 Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Working to Recover, or Adjusting to Illness? Existing research is pessimistic about the value of our currently dominant biomedical paradigm for treating mental illness. Long-term antipsychotic use appears to make people worse rather than better. While the research continues to accumulate, practice does not change. Doctors continue to practice as if psychosis comes from lack of medication. People recover without medications. How do we reconcile these two models? 1  |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Finding Magic in a Muggle World
What is magic in a muggle world? We recently conducted a workshop to explore that question. First, what arose was the idea our thoughts could influence the future to which we are headed. What if our visualizations could change the direction in which we are headed. What is really magic is the power we have to influence others. We have power to uplift. We have power to give hope when there is none. This is real magic. 3 |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Defining Coyote Psychotherapy
In the recent meetings of the Institute for Psychiatric Services in San Francisco, Barbara Mainguy and I presented material on how we work with psychosis. We are exploring what it is that we do, and we know that it is inspired by indigenous elders, that it is centered on the body, which registers our traumas and stresses, that we are wedded to the idea of story occurring in a social context so that we are embedded with others. 1 |
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Lewis Mehl-Madrona: How we treat is more important than the treatment!
The way we relate to people is more important than what we do in both medicine and psychiatry. Randomized, clinical trials of the drug, citalopram, for geriatric depression, for example, showed that where a patient got treated mattered more than what drug they received. The response rate to citalopram varied from 16% to 82% among 15 hospitals. The time is nigh to improve the human elements in what we do be more helpful. 2 |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Reflections after a Hypnosis Workshop
I describe some reflections after co-teaching a hypnosis workshop. Particularly, we look at a person whose story is too large, as big even as the whole United States. How do we work with someone whose story is that large. I describe ways to extract smaller stories, short stories from the large novel, stories that can work within an hour time frame, the usual length of time for mental health or hypnosis encounters. |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: The Narrative Paradigm and the New Year
I write about my enthusiasm for the narrative paradigm for psychotherapy as we enter into 2012. Within this paradigm, we understand that we don't necessarily know the reasons for our actions, but rather we look for the stories that create the roles that guide us to do what we do. We find that people mostly know what needs to change in their lives but have stories that stop them from making those changes. |
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Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Reflections upon transitioning to private practice
Just over 2 months ago I left the public mental health sector in New York to transition into private practice in Vermont. This article reflects upon those two months of changes and wonders what we can learn from the type of care available in Vermont compared to New York and from New York's apparent discrimination against paying private practitioners in favor of community mental health centers. 1 |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Beyond Narrative Therapy: Day 11 of the Australian Journey
On Day 11, we engaged in dialogue about the narrative therapy of Michael White, which is what most people in Australia and the United States index, when we say narrative practices, and the narrative practices of indigenous people. While we deeply respect Michael White's contributions to psychology and humanity, we present him as one branch on a tree of narrative in which indigenous people live in the trunk and the roots. 1 |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Eqalitarian Healing: or What can we Learn from Vygotsky
Vygotskyan ideas are useful to explain a concept my colleagues and I are developing for egalitarian healing. We are working to undermine the expert professional/defective client model and to put those who help people and those who are helped on a more equal footing. Vygotskyan theory helps us understand how to do this. Vygotsky describes a More Knowledgeable Other concept in which this Other can teach learner missing skills |
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Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Coyotes and Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledge
Three of us from Coyote Institute have journeyed to Australia to consult with a local aboriginal group on how to incorporate local culture into their health care and other services. This is the first in a series of daily blogs about the trip. I begin by wondering about coyote as a symbolic muse, an animal who lives at the margin and is currently expanding its territory. We discuss templates for the expression of pain. |
 Judith Acosta: An Alternative to Big Pharm: A Mental Health Journey With Classical Homeopathy The following is a journey through several psychotherapy cases, how they may be seen in a homeopathic framework, and how healing can be enjoyed in a relatively brief period of time. |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Clinic Restructuring
I work part-time in a community mental health center in New York. Recently New York's Office of Mental Health has restructured clinical services. I write about what that has meant for quality of care, which inevitably goes down. I argue that this is inevitable in a "fee-for-service" system. I argue that the alternative is to pay physicians to care for panels of people and to do the best job as they see fit for these people. |
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Saberi Roy: The Psychology of Emotions
Explaining emotions and distinguishing feeling and bodily reaction. |
Ash Rehn: What is Sex Addiction? Questions from a Narrative Psychotherapy Perspective
This article examines the problems with the idea of Sex Addiction, and the possibilities for revealing more helpful and relevant understandings of problems that come from using the techniques of Narrative Therapy. 1 |
Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Reflections on the American Psychiaatric Association's annual meeting
This past week we attended the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New Orleans, Louisiana. The high point was the amazing food that New Orleans offers. Besides that, we dialogue about the myths that psychiatry has created that now need to be changed. These myths include the idea that a perfect pill exists to make people feel "normal" and that a pill exists that can change unpleasant affect in happiness |
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Luca Bosurgi DHyp, LCCH, MBSCH: The Man Who Revolutionizes Psychoanalytical Therapy - interview with Luca Bosurgi
Luca Bosurgi, a defining voice in the emerging field of mind-spirit therapy, transforms psychoanalysis to spritual evolution. He has developed an original mind coaching technique: The CognitiveOS Hypnosis. For the first time he has agreed to talk about the power of the CognitiveOS Hypnosis and why it's the next step in psychoanalytical therapy. - By Nadien Aurel |
 Ash Rehn: Using Life Metaphors in Gay Counselling & Psychotherapy Metaphors provide a way for clients and therapists to work in partnership in counselling and psychotherapy. This article examines the use of metaphors in gay counselling to assist clients to come to their own interpretations and start finding answers and solutions to problems about relationships, friendship and trust. 1 |
Nancy White: Part 2; Alpha-Theta Neurotherapy As a Multi-Level Matrix of Intervention part 2 of Nancy White's chapter |
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Judith Acosta: Holistic Psychotherapy and Hypnosis: The Myth and The Magic Hypnosis and holistic psychotherapy is a far more natural and almost "ordinary" process than we think. In fact, there isn't a day that most of us are not in some kind of trance. |
Judith Acosta: Holistic Psychotherapy and Trauma Treatment What happens in trauma? Why do memories persist the way they do? What options do people have for successful recovery? This article offers a brief overview. |
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Articles For Tag "Psychotherapy" |
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