Saturday, February 24, 2007

Health and the Mind

Imagine two people with the same disease, same treatment, same relative social class. But one gets well, and the other doesn't. A mystery? A coincidence? A situation with multiple explanations? It's a question for which science has no ready answers. Now it appears, we can finally explain it.

We've been exploding some commonly-held assumptions on this show. And that makes for rather provocative stuff. None of us likes our belief systems challenged completely, especially when we feel the challenge impacting one of our bedrock philosophies of life.

But the work of Dr. Norberto Keppe does exactly that. Like Socrates addressing universal values and challenging the thinking of the citizens of ancient Athens, Keppe's work causes us to examine what we know about ourselves. But Keppe also leads us to discover what we don't know about ourselves - and this is a much dimmer journey. Most of us don't know that we are dominated by what we don't know. In this consideratin, strongly held views are best not held to with all you've got. Better to remain open and explore what you don't know yet.

Keppe's work has had a profound effect on many people, including Roberto Giraldo, a Colombian medical doctor and specialist in infectious and tropical diseases. Giraldo is the author of Aids and Stressors, and is currently working at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. But he's beginning the move to Brazil to study more with Dr. Keppe and develop his understanding of the psychological roots of disease.

In this podcast, we explore some of his thinking about the connection between the mind, body, society ... and disease.

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Friday, February 16, 2007

A Psychoanalysis of Society

Neurosis, sado-masochistic behavior, schizo-paranoid personalities. We've come to understand those terms applied to personal psychology. But seldom have we heard them applied to nations or even historical periods.

Until now.

Today, we'll dive into a fascinating study - the psychoanalysis of society.

A couple of weeks ago, we started the process of investigating the social structures and our inverted society in our program about Money and Power. And we made copies of Dr. Keppe's book, Liberation of the People, available to people who wanted copies. That offer still stands, so if you'd like to read this incisive analysis of the pathology of power, just e-mail me at rich@richjonesvoice.com.

Today's topic will probably whet your appetite for more of Keppe's extraordinary work in this area.

Frankly, to my knowledge, there has been relatively little study of sociopathology as Keppe defines it. Normally, the term is applied to the behavior of sociopathic or psychopathic personalities. Keppe is concerned with social difficulties where the social systems reflect the psychological problems of the human beings who created them, thereby creating a psychologically unbalanced society.

Prominent social critics have been trying to shine the light on abuses of power and injustice for decades, but none have Keppe's psychological and philosophical lineage, or his clinical experience. So you'll find much that stands alone in his work.

To focus our topic today, because it's an expansive one, I've asked Dr. Claudia Pacheco, the vice president of Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy, to join us again.

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Sunday, February 11, 2007

Some thoughts on relationships

I wish I had a dollar for every piece of advice in the world about today's topic. Apparently, men are from Mars and women from Venus. There's a secret language between you to understand. There can be perfect love, but imperfect relationships some say. There's help in the stars, soulmate consulting. For anyone who's looking for definitive answers, it's all a little overwhelming.

Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, let's see if we can get a little clearer on relationships.

As I've come to understand more completely the depth of the remarkable work of Brazilian psychoanalyst, Dr. Norberto Keppe, I've come to appreciated the crystal-clear comprehension he has of the human psyche. He is clarifying this like no one before him. And this gives us some real ground to stand upon in investigating any field of human endeavor.

This is especially true in the area of relationships. Dr. Claudia Pacheco's observations about love have been explored already in this blog/podcast (see Some Thoughts About Love), and her mind is a very precise one to pick on this important topic. Her book, Women on the Couch: An Analysis of Women's Pathology, is a seminal one in the field. And her thoughts about women and men and love are always fascinating and always worthwhile.

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Monday, February 05, 2007

Some thoughts on self-confidence

Some see it as a belief in your abilities and talents. Others that it's the result of what you've been told and taught.

We've heard that we have to earn it, but that we deserve it at the same time. That we can build it, that we need affirmations. Hypnosis. To unleash our power within.

But if you still question your self-confidence (and who doesn't?) strap yourself in. Today, what's really going on with our self-confidence.

My gosh, how we've struggled with this thing called self-confidence. We've meditated, we've diary-ed, we've seven stepped ourselves to death trying to grasp the damn thing. And it always hovers there, tantalizingly out of reach. Others we perceive as having it are constant reminders of our failure as they dangle the keys to the kingdom of riches and success and realized dreams just out of reach.

But today, a chance to see how far away we've been from even understanding self-confidence.

And big thanks to my dear friend, Susan Berkley, for providing the interview for this show. This is taken from Susan's excellent series, Magnetic Self-Confidence, which is available on her website.

Leo Lima is a psychologist and a psychoanalyst at Dr. Norberto Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy here in São Paulo, and he's our special guest today on Thinking With Somebody Else's Head.

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