The Weekend University

Mark has a pretty interesting story to tell. Earlier in life, he was an international drug smuggler, an addict of 17 years, homeless, and has spent time locked up in a Spanish prison. Now, he is a leading addiction psychotherapist at Harley Street Clinic in London, a bestselling author of two books, a family-man, and a sought after speaker and teacher on working with addiction. His work has attracted praise from the likes of Russell Brand and Ross Kemp, and he has been featured on BBC, the Daily Record and numerous other news outlets. In this interview, we explore: — Mark’s background and his journey to recovery — Common myths surrounding addiction — The root causes of addiction — Mark’s 5-step framework for working with addiction in psychotherapy And more. Mark will be presenting on Schema Therapy & Addiction at our forthcoming Day on Addiction Online Conference on September 25th, 2022. The other speakers will be Dr Anna Lembke, who will give a talk on Dopamine and Addiction, and Professor Marc Lewis will present on Internal Family Systems and Addiction. --- Mark Dempster is a Harley Street Addiction Specialist, author, and former addict. In his younger years, he was addicted to alcohol and drugs, which eventually led to him smuggling, dealing, prison and homelessness. After turning things around in his thirties, he is on a mission to help others recover from addictions and flourish in their lives. He is the author of two books on addiction: Nothing to Declare and The Ongoing Path. You can learn more about Mark’s work at www.markdempstercounselling.com, and follow him on Twitter @mdcounselling. --- Interview Links: — Reinventing Your Life - Dr Jeffrey Young: https://amzn.to/3cfen2F — Mark’s books: http://markdempstercounselling.com/book

The comparative study of identical and fraternal twins is a powerful method for identifying the relative contributions of genes and environments to individual differences in behavioral, physical, and health-related characteristics. Studies of reared-apart twins provide even more compelling ways to approach this same class of questions, given that the co-twins were raised in different homes, communities and/or countries, so were unable to influence one another. This talk first reviews the different types of twins and the logic behind twin designs before presenting findings from past, recent and current studies of twins who grew up separately. Here, the focus will be on the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart and the Fullerton Study of Chinese Twins; however, research using reared together twins, virtual twins (same-age-unrelated individuals reared together who replicated twinship but without a genetic link) and unrelated look-alikes will also be described with reference to family relations, tacit coordination, personality similarity, and bereavement. The vast body of evidence indicates that genetic influence is pervasive, affecting virtually every measured human trait, but environmental factors also play a role. The occasional abuse of twin studies must be recalled to prevent their future occurrence. --- Prof. Nancy L. Segal, PhD is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Twins Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton. She has authored over 250 articles and six books on twins; her seventh book, Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart was released in November 2021. Dr. Segal’s 2012 book, Born Together-Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study, won the 2013 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. She was a speaker at a TedX event in Manhattan Beach, California (2017), and delivered invited addresses at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2018) and the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, in Florence, Italy (2019). She was also an invited participant in a debate on parenting organized by Intelligence Squared in New York City (2019). Dr. Segal’s work has been featured in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on national and international television and radio programs, including The Today Show, 20/20, Long Lost Lives, AirTalk (NPR) and Hidden Brain (NPR). Dr Segal can be contacted via email at: nsegal@fullerton.edu, and you can learn more about her work on: drnancysegaltwins.org -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Prof. Segal’s website: http://drnancysegaltwins.org - Prof. Segal’s books: https://amzn.to/3EMVOfb

So many of us believe that we are free to shape our own destiny. But what if free will doesn’t exist? What if our lives are largely predetermined, hardwired in our brains – and our choices over what we eat, whom we fall in love with, even what we believe are not real choices at all? Neuroscience is challenging everything we think we know about ourselves, revealing how we make decisions and form our own reality, unaware of the role of our unconscious minds. Did you know, for example, that: — Anxieties and phobias can be carried across generations in a family? — Your genes and pleasure and reward receptors in your brain will shape how much you eat? — We can sniff out ideal partners with genes that give our offspring the best chance of survival? In this talk, leading neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow will draw vividly from everyday life and other experts in their field to show the extraordinary potential as well as dangers which come with being able to predict our likely futures – and looking at how we can alter what’s in store for us. Lucid, illuminating, awe-inspiring, this talk will revolutionise your understanding of who you are – and empower you to help shape a better future both for yourself and the wider world. --- Dr Hannah Critchlow, PhD is an internationally acclaimed neuroscientist based at the University of Cambridge, who specialises in demystifying the human brain on Radio, TV and at Festivals. Dr Critchlow helped present BBC’s Tomorrow’s World Live and BBC2 -The Family Brain Games, published ‘Consciousness: A Ladybird Expert Guide’ with Penguin and The Science of Fate with Hodder in May 2019, which made The Sunday Times Bestseller list. In 2019, Hannah was named by Nature as one of Cambridge University’s ‘Rising Stars in Life Sciences’ in recognition for achievements in science engagement. She was also elected member of the prestigious European Dana Alliance of the Brain and joined the judging panel for the prestigious Wellcome Trust Science book Prize for 2018. Dr Critchlow’s work in science communication was named as a Top 100 UK scientist by the Science Council in 2014 and one of Cambridge University’s most ‘inspirational and successful women in science’ in 2013. While completing her PhD, Hannah was awarded a Cambridge University Fellowship and as an undergraduate received three University Prizes as Best Biologist. -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Dr Critchlow’s profile: https://bit.ly/drcritchlow - Dr Critchlow’s book: https://amzn.to/3GBXwkd

Dr Music will examine how early experiences, secure attachments, and safe environments can lead to more altruistic, prosocial, and empathic ways of acting while stress, trauma, and neglect can lead to more aggression, callousness, and antisocial behaviour. He will examine what current research and clinical understandings can teach us about living a Good Life. Why might we, and the children or adults, act selfishly and antisocially? Are we born selfish or cooperative and what might sway us in either direction? How do both stress-inducing family contexts and competitive social and economic environments undermine our capacity to feel safe, experience well-being, or care much for ourselves or others? How does a consumerist, materialist ethos, as well as the challenges posed by the cyber-age and increasingly speeded up lives have an impact? This talk will draw on lessons from developmental science, neurobiology, psychoanalysis, and mindfulness to examine the links between feeling good and being good, and generally ponder the Good Life. --- Dr Graham Music, PhD is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Centre and an adult Psychotherapist in private practice. Formerly Associate Clinical Director of the Tavistock Clinic’s Child and Family Department, he works at the Portman as a forensic psychotherapist, and his clinical experience has for decades been mainly with trauma. He has developed and managed a range of services working with the aftermath of child maltreatment and neglect. He supervises and teaches nationally and internationally, and has a particular interest in linking cutting-edge developmental findings with therapeutic practice. His publications include Nurturing Children: From Trauma to Hope (2019), Nurturing Natures: (2016, 2010), Affect and Emotion (2001), The Good Life: (2014) and the forthcoming Resparking (2022), as well as co-editing From Trauma to Harming Others (2021), and shortly his new book Resparking will come out shortly.

Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. This talk will provide an unflinching view into the calamities of digital life: the circus of online trolling, flourishing alt-right subcultures, pervasive corporate surveillance, and the virtual data mines of Facebook and Google where we spend considerable portions of our free time. You’ll learn about the political and psychological effects of our changing relationship with social media, what’s really behind our addiction, and how to set yourself free. --- Richard Seymour is a writer and broadcaster and the author of numerous books about politics, including The Liberal Defence of Murder (Verso, 2008), Against Austerity (2014), Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (Verso, 2016) and The Twittering Machine (The Indigo Press, 2019). He completed his PhD in sociology at the London School of Economics under the supervision of Paul Gilroy. In 2005, Seymour’s blog: ‘Lenin’s Tomb’ was named as the 21st most popular blog in the UK, and his writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Jacobin, the London Review of Books, the New York Times and Prospect. --- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events/ - Richard Seymour’s book: https://amzn.to/2S0XpHL

For 15 years, the transpersonal psychologist Steve Taylor has been researching cases of ‘transformation through turmoil,’ or spontaneous spiritual awakening caused by suffering. In times of bereavement, serious illness, addiction, deep depression and intense stress, a miraculous transformation can occur: the death of an old identity and the birth of a new, spiritually awakened self. In this session based on his upcoming book Extraordinary Awakenings, Steve shares some cases from his research, and explains the reasons why intense suffering can lead to transformation. Then he explains what we can learn from the phenomenon, with principles that we can apply to our own spiritual development. He also explains the global and evolutionary aspects of the phenomenon, in relation to the crises we face as a species. Steve will also lead meditations and exercises to show how we can harness the transformational power of crises and turmoil in our lives. -- Steve Taylor, PhD, is the author of Extraordinary Awakenings and many other bestselling books including The Leap and Spiritual Science. He is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University and the chair of the Transpersonal Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. Steve’s articles and essays have been published in over 100 academic journals, magazines, and newspapers and he blogs for Scientific American and Psychology Today. Eckhart Tolle has described his work as ‘an important contribution to the shift in consciousness which is happening on our planet at present.’ Steve lives in Manchester, England, with his wife and three young children. Visit him online at www.stevenmtaylor.com -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events/ - Dr Taylor’s website: https://www.stevenmtaylor.com/ - Dr Taylor’s books: https://amzn.to/3gblkke

Within us, the dim cavern of the unconscious holds our forbidden feelings, secret wishes, destructive impulses, and creative urges. Over time, these “dark” forces take on a life of their own, forming the Shadow. A recurring theme in literature and legend, the Shadow is like an invisible twin, a stranger that is us, yet not us. When it acts out, we hurt ourselves or others. As we bring it into awareness with shadow-work, it loses its grip on us and we experience deeper self-knowledge, greater authenticity, and greater choice over our thoughts and behaviors. We also discover that the contents of the Shadow are not all bad; even our undeveloped gifts, talents, and dreams lie dormant there–the gold in the dark side. This talk will explore the formation of shadow in childhood, the common ways we encounter the shadow in life, and how to “romance” it, or make a conscious relationship with it. The Shadow is not a problem to be solved; it’s a mystery to be faced. -- Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality, and a novel entitled ‘A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi’. Her new book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift from role to soul. -- Links: - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Dr Connie Zweig, PhD website: https://conniezweig.com - Dr. Zweig’s books: https://amzn.to/3Djvx6X

In this talk, Rupert Spira will explore the perennial, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions: reality is a single, infinite and indivisible whole whose nature is consciousness or spirit. Central to this understanding is the recognition of the nature of consciousness, which has been described in the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism as ‘the greatest secret, more hidden than the most concealed of things, and yet more evident than the most obvious of things’. Rupert will suggest that the overlooking of the nature of consciousness is the root cause of suffering within individuals, conflicts between communities and nations, and the degradation of our environment and that its recognition must, therefore, be the basis of a new paradigm that restores well-being to individuals and peace to our communities. --- Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality and the source of lasting peace and happiness since his early age. After spending twenty years immersed in the teachings of classical Advaita Vedanta, he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, who introduced him to the Direct Path approach whereby one may recognise the source of peace and happiness in oneself. Rupert has written several books and holds regular meetings and retreats online, as well as in Europe and the United States. He is also a noted potter, trained in the British Studio Pottery school, with work in public and private collections. You can learn more about his work at www.rupertspira.com. -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Rupert’s website: https://rupertspira.com - Rupert’s publications: https://rupertspira.com/store

How Victor Frankl’s experiences in Nazi concentration camps informed the development of logotherapy and existential analysis (EA), why the search for meaning is our deepest motivation, and how EA brings philosophy, psychotherapy, and spirituality together through a scientific methodology to help individuals unlock a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. -- Alfried LÄNGLE, M.D., Ph.D., Dr. h.c.mult., professor and honorary professor, was born in 1951 in Austria where he still lives. He studied medicine and psychology at the Universities of Innsbruck, Rome, Toulouse, and Vienna. After years of hospital work in general medicine and psychiatry and in an outpatient department of social psychiatry, in 1982 he started a private practice in psychotherapy, general medicine, and clinical psychology in Vienna. At the same time, he came into close collaboration with Viktor Frankl (1983-1991). He assisted Frankl’s lectures at the university for years and worked together with him in many relevant fields of Logotherapy. He is the founder and president (1983-2017) of the International Society for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis in Vienna (www.existenzanalyse.org), whose honorary president was Viktor Frankl until 1990. By this date, Frankl resigned from his honorary presidency because of Längle’s new developments in the field of existential analysis (methods, implication of existential self-experience in the training and seminars, rejecting the exclusive use of the meaning paradigm in psychotherapy and enlarging its theoretical basis, implementation of biographical work). Dr. Längle is a Professor at the University of Vienna (Sigmund Freud University), Klagenfurt and Moscow (HSE). He has over 400 publications, 2 honorary doctorships and 6 honorary professorships, as well as a gold medal from the Republic of Austria for scientifically high contributions. -- Links: - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Dr Alfried Längle, PhD website: https://www.laengle.info - Dr Alfried Längle, PhD books: https://amzn.to/3wGafix

Annahita believes that the dramatic rise in mental illness and how we treat those who are mentally ill exposes a dysfunction inherent within our society. She believes there’s a place for psychiatric medication, but emphasises that we need to move away from a standardised and restrictive approach to mental illness that is over reliant on sedation and dampening feelings and desires. Based on this premise, Annahita argues that contemporary mental health treatments need reviewing and revising. Annahita asks attendees to consider a world where people battling with terminal illness, trauma, stress or depression have access to a range of evidence-based self-transcendent treatments (inclusive of nature, music, and mindfulness-based therapies, and positive technologies and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy). In this talk, Annahita draws on applied research in psychology to make a case for VR-assisted self-transcendent treatments. She summarises some of the extant evidence in this area, explains what the Virtual Reality Overview Effect is, the rationale, theoretical framework behind it, summarises the mission, and milestones reached. -- Dr Annahita Nezami, CPsychol, DPsych, MSc, BSc, is a counselling psychologist providing psychological consultation, assessment and therapy to organisations, individuals, and couples. Her areas of interest include space psychology, higher states of consciousness, wellbeing, performance, neuropsychology, and trauma. Annahita lectures nationally and internationally, and has presented her ideas about the Overview Effect and mental health on BBC Radio 4, Central St Martin’s, UCL, and TEDx. She researched the therapeutic value of the Overview Effect as part of her doctoral studies. After completing her studies, she founded VR Overview Effect (VROE); the first tech-based multi-sensory company that designs and researches treatments based on the self-transcendent experience of the Overview Effect. You can learn more about Annahita’s work at www.vr-overview-effect.co.uk or follow VROE on Instagram @vr_overvieweffect or on twitter @DrAnnahita. Frank White has authored numerous books on topics ranging from space exploration to climate change to artificial intelligence. His best-known work, “The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution”, is considered by many to be a seminal work in the field of space exploration. A film called “Overview,” based largely on his work has had nearly 8 million plays on Vimeo. Since his book was published in 1987, “The Overview Effect” has become a standard term for describing the spaceflight experience. The fourth edition of The Overview Effect, including original interviews with 31 astronauts, is scheduled for publication in 2019. You can learn more about Frank’s work at: https://frankwhiteauthor.com/ -- Links: - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events/ - Dr Nezami’s website: https://www.vr-overview-effect.co.uk/ - Frank’s website: https://frankwhiteauthor.com/ - Frank’s books: https://amzn.to/3kg0a7b