In this week’s spotlight, I’d like to address the notion that people who believe in spiritual matters, including the so-called paranormal, are less bright than those who deny such things. A study I read this past week in Frontiers of Psychology suggests that this is due to the fact that believers rely on intuition instead of reason. Quoting for a moment, “Overall, the research found that atheists performed better overall than the religious participants even when demographic factors like age and education were taken into consideration. Agnostics mostly placed between ... Read More
We tend to think that we are in charge of our lives. We generally insist that we know why we do what we do—that is, we have reasons for everything. Most are aware that their unconscious minds, and I’ll use that term instead of the subconscious to refer to any and all non-conscious mental activity, participate to some extent in our choices and behavior. Still, the main of it comes down to our understanding that the conscious mind is in charge. Think of your mind for a moment. We generally ... Read More
Self-empowerment begins with self-reflection. The question, “what is humanness or what does it mean to be human?” is obviously a part of any serious self-reflection. For Sigmund Freud and others, humanness was simply a position on the evolutionary ladder. A position with more cortical matter and therefore more inhibitory ability. Mankind’s marvelous brain was not only more sophisticated in terms of its ability to reason, etc., but more powerful in terms of its ability to inhibit impulses. The latter is critical since according to Freud our unconscious was a seething cauldron ... Read More
I’m puzzled. For years I have spoken to many people about changes they desired in their lives. Some desired to simply lose weight or stop smoking but most longed to enjoy happier and healthier lives. It seems there is also a drive to have more money among most. So why then, when you go back years later, has nothing changed? That is my puzzle. Cardiac Rehabilitation I recently interacted with a team of rehab professionals within a hospital. They administer both a health education and exercise program chiefly for cardiac ... Read More
It is interesting to see the social networking posts criticizing people who do not know how to think, or do not seem to have common sense, or who say the dumbest things, or carry out really stupid acts, and so forth. It is also intriguing to me to review the many complaints about criminality, mental health issues, politicians and the like. What do all of these things have in common? One might argue that there is some mental or moral deficiency or both. Perhaps that’s true, but does that mean ... Read More
