Author Archives: Bob
Sam Harris: We are lost in thought
The Edge Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.” This year the foundation … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged attentionology, Edge, Project Reason, Sam Harris, The Edge Foundation
Leave a comment
Dr. Ben Goldacre on The Placebo Effect
I’m a long-time fan of Dr. Ben Goldacre and his blog, Bad Science. Yesterday I finally got around to listening to the BBC Radio program Dr. Goldacre did in 2008 about the placebo effect. It’s a two-part program that takes … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bad Science, Ben Goldacre, placebo, the placebo effect
Leave a comment
Dennis Kucinich: The for-profit health care system is the problem
I like Dennis Kucinich. The guy has guts, and he’s persistent in arguing for universal, not-for-profit healthcare, despite being ignored by his colleagues in Congress and by the majority of Americans. He’s long been one of the very few truly … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Dennis Kucinich, four quadrants, integral health, univeral health care
Leave a comment
Stress Soup: Dr. Elissa Epel presents “The New Science of Stress and Stress Resilience”
The following presentation is part of a series sponsored by UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Medicine called Life in Balance: Strategies for Optimal Health from the Science of Integrative Medicine. In this talk, Elissa Epel, PhD discusses some of the … Continue reading
“The decline effect”: Why transparency in science is a good thing
Johah Lehrer wrote a fascinating article (The Truth Wears Off) in The New Yorker last month about the “decline effect” in scientific research, which he describes as the tendency of initially promising results to fade over time. In the process … Continue reading
Misunderstanding addiction: The beat goes on…
Back in May I wrote a post titled Understanding Addiction, throughout which I bemoaned the fact that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — one of the most powerful voices on matters of health and well-being in our society — … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged addiction, alcoholism, APA, DSM, integral health, NIAAA, NIH, stanton peele
Leave a comment
Integrative Spirituality
[The following is my contribution to an online symposium that Julian Walker organized several years ago called Integrative Spirituality: Grounded Contemporary Perspectives. The website that hosted the symposium no longer exists, so I'm reposting my essay here for posterity (in … Continue reading
Good sane fun
“If you want to catch a falling leaf, you have to be where the leaves are falling.” That’s what a little birdie told me, so I intentionally changed my route to work this past week so that I walked under … Continue reading
The Embodiment of Freedom, Part Two
From the traditional scientific viewpoint, people are observable, manipulable objects. Traditional doctors study people’s bodies; traditional psychologists study people’s minds. From the somatic viewpoint, people are more than just bodies understandable and approachable on a bio-physical level, and minds understandable … Continue reading
The Embodiment of Freedom
At some point it occurred to me that my whole point of view, my basic mode of experiencing life, would shift during certain moments from a dissociated, half-alive, going through the motions type thing, to a wakeful, clear-minded, energized state … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged integral health, peak experiences, personal transformation, somatics, Thomas Hanna
Leave a comment