Category Archives: Togetherness

Moments of the self

February 20, 2012 – 1:15 am

A study just published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences gives a wonderful example of the little recognised complexity of epileptic seizures. The article describes three cases of people who take their clothes off during seizures and discusses the potential legal consequences of engaging in such behaviour when it was caused by epilepsy. However ‘Case [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment

A journey through schizophrenia science

February 16, 2012 – 12:49 am

BBC Radio 4′s The Life Scientific recently profiled psychiatrist, schizophrenia researcher and stand-up chap, Robin Murray, who talks about how his understanding of the condition has drastically changed over the years. It’s a fascinating journey through how our theories about the mental illness, most associated with having delusions and hallucinations, has evolved through time – [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Integrating | Comments (2)

Of both lovers and epilepsy

February 14, 2012 – 12:53 am

Saint Valentine is the patron saint of both lovers and epilepsy – sadly, a little known fact. There is one wonderful example of this divine coupling, however, where the passionate saint appears alongside EEG traces on 1998 postage stamp from Italy. This description is from a brief 2003 article from the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (1)

Violence and delusional pets

February 12, 2012 – 8:43 pm

I’ve just read a striking article recounting cases of violence associated with delusions about household pets. Although the academic paper is locked, a copy is available online as a pdf. The curious study was published in a 1987 edition of Behavioral Sciences and the Law and includes three extended case studies of defendants charged with [...]

By vaughanbell | Comments (6)

Individual ecstasies: the revelatory experience conference

February 12, 2012 – 6:52 pm

On March 23rd London will host a unique conference on the neuroscience, psychiatry and interpretation of revelatory visionary experiences. It’s been put together by Quinton Deeley from our research group at the Institute of Psychiatry and brings together cognitive neuroscientists, anthropologists, religious studies scholars, psychologists and psychiatrists to discuss different ways of understanding ‘revelatory experiences’. [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Inside the Brain, Theory | Comments (7)

A culture shock for universal emotion

February 12, 2012 – 5:40 pm

The Boston Globe looks at the increasing evidence against the idea that there are some universally expressed facial emotions. The idea that some basic emotions are expressed universally and have an evolutionary basis was suggested by Darwin in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. The concept was further explored by [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Other People | Comments (7)

Group sync

February 11, 2012 – 5:34 pm

The New Yorker has a fantastic article on how creativity and innovation spring from group structure and social interaction. The piece is framed as tackling the ‘brainstorming myth’ – as the well-known idea generation method has been comprehensively but unknowingly debunked many times – but the article is really much wider and explores what sort [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Reasoning | Comments (2)

Before you hit the ground there’s a moment of bliss

February 11, 2012 – 2:32 am

I’ve just found this amazing bluesy hip hop track by George Watsky and the GetBand about having an epileptic seizure in front of a girl you’re trying to impress. As well as being an astute observation of the experience of seizure it’s defiant, fast and funny and Watsky just rolls through the rhymes. You don’t [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (2)

Online teen drama

February 11, 2012 – 12:09 am

The New Yorker nicely summarises a recent study on how teenage girls make sense of online bullying and harassment in a way that is more acceptable to their peer group. The article is on the tragic story of a gay teen who committed suicide after being surreptitiously filmed with a lover, captured through a webcam [...]

By vaughanbell | Comments (5)

The peak experiences of Abraham Maslow

January 20, 2012 – 12:48 am

The New Atlantis has an in-depth biographical article on psychologist Abraham Maslow – one of the founders of humanistic psychology and famous for his ‘hierarchy of needs’. Maslow is stereotypically associated with a kind of fluffy ‘love yourself’ psychology although the man himself was quite a skeptic of the mumbo jumbo that got associated with [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Other People | Comments (6)

Gimme Shelter

January 17, 2012 – 1:44 am

The Rolling Stones launched their career in a social therapeutic club, designed to help troubled youth with communication skills. The club became legendary in rock ‘n roll history but its therapeutic roots have almost been forgotten. Eel Pie Island is a small patch on the River Thames famous for the underground club that earned a [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Remembering, Uncategorized | Comments (3)

A medical study of the Haitian zombie

January 11, 2012 – 12:18 pm

We hear a lot about zombies these days – in films, in music and even in philosophy – but many are unaware that in 1997 The Lancet published a medical study of three genuine Haitian zombies. The cases studies were reported by British anthropologist Roland Littlewood and Haitian doctor Chavannes Douyon and concerned three individuals [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (12)

A relationship through brain injury

January 10, 2012 – 12:14 am

The New York Times has an excellent article on the challenges faced by couples after one member survives brain injury. Carers sometimes say that, after brain injury, their partner is emotionally unresponsive, emotionally unstable or that their ‘personality has changed’. This can lead to a strain on the relationship that far outlasts the ‘obvious’ effects [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (2)

The importance of penis panics to cultural psychiatry

January 8, 2012 – 4:19 pm

The Boston Globe has an excellent article about supposedly culture specific mental illnesses and how they are an ongoing puzzle for psychiatry’s diagnostic manual. These conditions are called culture-bound syndromes in the DSM but they’ve always had a bit of ‘looking at the natives’ feel about them as many syndromes that are unknown in many [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Theory | Comments (4)

Advertising through avatar-manipulation

January 4, 2012 – 6:30 pm

The Psychologist has an article on the surprising effect of seeing a digital avatar of yourself – as if looking at your body from the outside. The piece covers a range of effects found in psychology studies, from increasing healthy behaviour to encouraging false memories, but the bit on deliberate avatar-manipulation for advertising caught my [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in advertising, Integrating | Comments (2)

The cowboy cure

January 3, 2012 – 12:30 pm

The APA Monitor has an article on how ‘nervousness’ in 1800s America was treated by sending male intellectuals ‘out West’ for prolonged periods of cattle roping, hunting, roughriding and male bonding. This, I suspect, sounded a great deal more innocent in the 1800s. But nevertheless, this sort of intense deliberately masculine physical exercise was thought [...]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Remembering | Comments (7)
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 500 other followers