Expanding Perceptions Jul 20, 2022 In this conversation, author, scholar, artist, and mystic, James Tunney discusses Self-Actualization and how this popular concept has often been misunderstood through the years. Tunney asserts that a focus on individual freedom and autonomy is essential to the actualizing process which often puts it in conflict with modern control systems. For more information on James Tunney, check out his website: https://www.jamestunney.com/

Astro Butterfly

Jul 29, 2022

August starts with a BANG – the BANG being the once-in-a lifetime, much-anticipated Mars-North Node-Uranus conjunction in Taurus.

Yes, it’s finally happening.

Mars, North Node and Uranus are unpredictable, volatile, and change-oriented. Breakthroughs and paradigm shifts are likely. There’s a sense of urgency in the air. Something is about to happen.

Follow your intuition. Mars will give you that extra push to take action and stand for what really matters.

Let’s have a look at the most important transits of the month:

August 1st 2022 – Mars Conjunct North Node And Uranus

On August 1st, Mars joins North Node and Uranus at 18° Taurus.

The North Node-Uranus conjunction has been building up for months now – but it’s Mars, the planet of action, that will push the trigger. This is when things will actually happen.

It’s futile to predict what will happen when we have a Uranus transit.

Best course of action? Pay attention. Be aware. Say yes to opportunities.

The North Node is our uncomfort zone, so don’t wait to “be ready” or “be convinced” of something. Recognize your anxiety and follow Mars’ lead. Whatever happens is for your highest good.

August 4th, 2022 – Mercury Enters Virgo

On August 4th, 2022 Mercury enters Virgo.

Mercury in Virgo is the only placement where a planet is both in domicile and exaltation. This means that Mercury feels very good in Virgo. In Virgo, Mercury gets to do what Mercury does best: think, analyze, organize, articulate, communicate.

And considering that thinking and communication (Mercury) are SO important in our everyday life, Mercury’s transit through Virgo is good news for everyone.

This is our opportunity to tap into Mercury’s superpowers to sort out loose ends, solve communication problems, and figure things out.

August 11th, 2022 – Venus Enters Leo

Drumroll, please! On August 11th, 2022 Venus enters Leo.

Venus in Leo is a “look at me” Venus. This means that our feelings and emotional displays will be set on high for the next few weeks. Venus in Leo encourages us to make a statement about our wants and desires.

This is our opportunity to be honest about how we feel, to let others know it! You don’t want to be subtle when Venus is in Leo. Say what you want. Say how you feel. Your authentic expression will encourage others to do the same.

August 12th, 2022 – Full Moon In Aquarius

On August 12th, 2022 we have a Full Moon at 19° Aquarius. The Full Moon in Aquarius is conjunct Saturn and square Uranus and the Nodes. This Full Moon will feel sober and heavy – it will show us where we need to get our act together, behave like an adult, and take charge of our destiny.

The good thing about a Full Moon conjunct Saturn in Saturn’s sign (Aquarius) is that it carries a very strong manifesting energy. Moon + Saturn in its sign makes things happen. This is when some of our most important projects may come to life. Hard work will pay off.

August 20th, 2022 – Mars Enters Gemini

On August 20th, 2022 Mars enters Gemini. Mars in Gemini is one of the most important transits of the year, because Mars will spend a loooong period of time in Gemini, due to its retrograde.

Are you ready for 7 months of Mars in Gemini?

All Mars retrogrades are interesting, but I have the feeling that this one will be particularly interesting.

Mars in Gemini is the most impatient Mars placement. Mars in Gemini can’t stay still, but when retrograde, Mars will be forced to slow down, reflect and be patient.

As always, the triggered area of your chart will come into focus. This time we’re talking about 8°-25° Gemini.

Mars only goes retrograde on October 30th, 2022 (we will have a special report about Mars retrograde closer to the date), but nevertheless pay attention to any themes that come up on the day of the ingress, August 20th. It’s very likely these themes will come under scrutiny in the next few months.

August 23rd, 2022 – Sun Enters Virgo

On August 23rd, 2022 the Sun enters Virgo. Happy birthday to all Virgos out there!

Whether you live in the Northern or in the Southern Hemisphere, Virgo is the “get ready for the next season” time of the year.

Virgo’s role is to ensure that our affairs are set in order – the harvest has been safely gathered, and we’re prepared for the next chapter of our lives. The Virgo season is the best time of the year to fix what’s not working, get organized, and do self-development work.

August 25th, 2022 – Uranus Goes Retrograde

On August 25th, 2022 Uranus goes retrograde at 18° Taurus.

Uranus is still flared up by its encounter with destiny (North Node) – now it’s time to revisit the Uranus-North Node conjunction themes, helping us make sense of what happened.

Uranus is the planet of awareness – it’s the magnifying glass that helps us see what we couldn’t otherwise see.

When Uranus is direct, this awareness comes from the world outside – through messages, events, or other people. When Uranus is retrograde, the awareness comes from the inside.

In the next few months, some light bulbs will switch on. If you have planets or angles between 14°-18° of Taurus, Uranus retrograde will influence you directly.

August 26th, 2022 – Mercury Enters Libra

On August 26th, 2022, Mercury enters Libra.

Are you too opinionated, or on the contrary, too accommodating? Do you jump to conclusions or do you take lots of time to make up your mind?

The keyword for Mercury in Libra – and for any planet in Libra – is balance.

In the Air sign of Libra, Mercury becomes inclusive, diplomatic, and people-oriented. Mercury in Libra’s goal? To find common ground. This is a great transit for negotiations, reaching agreements, and finding win-win outcomes.

Mercury will be in Libra for a long time (until the end of October!), since it goes retrograde next month. This means that the area of your life that is Libra-ruled will come into focus in the next couple of months. More will follow about Mercury retrograde in Libra in next month’s forecast.

August 27th, 2022 – New Moon In Virgo

On August 27th, 2022 we will have a New Moon at 4° Virgo.

The New Moon is 3 minutes away from a perfect square to Mars in Gemini. Mars squares normally bring tension and conflict.

Thankfully, Mars is also part of a beautiful grand Air trine with Mercury (the New Moon ruler) and Pluto.

Yes, the New Moon in Virgo will push our buttons. Yes, the New Moon in Virgo will stir some uncomfortable conversations. But we can work it out! If Mercury gets away with talking, and doing nothing – Mars doesn’t. Mars is the action planet.

Now that you’ve spoken your truth, what are you going to do about it?

Translation is a 5-step process of “straight thinking in the abstract.” The first step is an ontological statement of being beginning with the syllogism: “Truth is that which is so. That which is not truth is not so. Therefore Truth is all there is.” The second step is the sense testimony (what the senses tell us about anything). The third step is the argument between the absolute abstract nature of truth from the first step and the relative specific truth of experience from the second step. The fourth step is filtering out the conclusions you have arrived at in the third step. The fifth step is your overall conclusion.

The Ukraine Emergency Translation Group meets every Friday at 11 a.m. Pacific time via Zoom. We call it the Ukraine Emergency Translation Group but we welcome Translations about anything. Here are sense testimonies (2nd steps) we translated and their corresponding conclusions: (5th steps) this week.

2) Cruelty can be disguised as strength. 
5)  Truth is the only authority and strength that is or can be. 

2) There is a battle going on in my body between bacteria and antibiotics.
5) Truth, the Host, nourishes Itself with infinite supply and limitless hospitality.

All Translators are welcome to join us on Fridays at 11 a.m. Pacific time. The link is: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83608167293?pwd=cFRsckVibXMwTGJ0KzhaV0R2cWJtdz09

For information about Translation or other Prosperos classes go to: https://www.theprosperos.org/teaching

Some comments from group members about this group:

“I like the group interaction and different perspectives. Also, at least for me, it gives me a sense of accountability and keeps the practice fresh in my mind. ” –Sarah Flynn

“This group has freed me up to have more fun with my Translations.”
–Mike Zonta

Psilocybin mushrooms dried and ready for consumption in Denver on May 14, 2019. Photo: Joe Amon/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

A letter from the Health and Human Services Department discloses the anticipated FDA approval of MDMA and psilocybin treatments.

Mattha Busby

July 26 2022, 2:07 p.m. (TheIntercept.com)

AS TWIN MENTAL HEALTH and drug misuse crises kill thousands of people per week, the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapies “must be explored,” urges a federal letter on behalf of the U.S. health secretary and shared with The Intercept.

President Joe Biden’s administration “anticipates” that regulators will approve MDMA and psilocybin within the next two years for designated breakthrough therapies for PTSD and depression, respectively. The administration is “exploring the prospect of establishing a federal task force to monitor” the emerging psychedelic treatment ecosystem, according to the letter sent by Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Miriam Delphin-Rittmon to Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa.

The May correspondence, not shared publicly until now, is the clearest indication yet that top officials are preparing for the approval of psychedelic drugs — demonized for decades after former President Richard Nixon sought means to attack the anti-Vietnam War counterculture in the late 1960s — which was arguably unthinkable even five years ago.

But as evidence grows of the healing potential of certain controlled substances, including many hallucinogens, the war on drugs in the U.S. is steadily being wound down. Late Friday, the Drug Enforcement Agency dropped plans to schedule several DMT analogues after facing serious opposition, including a legal threat from companies Mindstate, Tactogen, and Panacea Plant Sciences.

The move followed Thursday’s introduction of a bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., to force the DEA to stop barring terminally ill patients from trying controlled drugs which have passed early trials. The right to try experimental therapies has been enshrined in federal law since 2018, but the DEA currently blocks its use among people with late-stage cancer who wish to be treated with psilocybin, a Schedule I controlled substance.

“Studies have shown that psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety among patients with life-threatening cancer,” Booker wrote in a statement tweeted Thursday. “While typically terminally ill patients are allowed to access drugs that are in FDA clinical trials, they are barred from accessing Schedule I drugs, despite their therapeutic potential.”

In the letter obtained by The Intercept, Delphin-Rittmon said that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, responding to Dean on behalf of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, “agrees that too many Americans are suffering from mental health and substance use issues, which have been exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and that we must explore the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapies to address this crisis.”

Dean had proposed an interagency task force, the letter notes, to lead a public-private partnership and address “the myriad of complex issues associated with the anticipated approval by the [FDA] of [MDMA] for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin for the treatment of depression within approximately 24 months.”

According to Delphin-Rittmon, SAMHSA and the assistant secretary for health are considering the establishment of such a task force including the private sector. “Collaboration across federal agencies with outside stakeholders will be the most effective way to ensure we are thoughtfully coordinating work on emerging substances such as MDMA and psilocybin,” she wrote.

Such a body would issue guidelines that assist states in addressing the complex clinical, regulatory, and public policy issues necessary for the deployment of MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted therapies. “This will increase our preparedness to implement this new form of treatment as safely, affordably, and equitably as possible into the health care system upon approval,” said Brett Waters, a New York-based attorney and founder of the psychedelic advocacy initiative Reason for Hope, which has concentrated its efforts on expediting the rollout of psychedelic therapies.

“Our case was simple: These treatments are coming through the FDA, and likely to be approved soon, so we should be taking proactive measures,” Waters said. “We hope to work with the Biden administration on a reasonable solution to this immoral policy failure.”

Even while millions of dollars in federal funding is directed toward psychedelic research and efforts within certain states — led by Oregon — seek to unravel anti-drug laws and provide treatments, many people have no time to waste.

“About 300 people a day from drug overdoses in this country,” Dean told The Intercept. “I call it a jetliner of souls every single day. We know the toll the loss of our loved ones takes on their immediate family and upon entire communities. My son Harry is now nine years, seven months into recovery for opioid addiction. This is a heart-wrenching crisis, and it’s time for bold, innovative solutions to save the lives of our children.”

More than 17 former U.S. service members are estimated to kill themselves per day as traumas from futile and damaging wars abroad over the past 20 years find scant respite through traditional avenues. But hundreds of veterans have traveled to Mexico, Costa Rica, and elsewhere in recent years for successful treatments with psychedelics to address war traumas.

“When you hear compelling testimonies from a retired army brigadier general and a retired three-star Marine Corps lieutenant general about the lives that have been saved by providing access to psychedelic-assisted therapy, it is impossible that we take no action,” Dean added.

Related:

House Moves to Expand Psychedelic Therapy Research

Further legislation to widen access to psychedelics is soon to be deliberated, including one bill focused on research and pilot programs within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill would seek to help veterans receive psychedelic therapies within the United States, as many cannot afford to go abroad. 

“We find it morally unacceptable that our nation’s Veterans should be forced to take such extreme, and often detrimentally expensive routes to potentially lifesaving interventions,” wrote retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Martin Steele, chief executive officer of Reason for Hope, in a letter supporting the Right to Try Clarification Act last week.

He said that for most veterans who have been able to access it, “psychedelic-assisted therapy has proved not only life-saving, but life-restoring,” and called Booker and Paul’s legislation “a small step in the right direction toward saving lives.”

President Donald Trump joins Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, Louise Gorsuch, and others in prayer in the Green Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., following the President’s announcement of Judge Gorsuch as his nominee to the Supreme Court, Tuesday January 31, 2017. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

 Bobby Azarian 

July 27, 2022

A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.

Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group.

Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview.

NEW: How the ‘unprecedented’ Supreme Court leak made efforts to lobby conservatives on Roe ‘all but impossible’: report

Since religious beliefs play a massive role in driving and influencing human behavior throughout the world, it is important to understand the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism from a psychological and neurological perspective.

To investigate the cognitive and neural systems involved in religious fundamentalism, a team of researchers—led by Jordan Grafman of Northwestern University—conducted a study that utilized data from Vietnam War veterans that had been gathered previously. The vets were specifically chosen because a large number of them had damage to brain areas suspected of playing a critical role in functions related to religious fundamentalism. CT scans were analyzed comparing 119 vets with brain trauma to 30 healthy vets with no damage, and a survey that assessed religious fundamentalism was administered. While the majority of participants were Christians of some kind, 32.5% did not specify a particular religion.

Based on previous research, the experimenters predicted that the prefrontal cortex would play a role in religious fundamentalism, since this region is known to be associated with something called ‘cognitive flexibility’. This term refers to the brain’s ability to easily switch from thinking about one concept to another, and to think about multiple things simultaneously. Cognitive flexibility allows organisms to update beliefs in light of new evidence, and this trait likely emerged because of the obvious survival advantage such a skill provides. It is a crucial mental characteristic for adapting to new environments because it allows individuals to make more accurate predictions about the world under new and changing conditions.

Brain imaging research has shown that a major neural region associated with cognitive flexibility is the prefrontal cortex—specifically two areas known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Additionally, the vmPFC was of interest to the researchers because past studies have revealed its connection to fundamentalist-type beliefs. For example, one study showed individuals with vmPFC lesions rated radical political statements as more moderate than people with normal brains, while another showed a direct connection between vmPFC damage and religious fundamentalism. For these reasons, in the present study, researchers looked at patients with lesions in both the vmPFC and the dlPFC, and searched for correlations between damage in these areas and responses to religious fundamentalism questionnaires.

According to Dr. Grafman and his team, since religious fundamentalism involves a strict adherence to a rigid set of beliefs, cognitive flexibility and open-mindedness present a challenge for fundamentalists. As such, they predicted that participants with lesions to either the vmPFC or the dlPFC would score low on measures of cognitive flexibility and trait openness and high on measures of religious fundamentalism.

The results showed that, as expected, damage to the vmPFC and dlPFC was associated with religious fundamentalism. Further tests revealed that this increase in religious fundamentalism was caused by a reduction in cognitive flexibility and openness resulting from the prefrontal cortex impairment. Cognitive flexibility was assessed using a standard psychological card sorting test that involved categorizing cards with words and images according to rules. Openness was measured using a widely-used personality survey known as the NEO Personality Inventory. The data suggests that damage to the vmPFC indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by suppressing both cognitive flexibility and openness.

These findings are important because they suggest that impaired functioning in the prefrontal cortex—whether from brain trauma, a psychological disorder, a drug or alcohol addiction, or simply a particular genetic profile—can make an individual susceptible to religious fundamentalism. And perhaps in other cases, extreme religious indoctrination harms the development or proper functioning of the prefrontal regions in a way that hinders cognitive flexibility and openness.

The authors emphasize that cognitive flexibility and openness aren’t the only things that make brains vulnerable to religious fundamentalism. In fact, their analyses showed that these factors only accounted for a fifth of the variation in fundamentalism scores. Uncovering those additional causes, which could be anything from genetic predispositions to social influences, is a future research project that the researchers believe will occupy investigators for many decades to come, given how complex and widespread religious fundamentalism is and will likely continue to be for some time.

By investigating the cognitive and neural underpinnings of religious fundamentalism, we can better understand how the phenomenon is represented in the connectivity of the brain, which could allow us to someday inoculate against rigid or radical belief systems through various kinds of mental and cognitive exercises.

The agricultural revolution that began around 10,000 years ago marks a turning point in human history: the dawn of civilisation. Farming enabled us to build communities and expand, but it also sowed the seeds of modern inequality and wreaked havoc on the environment through the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife. Today, farming faces the distinct challenge of feeding a growing global population while working with the environment, and not against it. Practices in countries from Costa Rica to Zambia point to new conservation-oriented approaches to farming that optimise food production; preserve biodiversity and forests; and cut down on harmful emissions. In this TED-Ed animation, colourful graphics paint a picture of what these future farms might look like, showcasing the potential for new technologies to help deliver food security while preserving – and even feeding – the ecosystem.

Video by TED-Ed

Director: Luísa M H Copetti, Hype CG

Writer: Brent Loken

28 July 2022

Detail of Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea (1871) by James McNeill Whistler. Courtesy Wikipedia

Bradley Murrayis an author and psychoanalyst in private practice. He is the author of The Possibility of Culture: Pleasure and Moral Development in Kant’s Aesthetics (2015), as well as scholarly articles on philosophy and clinical ethics. He writes about psychology and digital culture for Psychology Today. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Edited by Cameron Allan McKean

27 Jul y2022 (psyche.co)

Valerie is a 25-year-old graduate student. She is compassionate, giving, and devoted to local volunteer work with refugees. She always seems to have a smile on her face. But since she was a teenager, Valerie has experienced excruciating periods of depression. When depressed, she is plagued by self-critical thoughts, and struggles to get out of bed. In these moments, she sometimes thinks of her troubled childhood – a time when her mother had also been bedridden with depression. Forced to become the ‘parent’ of the family, Valerie had to emotionally care for her mother and look after her younger sister. This upbringing affected the entire course of Valerie’s emotional development. By the time she had become an adult, she had a feeling of emptiness that was hard to shake. She felt that she had lost herself when she was young. Searching for help, Valerie decided to visit her university’s mental health centre and, after several sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), learned new ways of thinking about her mood. But she still felt lost. Something was missing. For her, CBT couldn’t develop the submerged aspects of herself that had been pushed aside when she was young.

Valerie is not a real person, but I have seen many patients like her in my practice who have found that CBT doesn’t resonate with them. Yes, research consistently shows that patients who receive this form of therapy are more likely to experience an improvement in symptoms than those receiving no treatment at all (or receiving placebos). And yes, CBT is one of the most widely used, well-researched and well-funded forms of therapy in the world, accessible through mental health clinics, online therapists, or even apps. But it is not perfect.

Patients like Valerie come looking for an alternative, but often they can’t pinpoint what went wrong. I believe their concerns can be best understood if we acknowledge that not all adult emotional problems ultimately stem from failures in thinking and reasoning, as CBT maintains. Not all problems can be solved quickly through what CBT practitioners call ‘cognitive restructuring’. Understanding the limits of this popular form of therapy requires us to ask a difficult question: can CBT ever help us to fully develop psychologically?

To answer this question, we need to consider the conceptual scaffolding of CBT. Its philosophical roots go all the way back to ancient Greece, to the age of the Stoics. A faith in the power of reason can be found in most ancient Greek philosophy – and in much philosophy since. When we suffer, the logic goes, it’s because we’re letting our emotions get the better of us, pulling us away from seeing reality. Reason, these early philosophers argued, allows us to learn about things that truly matter, including how to be happy, live a good life, and free ourselves from negative emotions including depression, worry, anger, envy and jealousy.

If the patient’s faulty reasoning makes them depressed, they can avoid being depressed by learning to correct this and other failures in reasoning

One of CBT’s founders, the American psychiatrist Aaron Beck, acknowledged this intellectual inheritance in his influential book Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (1976) – an early manual for CBT therapists. Beck wrote that the philosophical underpinnings of CBT ‘go back thousands of years, certainly to the time of the Stoics, who considered man’s conceptions (or misconceptions) of events rather than the events themselves as the key to his emotional upsets.’

Learning to think differently about events is what CBT therapists call ‘cognitive restructuring’. Changing thinking patterns is what CBT therapists do when they teach their patients to avoid errors in reasoning and to view reality more accurately. In one of Beck’s clinical examples from his co-authored 1979 book on depression, he presents material from a session with a depressed patient. The patient is a student who has just failed a university exam. The therapist questions him about why failing would make him depressed. Failing, according to the student, means he’ll never get into law school. It means he’s ‘just not smart enough’ and ‘can never be happy’. After discussing this, the therapist provides the take-home message for the patient:

So it is the meaning of failing a test that makes you very unhappy. In fact, believing that you can never be happy is a powerful factor in producing unhappiness. So, you get yourself into a trap ­– by definition, failure to get into law school equals ‘I can never be happy.’

According to Beck, the student’s problem is an error in reasoning: it’s illogical to believe that being rejected by law schools means a person can never be happy. If the patient’s faulty reasoning makes them depressed, they can avoid being depressed by learning to correct this and other failures in reasoning. Even today, according to the CBT model, psychological disorders generally fit this mould: the patient is committing cognitive errors that lead to negative emotional states. Helping the patient reason more accurately is key to helping them feel better.

CBT has also relied on behavioural methods, including ‘exposure’. This happens, for example, when someone with a fear of dogs attempts to conquer their fear by spending increasing amounts of time around dogs. From the point of view of CBT therapists like Beck, the point of exposure is to teach the patient to think more rationally by giving them direct evidence that shows why their thoughts don’t align with reality.

Attempting to explain a person’s psychological suffering as stemming entirely from how they think isn’t always useful

The world of CBT has developed since Beck wrote those books in the 1970s. A suite of new techniques has been added, including mindfulness and acceptance. But, ultimately, CBT is still based on the idea that psychological disorders are rooted in problems of thinking. For CBT advocates, this is a virtue – a unified explanation of psychological problems. The psychologist Leslie Sokol is one such advocate. Her widely used manual for CBT therapists, The Comprehensive Clinician’s Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (2019), co-authored with Marci Fox, tells us:

Remember, all psychological problems involve problems in thinking, so cognitive restructuring can help clients evaluate their thought processes. Use the process of guided questioning to help clients modify distorted or unhelpful thoughts so they can see situations in a less biased and more helpful way.

It is no exaggeration to say that, if you go to see a CBT therapist who is practising according to the core tenets of the therapy, there is a strong likelihood that your psychological problems will be conceptualised as thinking problems. It’s also likely your therapist will view the underlying solution to your problems as a matter of helping you to develop habits of thinking that allow you to interpret the events in your life more accurately.

This idea of mental problems as thinking problems is based on the Stoics’ highly plausible insight: we must learn to see reality. Most of the patients I have seen in my practice – and indeed most human beings – can benefit from cultivating clearer thinking. It’s not helpful to falsely interpret situations in our lives as highly threatening or catastrophic when they are not. We can find happiness if we stop attending only to the negative aspects of situations, and understand life as a combination of good and bad. This shift in thinking happens to some degree even in most non-CBT therapies as patients engage in dialogue with a neutral listener. But attempting to explain a person’s psychological suffering as stemming entirely from how they think isn’t always useful. Most people are complex, and this reductive view of mental problems doesn’t meet everyone’s needs.

Before CBT’s rise, there was another leading psychotherapeutic treatment: psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic therapies are what many people still think of when they conjure up the idea of talk therapy; and, even today, this family of therapies remains one of the key alternatives to CBT. Classical psychoanalysis normally occurs several times per week, typically with the patient lying on a couch. Psychodynamic therapy is a less intensive form of therapy derived from psychoanalysis. Unlike CBT, which will often be just a few weekly sessions, psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapies can last several months to several years. Unfortunately, publicly funded mental health programmes don’t often incorporate these treatments, which means that those who want to pursue psychoanalysis must make a greater financial commitment than those using CBT. For many people, this can make the cost of treatment prohibitive. (Psychoanalytic training institutes are often the best places to seek out treatment at a reduced fee.)

CBT failed to bring about remission in roughly half of patients – roughly half were not helped in the long term

The differences between CBT and psychoanalysis are striking. Whereas the structure of CBT sessions is meant to be directed by the therapist – who will assign homework at the end of the session – the structure of a psychoanalytic session is left open-ended by the therapist. The patient is encouraged to gain comfort over time speaking whatever comes to mind. Whereas CBT emphasises using a set of tools to form new habits of thinking and behaving, psychoanalysis involves an ongoing, collaborative and transformative process involving therapist and patient. During this process, the therapist notes ways in which the patient might, in the here-and-now of the therapy itself, unconsciously experience repetitions of situations from the past. These repetitions, known as ‘transference’, can indicate core psychological conflicts from childhood or adolescence – often moments when needs went unmet while growing up. But perhaps the major difference between CBT and psychoanalysis is that psychoanalytic therapy does not view all psychological problems as problems of thinking. There is no expectation that these problems can be resolved merely by helping the patient think more carefully and accurately.

This does not mean that CBT is not effective – just look at the article ‘Why Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the Current Gold Standard of Psychotherapy’ (2018) published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. It is true to say that CBT is an evidence-based therapy and that it is effective. But it is also true that many people are not helped by CBT. For example, a 2018 study in Clinical Psychology Review examined 100 previous studies on CBT used to treat adult anxiety disorders. The aim was to understand the true remission rate in CBT. Remission can be said to occur when the patient no longer meets the criteria for an anxiety disorder diagnosis, or at least when the patient’s symptoms have significantly improved. The study found the overall mean remission rate was 51 per cent. That means that CBT failed to bring about remission in roughly half of patients – roughly half were not helped in the long term.

Another study, published in 2017 in Behaviour Research and Therapy, looked at whether the remission of depressive and anxious symptoms following CBT was lasting or fleeting. This study focused on low-intensity CBT, which involves guided self-help supported by learning materials (a cost-effective method of delivering CBT, which is becoming more widespread). The study found that roughly half of the patients whose symptoms went into remission suffered a clinically significant deterioration within 12 months of completing treatment. For many patients suffering from depression and anxiety, undergoing CBT treatment is not a lasting cure.

But CBT continues to dominate. Seeking to increase access to mental health care, many publicly funded services now focus on providing CBT at the expense of other therapies. Clinicians and public health administrators worldwide are understandably excited by the promise of a treatment that can be delivered so efficiently. And many patients will find CBT appealing right from the first session, recognising it as offering plausible explanations of their problems. But for patients like Valerie, the approach is too structured and educational to foster the kind of maturation and development they desire. It would be heartbreaking if these patients were made to feel like failures just because their concerns do not fit the CBT model. Not all psychological problems are thinking problems, and not all problems require correcting through cognitive restructuring. Given the chance, people like Valerie can learn to address their submerged selves, forgotten or ignored by therapies that focus on cognitive tools for viewing reality more accurately. Given the chance, these people can learn, instead, to empathise with their earlier selves in nuanced ways. They can begin finding themselves.

July 29, 2022 (wired@newsletters.wired.com)

Staying on top of the ever-changing SARS-CoV-2 virus has proven to be a challenging task. But scientists are working on new types of vaccines that the virus won’t be able to out-evolve. The most ambitious of these would hypothetically be able to target the entire coronavirus family, including the strains responsible for many common colds, as well as SARS. Another option would be to develop a shot that could thwart all of the virus’s potential future offspring, and there are already several candidates that take this approach.While those vaccines may not be ready for humans for some time, efforts are currently underway to develop shots that take on both Covid and the common cold, as well as more recent mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. At a White House Summit earlier this week, officials outlined a grand vision for nasal mists and skin patches that could prevent infections, not just hospitalizations and deaths. Of course, when it comes to executing that plan, there’s one more hurdle to overcome beyond the science: where to get the money.

Blue Whales

Blue Whales are commonly compared to the size of a basketball court, reaching lengths of up to 95 feet (29m). Proportionally, they also boast the largest phallus, ranging from eight to ten feet (2.5-3m), with a one-foot diameter. Not only this, but each testicle can weigh up to one hundred and fifty pounds, and gallons of sperm are ejaculated at once.

The phallus is usually contained within the genital slit on the whale’s underside, protruding only when use is required. 

Their penis is also very agile, with two muscles attached to the pelvis giving it a good range of motion and allowing it to alter its shape depending on the anatomy of the female. 

(iloveveterinary.com)

Ted Foley

Special to the USA TODAY NetworkView Comments (app.com)

Last month, our church had a booth at the Pride Festival in Toms River. Our message was, “God loves everyone. No exceptions.”

We knew that many people attending this festival had been probably traumatized by hateful rhetoric coming from certain groups within the Christian church. We wanted to bring a different message, a message of dignity, and respect.

But mostly we brought the message that God loves everyone just as they are.

Soon after the festival started, a small group of people paraded down the middle of the street, carrying a large cross and a bullhorn, loudly broadcasting rhetoric filled with hate and bigotry, all supposedly in the name of Christianity. The problem was that their message of hate had nothing to do with Jesus. Their message and their means would have been totally unrecognizable to the one we call the Prince of Peace.

Unfortunately, it is this type of “Christian,” those who are loudest and most hate filled, who are most visible in America today. These loud “Christians” are the ones robbing mature women of their moral agency to decide what’s best for their families when making decisions about pregnancy. They are the ones loudly supporting gun ownership as a God-given right. Not so long ago, these “Christians” were the ones supporting a Muslim ban.

These hate-filled messages present an issue to many of us who call ourselves Christians. Author and pastor John Pavlovitz writes about this in his recent book, “If God is Love, Don’t be a Jerk.”

The problem is that all of this is antithetical to the message of Jesus. Jesus had nothing to say about homosexuality. Zilch. Nada. Nothing! Some of these loud “Christians” will twist his words to suit their own agenda. However, most scholars agree that Jesus was silent on this question.

Regarding women, Jesus didn’t oppress or attempt to control women. On the contrary, even though it was counter-cultural in his time, he supported women. And, by the way, Jesus never carried a gun or any other kind of weapon. He told us to turn the other cheek and pray for your enemies. Finally, I am convinced that Jesus would have never supported a ban on any ethnic group. In fact, despite Samaritans being largely disliked by his own people, he held one up as an example of what a good neighbor looks like.

Soon after his death, people who believed in Jesus were not called Christians. They were said to be “followers of the Way of Jesus”. And Jesus’ “Way” was one filled sacrificial love, and peace, and mercy. His Way was one of compassion and justice for the oppressed. I don’t think Jesus would have recognized himself in the group that was walking through the Pride Festival with a bullhorn loudly proclaiming a message of hate.

There are many people in America to whom the word “Christian” conjures up images of loud, gun toting, homophobic, trans-phobic, misogynistic zealots. If that is what “Christian” means today, then count me out. That’s not who I am.

That’s not what my church is. That’s not what a lot of other churches are around here.

Maybe, I am just feeling tired of the fight over the meaning of the word “Christian”. However, right now, I don’t want to be anywhere near that type of Christianity. I hope, the next time I find myself in a situation where someone asks me if I am Christian, I will have the presence of mind to say, “Actually, I prefer to be known as a follower of Jesus.”

The Rev. Ted Foley is archdeacon of Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River.

(Contributed by Janet Cornwell, H.W., m.)