism can become so habitual, that we fail to notice the continual stream of negative thoughts that slowly undermine our being. Learning to notice these thoughts and talk back to that critical 'parent' is more important than many people realize as our very lives might be at stake.

To learn more about self-critical thinking and perfectionism, listen to the interview with Dr. Aleta Edwards on SOTT Talk Radio. Dr. Edwards is the author of the best-selling e-book Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame and Perfectionism.

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People 2

Luke Ruehlman, aged two: I was a woman called Pam in a past life


news.com.au
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 15:12 UTC
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© Screengrab/Fox 2An internet search revealed a woman called Pam did die in a fire.
When Luke Ruehlman began talking about a woman named Pam, his mother Erica assumed it was just an imaginary friend.

She had no idea where her toddler son had picked up the name or why he was so obsessed with it.

The Ohio woman said she initially didn't think it was strange, other than the fact that the family didn't know any Pams.

But things became really strange when she quizzed him about where he had got the name from and why he liked it.

The then-two-year-old told his parents he used to be Pam, a girl with black hair, he said.
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Gem

Human communication slants towards the positive across multiple languages and many modes

Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog
Mon, 16 Feb 2015 00:00 UTC
language
Billions of words analysed in 10 world languages and this mood keeps shining through.

Across multiple languages and in many modes — movie subtitles, music lyrics, Russian literature — human communication skews towards the positive, a new study finds.

Scientists have gathered billions of words from Korean Twitter feeds, Arabic movie subtitles, The New York Times and much more to try and answer an age-old question about whether human beings tend to talk more about the brighter side of life.
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Info

Trying to understand the teenage mind

Chuck Bednar
RedOrbit
Tue, 17 Feb 2015 01:38 UTC
Teenager
© Thinkstock
To their parents, teenagers may seem like the laziest, most foolish, and most self-centered beings on the planet, but according to one prominent UK cognitive neuroscience professor, adults shouldn't hold such behaviors against them - that's just how their brains are wired.

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a professor at University College London and the deputy director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, recently told The Telegraph that when adolescents tell their elders that, "nobody understands them," they might be right, neurologically speaking.

Over the past decade, Blakemore and her colleagues have been analyzing the development of the brain before and during the teenage years.

Among their findings are changes to grey matter in the prefrontal cortex responsible for some of the drastic changes in attitude during this time of life.

Blakemore and the researchers working in her lab have regularly been reporting new discoveries of observable, measurable changes in the structure and function of adolescent brains, the British newspaper said. Not only is she working to learn how the mind of a teenager works, she wants to use that information to change education policy to better maximize their learning potential.

"We work with many schools all over London for research purposes, and I hope that in the next 20 years or so we will be applying more evidence-based science in education because at the moment there is not much," she told the Telegraph on Saturday. "We know a lot about how the teenage brain learns and how it develops but it hasn't filtered through yet."
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Chess

Smart negotiations: A sturdy chair for a tough-willed politician


Sputnik
Fri, 13 Feb 2015 19:57 UTC
As yet another summit passes into history, journalists are trying hard to interpret something which continues to puzzle them: how on Earth could the four presidents stay clear-headed throughout sixteen hours of negotiations and stick to their respective agendas to the very end?
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President Putin, however, opted for a chair from another set – a hard one, with a straight back
The venue for the February 11 Normandy Four meeting remained the same as in September of last year: the vast marble-and-glass Independence Palace in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. The room for negotiations, however, was shifted from a spacious hall with a large table to the "Green Room" proposed by President Putin. The room features a low coffee table in the middle, which is impossible to bend towards and absolutely ill-fitted for 16-hour-long negotiations.

While the extended negotiations with other members of the delegations were held in a larger room, the four heads of states stuck to the Green one.

The room was furnished with a soft sofa and two armchairs from the same set, which were taken by Presidents Hollande and Poroshenko and Chancellor Merkel.

Comment: Again and again Russians show much higher intelligence and competence when it comes to diplomacy and political negotiations. Perhaps it has something to do with Lavrov smoking, and the other side being utterly stupid when it comes to analyzing situations and people.

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Phoenix

Develop your thinking skills through writing

Steve Gillman
Increase Brainpower
Sun, 15 Feb 2015 14:35 UTC
writing
Better thinking come from practice. What are some good ways to practice? You can sit and think, for starters, you can work on specific puzzles and problems. You can have interesting discussions with others. There may not be a "best" way to practice your thinking skills and boost your brainpower, but one of the most powerful is to write.

Why writing? Because unless you are just copying words, to write is to think. There are three basic ways in which writing helps your thinking skills.

1. Writing clarifies your thoughts

You may have noticed how much clearer an argument or opinion becomes to you once you express it. Talking forces you to clarify your thoughts, but not just to the other person. Putting thoughts into words is also a process of telling yourself the logic behind what you "felt" or what you only partly understood. You try to make the other person understand, but you are often also bringing yourself to that understanding, or at least a better one. You are thinking aloud.

Writing accomplishes the same thing. It is essentially like talking to the paper or computer screen. Compared to talking, it has the disadvantage of not giving you outside feedback. On the other hand, you get to express and develop your thoughts without interruption. This is a great way to work on your thinking skills. Boost your brainpower by exercising your "explain power."

Comment: See also:

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