Αφορμή για αυτό το ποστάριμσα μια είδηση από το internet. Για μια φωτογραφία από το μουσικό φεστιβάλ του Glastonbury, όπου χιλιάδες άνθρωποι κατάφεραν να tag τον εαυτό τους και φίλους τους σε μια ψηφιακή φωτογραφία. Αναρωτιόμουν για αυτήν την τεχνολογία, και τις εφαρμογές της. Πόσο ενθουσιασμό προκαλούν, αλλά και πόση αγωνία – ανάλογα με τη χρήση της. Η ίδια τεχνολογία μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί για φιλία και χαρά, αλλά και για κοινωνικό έλεγχο και στέρηση ελευθερίας.  Αντιγράφω εδώ το σχόλιο που μου έκανε η ΑΚΒ για αυτήν την είδηση’:

…θα πάμε προς μία μόνιμη συνδεσιμότητα φιλίας και ανθρωπιάς ή προς μία μόνιμη αγωνία καταγραφής της κάθε μας κίνησης από κακόβουλα ελεγκτικά ανθρωποειδή; Πολύ φοβάμαι ότι η ωριμότητά μας είναι πολύ πίσω από την ανάπτυξη των μορφών επικοινωνίας που διαθέτουμε…

Ελπίζω η ωριμότητα μας να μπεί σε ‘fast track’. Οι καιροί το απαιτούν.

Το νέο βιβλίο του Anrold Mindell “ProcessMind: A User’s Guide to Connecting with the Mind of God” θα κυκλοφορήσει 1 Νοεμβρίου στις ΗΠΑ και μπορεί κανείς να το παραγγείλει από την ιστοσελίδα του amazon

Αυτή είναι μια συνέντευξη για το βιβλίο που έδωσε ο Mindell στον Tomasz Stawiszyńskiγια το περιοδικό Newsweek που θα κυκλοφορήσει τέλη Οκτωβρίου στην Πολωνία:

Tomasz: You call your new book “Processmind. A User’s guide to connecting with the mind of God”. One may think that you’re no more a psychologist and you became some kind of mystic? Is it true?

Arny: Thanks for this question.  The term, “mind of God” is a term many physicist’s use. For example, Einstein, Paul Davies, Stephen Hawking as well as many others sometimes refer to the “mind of God” as the surprising appearance of observable patterns and mathematical laws that correctly describe the observable physical universe. When scientists ask themselves, “where do these laws come from?”, a creative and stimulating answer is “the mind of God”, that is, an organizing factor in background of our universe..

So to answer your question, “am I becoming a mystic” the answer is yes and no. Yes; as a therapist I understand the phenomenological reality of dreams and the dreaming process. Yes, dreaming is a level of observable reality that must be taken into account. At the same time, as a physical scientist, I seek practical, reasonable, and evidence-based results. I am mainly interested in theories that touch ALL levels of reality in a practical way.

Tomasz: So actually, in your opinion, there is a strong similarity between modern physics, psychology and ancient Taoist teachings or Aboriginal traditions?

Arny: Yes aspects of what I call the processmind can be found in the occasional sense in everyday life that some kind of “field” or force moves us about. It appears in our dreams and body experiences. Physicists intuit this field in their hope for a “unified field theory” embracing strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity force fields. But Aboriginal Australians and native peoples everywhere have always spoken of a “field-like” presence, such as the “Dreaming”.

So yes, there are strong similarities between modern physics, psychology and spiritual traditions. And the processmind is one way of describing these similarities.

Tomasz: What you think about such authors as Fritjof Capra – he was very popular but many scientists do not take his statements seriously? Aren’t you afraid that the reaction for your book will be the same?

Arny: I love critical thinking! I myself don’t believe in anything unless I have experienced it many times, and seen it in the reality and dreams of hundreds of other people. Today’s scientific paradigm is wonderful, but it limit’s itself mainly to repetitive observable results. I call this attitude, an approach of modern consensus reality. But this is only one of our realities.

Consensus reality is not the only reality human beings experience, and a truly scientific person should be open to dreaming and the Tao-fields as well.

As a process oriented therapist, I take the dreaming process as a reality as well, for it can give people in all states of consciousness a sense of wellness. And beyond visual dreams, there is the sense many have of a “processmind,” Jung’s “Unus Mundus,” or unifying field experience. These essence level experiences appear to just about everyone at some point during their lives.

So getting back to your question about scientific doubt, my answer is yes! PLEASE DO DOUBT any “unified field theory” or T.O.E. (Theory of Everything) unless you see it work in all realities –including your personal experiences!

Tomasz: How can we deal with a statement that there is some organizing factor in the world, some kind of teleology and at the same time there is so much senseless suffering, accidents (in which many people die), catastrophes etc. etc. everywhere around…?

Arny: The processmind is not the popular “God” image which is essentially “good” and stands against “evil”. The processmind is an organizing factor that is open to all vectors, that is all directions, all forces. By having greater access to this, the processmind, the tensions of everyday life, relationships, and even large group diversity conflicts become easier to facilitate. Finally, as I show in my book, the processmind idea even makes sense of near death experiences.

‘Ναί’ ή ‘όχι’ στα ψυχοφάρμακα; Δεν είναι τόσο απλή η απάντηση. Για πολλούς ανθρώπους έχουν αποτελέσει σωτηρία και στήριξη για μια πιο λειτουργική ζωή. Για άλλους έχουν γίνει φυλακή. Αφορμή για αυτό το post, μια είδηση από το Alternatives Conference 2010. Ο συνάδελφος Will Hall παρουσίασε ένα εργαστήρι που αφορούσε και την ‘ελαχιστοποίηση βλάβης από την διακοπή φαρμάκων’. Βρέθηκε έτσι μέσα στη ζώνη πολέμου ανάμεσα στους υπερασπιστές και επικριτές των ψυχοφαρμάκων. Διάβασε το άρθρο στο Psychology Today, για να ταξιδέψεις στον πολυτάραχο και πολύπλοκο  κόσμο των συνεδρίων, φαρμακευτικών εταιριών και  επαγγελματικών οργανισμών.

Πηγή: Psychology Today

SAMHSA, the Alternatives Conference, and the Story of an Opportunity Lost

By Robert Whitaker

In the last chapter of my book Anatomy of an Epidemic, I noted that if our society is going to stem the epidemic of disabling mental illness that has erupted during the past twenty years, then it needs to have an honest discussion about what is truly known about the biological causes of psychiatric disorders, and an honest discussion about how the medications affect the long-term course of those disorders. The illuminating powers of science could work their usual magic. But that is a discussion that many in our society don’t want to have, and my recent experience at the Alternatives conference in Anaheim illustrates that point, and reveals too why this is such a loss.

The Background to the “Controversy”

In Anatomy of an Epidemic, I basically followed a tried-and-true journalistic path. I followed the evidence. I looked at how the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders arose, how it was investigated, and how it never panned out. As Kenneth Kendler, coeditor in chief of Psychological Medicine wrote in 2005, “We have hunted for big simple neurochemical explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them.” Then I investigated how psychiatric medications affect the long-term course of four major mental disorders (schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, and bipolar illness), and that involves doing an exhaustive survey of studies conducted (or funded) by the National Institute of Mental Health, the World Health Organization, and foreign governments for the past 50 years.

Now, when you do that, you discover a story of science quite at odds with our societal belief that psychiatric medications fix chemical imbalances in the brain and that they have dramatically improved long-term outcomes. And when you write up this history of science, as I did in Anatomy of an Epidemic, you do become unpopular in certain circles.

In July, the National Empowerment Center, which is a peer-run advocacy organization, invited me to be a keynote speaker at the Alternatives Conference. The National Empowerment Center is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and SAMHSA, I was told, had signed off on having me speak. However, once the National Empowerment Center announced that I would be speaking at the conference, SAMHSA quickly rescinded the invitation. In response, MindFreedom, which is an activist group, organized a protest via the Internet, asking people to contact both SAMSHA and the White House, and within 36 hours, I had been publicly re-invited to speak.

What people following this “controversy” didn’t know was that my re-invitation came with considerable strings attached. I had originally been scheduled to give a workshop in addition to a keynote, but the workshop was still cancelled. (I had planned to speak about a Finnish program for treating psychotic patients that was producing excellent results, and the prescribing of exercise as a treatment for depression, which is now being done in Britain.) The other condition was this: The National Empowerment Center was required to recruit a psychiatrist, from a list of names provided by SAMHSA, to “rebut” my keynote. And I would not be given an opportunity to respond to that rebuttal.

Now, if SAMSHA had wanted to organize a debate following my talk, that would have been terrific. But this was a setup that SAMHSA seemed to have torn from the pages of a 25-year old Soviet Union handbook: invite dissident speaker and then denounce him! Normally, I wouldn’t have accepted such an arrangement, but I had been quite moved and humbled by the protest that had led to my “reinvitation,” and so I figured, what the heck. It wasn’t every day that you got to sit in a ballroom with more than 1,000 people and hear your work denounced.

As the conference approached, a new controversy reared its head. Will Hall, who many years ago was given a diagnosis of “schizoaffective disorder/schizophrenia,” and who today works as a therapist (having been off psychiatric medications for 17 years), had planned to give a workshop that included discussing a “harm-reduction” approach to withdrawing from psychiatric medications. Several years ago, Hall had written a book on the subject, which had been published by two advocacy groups, The Freedom Center and the Icarus Project, and given that there are few books written by professionals on the circuit, his had proven to be quite popular. But a few days before the conference began, Hall was told that the printed description of his workshop in the conference brochure had been changed to remove any mention about “coming off drugs.” Hall announced that he couldn’t accept such censorship, a new protest erupted, and then he was told that the offending words could in fact be mentioned in an updated description that would be added to the conference brochure.

And all this occurred before an alternatives conference.

Διάβασε τη συνέχεια του άρθρου εδώ…

Πότε κάποιος είναι κλέφτης και πότε ‘Ρομπέν των Φτωχών;’ Σαν κοινωνία, πως διαφοροποιούμε την ‘κλοπή’ από την ‘ανακατανομή του πλούτου’; Το Γερμανικό δικαστήριο αναγνώρισε την ‘ευγένεια’ του κινήτρου της ‘Ρομπέν των Φτωχών’, την καταδίκασε όμως επειδή αυτό υπαγόρευε ο νόμος.

Πηγή:  Το Βήμα

Στη φτώχεια η τραπεζικός «Ρομπέν των φτωχών»

Καταδικάστηκε η Γερμανίδα που μετέφερε χρήματα πλουσίων σε λογαριασμούς υπερχρεωμένων

Γ. ΓΑΛΙΑΝΟΣ | Αθήνα – Τρίτη 5 Οκτωβρίου 2010

Ηταν μια ευαίσθητη τραπεζικός που θέλησε να γίνει «Ρομπέν των φτωχών». Η Καταρίνα Ρ. δεν ζει, όμως, όπως ο «Ρομπέν των δασών» στο αγγλικό δάσος του Σέργουντ αλλά στη Βόρεια Ρηνανία-Βεστφαλία, στην Ομοσπονδιακή Γερμανία. Και οι προστατευόμενοί της δεν είναι οι καταπιεσμένοι αγρότες της περιοχής, αλλά οι βαριά καταχρεωμένοι πελάτες ενός τραπεζικού υποκαταστήματος το οποίο διηύθυνε παλαιότερα η ίδια.

Δικαστήριο της Βόννης καταδίκασε την 62χρονη τραπεζικό σε 22 μήνες φυλάκιση με αναστολή και, το χειρότερο, σε φτώχεια: διέταξε να κατασχεθεί όλη η περιουσία της, δηλαδή δύο διαμερίσματα, το σύνολο των καταθέσεών της, καθώς και μέρος της σύνταξής της προς όφελος της τράπεζας, η οποία δεν έγινε γνωστή.

Το «έγκλημά» της; Η Καταρίνα Ρ. έπαιρνε στα κρυφά χρήματα από τις καταθέσεις πλούσιων καταθετών για να τα βάλει σε λογαριασμούς πελατών, οι οποίοι, όπως ήξερε από τους ίδιους, βρίσκονταν στα πρόθυρα της χρεοκοπίας.

Για αρκετό καιρό το σύστημα αυτό «λειτούργησε» ανεπίληπτα επειδή η Καταρίνα Ρ. φρόντιζε να αντικαθιστά εγκαίρως τα αφαιρεθέντα ποσά είτε με επιστροφές από τους ενδιάμεσα εξυγιανθέντες λογαριασμούς είτε από καταθέσεις άλλων πλούσιων πελατών. Με τον καιρό όμως έχασε τον λογαριασμό. Το σύστημά της κατέρρευσε. Η Εισαγγελία μέτρησε τουλάχιστον 117 ακάλυπτες μεταφορές χρημάτων που κόστισαν στην τράπεζα 2,4 εκατομμύρια ευρώ.

«Δεν έβαλα ούτε ένα ευρώ στην τσέπη μου. Ο,τι έκανατο έκανα από συμπόνια για τους φτωχούς πελάτες» δήλωσε στη δίκη της η ίδια. Το δικαστήριο αναγνώρισε την «ευγένεια» του κινήτρου της, την καταδίκασε όμως επειδή αυτό υπαγόρευε ο νόμος.

Κατά την ανάγνωση της απόφασης, όμως, η δικαστής Σούζαν Ούλμπερτ δεν παρέλειψε να εκφράσει την απορία της: «Δεν βρέθηκε κανένας στην πόλη να σας στήσει ένα μνημείο;» ρώτησε. «Οχι» ήταν η απάντηση. Το αντίθετο μάλιστα. «Οσοι μου τηλεφώνησαν το έκαναν μόνο για να παραπονεθούν ότι αναγκάστηκαν να επιστρέψουν όσα χρωστούσαν».

Το μόνο περιουσιακό στοιχείο που έχει σήμερα η Καταρίνα Ρ. είναι το υπόλοιπο μιας πενιχρής σύνταξης. Με αυτήν πρέπει να συντηρεί και τη βαριά άρρωστη μητέρα της. «Εχω θεραπευτεί από το σύνδρομο της φιλανθρωπίας. Αλλά τώρα είναι αργά» λέει.

Τον Tyler Clementi δεν τον ξέρεις, έτσι δεν είναι; Κι έτσι θα ήταν και για πολλούς στην Αμερική αν δεν είχε αυτοκτονήσει πηδώντας από μια γέφυρα.  Γιατί αυτοκτόνησε; Γιατί κάποιοι συμφοιτητές του αποφάσισαν να δημοσιοποιήσουν στο internet προσωπικές του στιγμές. Διάβασε παρακάτω και θα καταλάβεις…

Πηγή: Washington Post

Decency plunged when Tyler Clementi jumped

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The suicide of an 18-year-old Rutgers University student following an unimaginable invasion of his privacy has launched an overdue examination of casual — and possibly criminal — disregard for others’ personal space.

Freshman Tyler Clementi walked onto the George Washington Bridge the night of Sept. 22 and jumped over the edge. A few days earlier, authorities say, his roommate, Dharun Ravi, and a friend, Molly Wei, had placed a webcam in the dorm room Clementi and Ravi shared, filmed Clementi in an intimate encounter with another man and posted it online for all to see.

There are several dimensions to the story, complicated by the fact that the victim was apparently gay. Based on Internet postings, it appears that Ravi targeted his roommate because of his sexual orientation.

Was it a hate crime or simply a stupid prank that once would have been inconceivable? It was surely an act of unforgivable bullying. Should the alleged perpetrators be prosecuted for invasion of privacy, with which they have been charged, and/or a hate crime?

Answers to those questions will have to await investigators. For now, other questions also demand our attention. How did we get here? How could anyone think that another’s most private, intimate moment was fair game? Although Clementi was filmed with another man, one can imagine as easily a roommate spying on a heterosexual encounter.

The emergence of social media, combined with mass access to technology — camera-equipped cellphones, pocket-size video cameras and blogospheric distribution — has enabled an insatiable market for spying and gossip. The result has been a cultural breakdown in decency and a blurring of the boundaries of what should be private and public.

Even this discussion feels like an invasion of privacy, given the unbearable pain the Clementi family must be enduring. But sometimes it takes a tragedy to shake us from complacency. Just as Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder in 1998 awakened Americans to the suffering of gays — a mobilized outrage — maybe Tyler Clementi will help us recognize how ugly we have become in our worship of this voyeuristic, celebrity culture.

I don’t want to play down the gay aspect of this travesty, but there isn’t space in a column to tackle everything. For now, it is worth noting that there is welcome movement from groups and individuals, notably Ellen DeGeneres, toward letting young gay men and lesbians know where they can find support. Bravo.

To that necessary objective, we should add an urgent call to renew respect for privacy. As a community of decent people, we have to rally ourselves to stop the insanity of narcissism and exhibitionism that inculcates the broader notion that nothing is off-limits.

Especially poignant was Clementi’s final note to the world, a Facebook status update saying that he was going to kill himself — an electronic adieu to his “friends,” those random and often anonymous folks who sign up to follow one’s life online.

Friend, the noun, has become meaningless in world where “friending” is a verb. And privacy, I keep hearing, is dead forever. I don’t buy it.

There once was a time when respecting others’ privacy was a matter of manners. Of course, it was also considered bad manners to display oneself — or one’s affections — in public. Some call it puritanism. I call it civilization.

Too late, you say? Not at all. We have a model for this sort of thing. There was a time when many Americans commonly smoked cigarettes in public. Some of us didn’t like it; it was bad for health and bad for society. Few smoke in public spaces today, in part because laws prohibit it but also because smokers were made to feel ostracized. They were targeted as pariahs.

Whether or not you agree with the anti-smoking movement, you can concede that it worked. Why not apply the same template to those who would invade another’s space? We don’t want to outlaw cameras or otherwise limit free expression, but we can certainly make it unattractive and unacceptable to intrude on others. Next time someone takes your picture or posts it on the Internet without your permission, raise the roof. Point a finger. Stand athwart civilization and yell, “No more.”

When others are victimized by another’s lack of scruples, be outraged. And never publish or distribute images of anyone without his or her permission.

It’s the least we can do — and not do — for Tyler Clementi.