FEATURED ARTICLE HOME PAGE

This is the first in a series of articles about the power of the pause in life and in therapy. In this article, I talk about why I am calling this kind of pause Active Pause, instead of just calling it a pause. In a nutshell, because the word ‘pause’ alone doesn’t do it justice. In everyday language, what we call a pause is a moment where activity is suspended, i.e. something that we associate with a blank as opposed to activity. I use the word ‘active’ to make the point that the pause is not just a ‘blank’ but an intentional rupture from the status quo, the flow of things as they currently are. Without rupture, there is no possibility of a breakthrough. If the pause were just a pause, in the ordinary sense of the term, what comes after it would be pretty much the same as what comes before it. But the value of the pause is that it allows for disruption, for the possibility of change.

As many of you may know, SPT Magazine will no longer send emails to our subscribers—simply put, not enough people opened our notes to make it fiscally responsible. We will still be publishing our excellent features and articles, our reviews and author reflections. And you can still access everything via our website at www.SomaticPsychotherapyToday.com, we just will no longer send out our twice a year links for our publications. And we have heard from many of you that you do not do Facebook. Serge Prengel has generously offered to share our links and our articles with his LinkedIn group, Somatic Mindfulness in Psychotherapy at http://linkedin.somaticperspectives.com and via his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/somaticmindfulness/ . He will also share our information in his newsletters. We are grateful for Serge’s support and his willingness to share our publications beyond our website and our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SomaticPsychotherapyToday/

Doctors generally begin their journey as eager medical students determined to change the world one patient at a time. With intelligence, compassion, and a desire to help others, medical students muster up enough drive to fight through medical school and residency, accepting the hours of work, sleepless nights, and giant holes left in their bank account in pursuit of what they believe to be a worthwhile, fulfilling profession both morally and economically. However, in Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician, Sandeep Jauhar suggests that it’s difficult to maintain this view within the current medical climate because it’s dominated by the government and large corporations set out to generate income, even if it’s at patients’ expense. In this powerful and thought-provoking memoir, Jauhar utilizes case studies and anecdotes as he reveals his journey as a doctor facing what he refers to as “the midlife crisis in American medicine” and his attempts to understand why “medicine today is as fraught as it’s ever been” (15).

What is that mindful practice? Is it sufficient to just have a ‘mindful practice’, such as mediation, or yoga, or Focusing? It would probably help some, but it wouldn’t be enough to replace the specific practice of inserting the lens. The more intense the potential danger, the more our reactive circuits take over, bypassing the circuits that counterbalance reactivity. In other words: The more intense the potential danger, the more we need to train our mind to recognize that this specific danger is safer than it appears to us. Why am I calling this a ‘mindful practice’, as opposed to just ‘training’?

Genovino Ferri shares his interaction with ChatGPT motivated by his need to “ ‘grasp the Other to better understand them’ and to confirm that my Analysis of the (Characterial) Marks Incised in AI was correct.” Asking ChatGPT, “What do you think of yourself?”, Ferri notes that “Its reply confirmed my expectations, but being perfectly honest, it worried me a lot.” . . . “I accepted the conversation that ChatGPT offered and repeated it here in its entirety because when re-reading it I found it extraordinary and that it perhaps offered the possibility of a careful Relational Position for Man to assume with AI."

When we help clients neurobiologically separate out early shame from grief, we bring them to the awareness of how present day experiences are actually a confusing entanglement of calling cards from the past. As the responses separate and integrate with support into the client's present day self, a felt sense of choice and autonomy emerge.

Masks have fascinated cultures and individuals for centuries. In ancient Greek plays, masks were thought to embody the spirit of the character that the actor played. It was as if the mask itself used the actor to bring the character it represented back to life. The actor could often feel overtaken by the character of the mask. The voice of the actor in the here and now expressed the spirit of the character portrayed. But a mask is more than the physical material, be it leather, Papier-mâché, or terra cotta. It is a representation of the person in appearance and voice. How many disguises live in our voice, our sounds, and sayings?

We've just posted our summer book review issue on issuu.com for those wanting a digital read of the entire magazine. We're working on embedding it on our site as well. Stay tuned for more exciting advances.

Understanding our earliest relationship experiences from the baby’s point of view and how these experiences set in motion life patterns has been the intense study of the field of prenatal and perinatal psychology for over 40 years. The field uses this lens to focus on our earliest human experiences from preconception through baby’s first postnatal year and its role in creating children who thrive and become resilient, loving adults. Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology incorporates research and clinical experience from leading-edge fields such as epigenetics, biodynamic embryology, infant mental health, attachment, early trauma, developmental neurosciences, consciousness studies and other new sciences. Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology incorporates research and clinical experience from leading-edge fields such as epigenetics, biodynamic embryology, infant mental health, attachment, early trauma, developmental neurosciences, consciousness studies and other new sciences.

Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects about one percent of the world’s population. It has been defined as "a splitting of the mind" from German shizophrenie, a neologism coined in 1908 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939). It also stems from the Greek skhizein meaning to "to split" (schizo-) + phren (genitive phrenos) "diaphragm, heart, mind", including concepts associated in ancient Greek thought with the human mind. When schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, trouble with thinking and concentration, and lack of motivation. Research is leading to new, safe treatments. Experts are also unraveling the causes of the disease by studying genetics, conducting behavioral research, and using advanced imaging to look at the brain’s structure and function. These approaches hold the promise of new, more effective therapies. Neuroplasticity, neuroscience’s latest paradigm, may attempt to correct the abnormal integration across large scale neural networks associated with schizophrenia with methods like meditation.