Mind/Body/Spirit

Fear can paralyze a nation. Franklin D. Roosevelt inherited chaos when he was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States: the banking system had collapsed, unemployment had soared, and the economy had hit rock bottom—it was the Great Depression. Facing a national crisis, Roosevelt sought to reassure a fearful nation by proclaiming, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." His message aimed to shift the national mindset from despair to hope, encouraging Americans to recognize the pervasive power of fear and its ability to stop forward growth and further darken an already bleak situation. The same psychological truths about fear apply today. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, psychology, and the social sciences, we now have a deeper understanding of fear and its effects on the mind and body (Porges, 2011).

Genovino Ferri offers an in-depth consideration of the removal of the Father from his role as the symbol of the West’s patriarchal family. He notes that we are witnessing the erosion of the Family and the consequent removal of the Father. Per Dr Ferri, It is a body psycho-analytical description seeking to clearly articulate the container-contained interaction, placing greater emphasis on the container: ‘Being a Father figure is an organisational, evolutive state in the sense that this “paternal” role may be performed by men, women, individuals, and groups.’”

When clients come to us in crisis with racing thoughts, potent emotions, and harsh inner voices, didactic approaches to awareness training are not easy. After noticing their breath for a few minutes, people may be accosted by thoughts: I can’t do this; It’s just another thing for me to fail at; or I have too much to do. Beginners need to practice persistence before they experience meditation’s benefits, like improved concentration, reduced reactivity, and even lower blood pressure. In a culture where immediate gratification is expected, people often give up.

Over time, I experimented with different body-based movements and meditations. The most effective for me were sensory strategies that emphasized the body's crucial role in self-regulation and healing. For individuals like me, BED is not merely a psychological issue. Insights from my studies in somatic psychology and occupational therapy suggest that binge eating is a somatic manifestation of nervous system dysregulation.

Increasing awareness and understanding of epigenetics and neuroplasticity in current research has resulted in a new perspective of psychotherapy that is integrated with neurobiological information. This information is at the root of an emerging paradigm shift in body psychotherapy that I call Evolutive Stage Neuromediator Vegetotherapy.

The Mindfulness and Character Strengths Workbook is everything I hoped for and more. It is a well-written, easy-to-follow, detailed to the nth degree workbook with extensive, free online materials to support the process including audio-guided meditations. Congratulations Ryan on a much-needed workbook to support people exploring character strengths and their integration with mindfulness.

In this article, I will introduce a set of grammar clarifying body psychoanalysis, which extends not only to psychopathology, itself primarily interpreted as being bottom-up in terms of evolutive time, but also, to clinical psychotherapy, that follows. Perhaps I am outlining a new position, certainly it takes the Reichian paradigm deeper, or is, rather, a "change in the visual gestalt" as Kuhn might put it. It represents a change in the mental architecture of observation which emerges from a different way of feeling, I might add. It is a paradigm which reads the unconscious in its entirety, because the unconscious is undoubtedly a "mirror" for what has been deposited in the body.

Peter Sedlmeier offers a representative overview of meditation with a scientific slant in his new book The Psychology of Meditation. Divided into four parts, the text guides readers through varieties of meditation, the effects of meditation, theories of meditation, and concludes with Part 4: Perspectives. He notes that the first 10 chapters build the foundation to support the endpoint, Chapter 11: Perspectives on Meditation Research.

Gravity matters. Not simply to keep us physically grounded here on Earth, but, at a fundamental level, our relationship with gravity affects our lives from start to finish. We start life floating in amniotic fluids. It's easy to assume a sense of buoyancy, free from gravity's impact. Yet, gravity is necessary for our physiological development during the second half of our lives in the womb.

This issue of SPT Magazine offers articles published online this past year for readers who do not follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn, and for those who want all of the articles in one PDF they can download and read at their convenience. I hope 2022 brings a return of contributors willing to share their experiences and clinical knowledge with our readers.