New Books in Psychology

Today we will be speaking to Marta Rubinart, EWP adjunct faculty and recent Phd graduate, about her spiritual experiences that lead her to pursue a phd through EWP on the role of the heart in personality integration and spiritual growth. We discuss her recent dissertation “The Heart-Soul Axis in the Jesus Prayer and the Integral Yoga Sadhana” and explore mystic contemplation, embodied prayer, as well as some of the academic challenges she encountered in her comparative and cross-cultural inquiry between Christianity and Integral Yoga. Marta shares her experiences as a Christian and how she approaches the Jesus prayer, emphasizing the importance of purification through the heart center, a practice shared by Integral Yoga. Marta also reflects on her transformative approach to teaching research methods and spiritual counsling in the East-West Psychology Department.Dr. Marta Rubinart Rufach is a scholar, researcher, and clinician in the field of Clinical and Health Psychology and Spirituality. Her career as a therapist began in Spain when she was just 19 years old. She first worked as a licensed massage therapist and later, in her twenties, began her practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist. She has worked in private practice, hospitals, and non-profits for 25+ years.In her mid-thirties, Marta started a long formative process involving the completion of two PhDs. In 2016, she graduated Magna Cum Laude for the Autonomous University of Barcelona with a dissertation studying Spiritual Practice and its Effects in Personality, Psychopathology and Wellbeing. In 2021, she completed her second PhD in the East West Psychology (EWP) department. Her dissertation entitled The heart-Soul Axis in the Jesus Prayer and the Integral Yoga Sadhana, elucidates the spiritual heart as the center for personality integration, purification, and divinization and the center where the human being, the divine, and the cosmos consciously interact.Marta teaches research methods at the EWP department and works as a psychological associate for Well Stone Healing Center, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco. She enjoys supporting graduate students to refine their research topics and designs and continues developing her scholarship on the Heart-Soul Axis. Currently, she is collaborating in an art project representing the triple nature of the Divine and Creation.Professional Webpage: https://martarubinart.comConnect with EWP: Website • Youtube • FacebookHosted by Stephen Julich (EWP adjunct faculty, program manager) and Jonathan Kay (PhD student, EWP assistant) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

The Restorative Nature of Ongoing Connections with the Deceased: Exploring Presence Within Absence (Routledge, 2022) is a guide to stimulating thought and discussion about ongoing attachments between bereaved individuals and their deceased loved ones. Chapters promote broad, inclusive training and dialogue for working with clients who establish and/or maintain a restorative connection with their deceased loved one as well as those who find aspects of such connections to be psychologically or spiritually problematic or troublesome. Bereavement professionals will come away from this book with a better understanding and a deeper skillset for helping clients to develop continuing bonds.Edward (Ted) Rynearson, MD, is a clinical psychiatrist and researcher in Seattle, Washington, and author of two books, Retelling Violent Death and Violent Death: Resilience and Intervention Beyond the Crisis.Susan Grelock-Yusem, PhD, is an independent researcher trained in depth psychology, with an emphasis on community, liberation, and eco-psychologies. Her work centers around interconnection and encompasses regenerative food systems, the arts and conservation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In a world facing more shootings, suicides, substance abuse, and sexual violence than ever before, there is more that we can do as educators, as parents, and as adults committed to leaving this world better than we found it. Research shows that just one trusted adult can have a profound effect on a child’s life, influencing that young person toward positive growth, greater engagement in school and community activities, better overall health, and prevention of risky and threatening behaviors. From educators to piano teachers, camp counselors to aunts and uncles, and athletic coaches to babysitters, every adult who encounters a young person holds the privilege of shaping that child’s life—and also the significant responsibility. With news headlines dominated by stories of abuse in schools, camps, and churches, those of us who guide or mentor adolescents must understand how to build trust with young people while simultaneously establishing boundaries that keep the relationship healthy.Packed with real-life stories and invaluable tips, One Trusted Adult: How to Build Strong Connections & Healthy Boundaries with Young People inspires all adults to build strong connections, embrace sustainable career practices, break the silence around boundary violations and abuse, be present for the young people in their lives—and, in doing so, ensure that the young people in their care are growing into their greatest potential.Brooklyn Raney is an experienced teacher, coach, and administrator who has spent the last decade working in independent schools. She is the founder and director of the Girls’ Leadership Camp, a group that hosts a one-week summer camp for middle school girls, as well as one-day boosts and leadership conferences. She is also a co-founder of Generation Change, a nonprofit that seeks to embolden youth to be empathic and compassionate change makers through cross-generational mentorship. Brooklyn is a workshop facilitator, speaker, and consultant for schools, camps, and other youth-serving organizations nationally and internationally. You can find out more about her and her programs at www.onetrustedadult.comElizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today we will be speaking with EWP adjunct faculty Sophia Reinders, about her academic and personal journey from phenomenology, to Jungian depth psychology, expressive arts and eco-arts therapy to ecopsychology and evolutionary cosmology. She shares with us the life changing experience of discovering her earth soul at the depth and as the depth of the psyche, embedded in earth. This led her to a deep and passionate exploration of the intricate intertwinement of the human community with the more than human earth and all its life forms. The felt-sense of this encompassing perspective now finds expression in her teaching and her pedagogy as a scholar-practitioner. Drawing on the ecological imagination and guiding students in multimodal practices of creative embodiment, she encourages a shift away from a human-centered towards an earth-cherishing consciousness within which to consider and experience the realm of the human, be this within or beyond academic pursuits.Sophia asks us to think about our senses as a “palette of embodied languages”. Multi-modal sensory awareness, she says, deepens our experience of aliveness and discloses perception as participation with the earth. She sees participatory perception as a form of holistic, embodied understanding in which feeling, intuiting, imagining, thinking and visioning come together and enrich both academic and non-academic pursuits.To end the podcast, Sophia guides Stephen and I through a sensory awareness practice, opening us to experience how every act of perception is a creative practice, and the transformative power of cultivating an alchemical reciprocity between psyche and nature, awakening to a deeper embodied knowing.Sophia Reinders PhD, MFT, REAT is the founding Director of the WisdomBody Institute for Creative Psychotherapy and Expressive Arts, http://www.wisdombody.comShe is Adjunct Senior Lecturer in East-West Psychology, School of Consciousness and Transformation at CIIS and instructor at the Sky Mountain Institute of Expressive Arts and Eco-Arts Therapy in San Diego. https://www.skymountain.orgHer research interests and teaching revolve around embodied ecopsychology, strengthening the awareness of the human-earth intertwinement; creative Eco-Arts dreamwork, and the felt-sense experience of evolutionary cosmology, evoked and deepened through embodied multimodal creative practices.Her recent publications include The Sensuous Kinship of Body and Earth. In Ecopsychology. VOL. 9 NO. 1 https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/eco.2016.0035Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • FacebookHosted by Stephen Julich (EWP adjunct faculty, program manager) and Jonathan Kay (PhD student, EWP assistant) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning (MIT, 2022), Sheila L. Macrine (Professor in Cognitive Science, UMass Dartmouth) and Jennifer M. B. Fugate (Associate Professor in Health Psychology, Kansas City University) bring together experts to translate the latest findings on embodied cognition to inform teaching and learning pedagogy.Embodied cognition represents a radical shift in conceptualizing cognitive processes, in which cognition develops through mind-body environmental interaction. If this supposition is correct, then the conventional style of instruction—in which students sit at desks, passively receiving information—needs rethinking. Movement Matters considers the educational implications of an embodied account of cognition, describing the latest research applications from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science and demonstrating their relevance for teaching and learning pedagogy.After a discussion of the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of embodied cognition, contributors to the book describe its applications in language, including the areas of handwriting, vocabulary, language development, and reading comprehension; STEM areas, emphasizing finger counting and the importance of hand and body gestures in understanding physical forces; and digital learning technologies, including games and augmented reality. Finally, they explore embodied learning in the social-emotional realm, including how emotional granularity, empathy, and mindfulness benefit classroom learning.Movement Matters introduces a new model, translational learning sciences research, for interpreting and disseminating the latest empirical findings in the burgeoning field of embodied cognition. The book provides an up-to-date, inclusive, and essential resource for those involved in educational planning, design, and pedagogical approaches.Alice Garner is a historian, teacher and performer with a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today I talked to Richard Chataway about his book The Behaviour Business: How to Apply Behavioural Science for Business Success (Harriman House, 2020).Ever seen the TED talk video on Youtube where Capuchin monkeys get enraged when some receive cucumbers and other monkeys more delicious grapes for completing the same task? Welcome to the inequality basis, whereby a lack of fairness drives all of us crazy. Whether it’s a matter of employees getting different pay for the same job, or consumers feeling like some people get better deals than others, feelings of injustice or disappointment or pride---you name it—drive our behavior. How often is what people say and how they feel and behave identical? Not especially, says my guest this week. Indeed, Richard Chataway would estimate that verbal input might at best get you 50% of the way to understanding how somebody might behave in actuality. Other topics covered in this episode include why inspiring disgust helped an anti-smoking campaign do so well and how Hilton Hotels leveraged the use of the Big Five personality model to increase clicks and shares online.Richard Chataway is the CEO of BVA Nudge Consulting UK and the founder of the Communication Science Group. Clients have included: Lloyds Banking Group, Google, and IKEA. He’s also a former board member of the Association of Business Psychology in the UK.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Lingo. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

The King of France - thinking he was made of glass - was terrified he might shatter...and he wasn't alone. After the Emperor met his end at Waterloo, an epidemic of Napoleons piled into France's asylums. Throughout the nineteenth century, dozens of middle-aged women tried to convince their physicians that they were, in fact, dead. For centuries we've dismissed delusions as something for doctors to sort out behind locked doors. But delusions are more than just bizarre quirks - they hold the key to collective anxieties and traumas. In A History of Delusions: The Glass King, a Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse (Oneworld, 2022), Victoria Shepherd uncovers stories of delusions from medieval times to the present day and implores us to identify reason in apparent madness.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

When people describe the brain they often compare it to a computer. In fact, the metaphor of the brain as a computer has defined the field for decades now. And in many ways, it works – the are many respects in which the brain is like a computer. But there are other aspects of the brain which are not captured by the computer metaphor which is why the neuroscientist Daniel Graham is suggesting another paradigm for understanding the brain. In his book An Internet in Your Head: A New Paradigm for How the Brain Works (Columbia UP, 2021), he argues that the brain is a communication system, like the internet.Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

This episode features Silvia Nakkach, a Grammy® nominated musician and cross-cultural explorer of musical worlds. Silvia will enchant you as she shares her journey searching for the cosmic source of sound from her home in Brazil, to the Bay area where she learned North Indian Raga music under maestro Ali Akbar Khan for more than 30 years, as well as experimental and electronic music while at Mills College with Pauline Oliveros and Anthony Braxton. We will discuss the integrative power of the mystical sound-syllable AUM, and how she has cultivated the Yoga of Sound, Nada Yoga, and Dhrupad Chant as a form of deep listening and enhancing the sensibility of the subtle through sound. For many years teachings at CIIS, Silvia founded the Sound, Voice, Music in the Healing Arts, a certificate program that she is currently facilitating through the New York Open Center. She is an academic program consultant and the founder and artistic director of the International Vox Mundi School of the Sound and the Voice with centers and training programs across the world. In this conversation, recorded on April 5 of 2020, she shares ideas about how she has been developing an original integral framework through the practice of ancient and modern voice cultures and quantum listening.Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is a Grammy® nominated composer and a pioneer in the field of sound and consciousness transformation. A sought-after educator, vocal artist, author and a former music psychotherapist, Silvia has served on the faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies where she created the premier certificate program on Sound, Voice and Music in the Healing Arts offered by a major academic institution. She is also the founding director of the International Vox Mundi School of the Voice. For more than 30 years, Silvia studied North Indian classical music under the direction of the late Maestro Ali Akbar Khan and various masters of the Art of Dhrupad singing. She is the author of Free Your Voice (Sounds True). Silvia has released 15 CDs and her music draws upon elements from contemporary avant-garde to ancient Indian ragas. She travels extensively and resides in the San Francisco Bay area. As program facilitator of the Sound and Music Institute Silvia works closely with the students throughout the course of the program.This podcast features 2 pieces form Silvia's albums:• Interlude: Bliss, from album Invocation• End music: Liminal Beauty, from album LiminalityWebsites: Silvia Nakkach • Vox Mundi - School of Sound and the VoiceConnect with EWP: Website • Youtube • FacebookHosted by Stephen Julich (EWP adjunct faculty, program manager) and Jonathan Kay (PhD student, EWP assistant) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Few substances have been researched as extensively, and debated as fiercely, as cannabis. In Marijuana on My Mind: The Science and Mystique of Cannabis (Cambridge University Press, 2022), psychiatrist Timmen Cermak offers a balanced, science-based analysis of how marijuana affects people physiologically, psychologically, and spiritually. Cermak draws on current understandings of the brain and nervous system to describe how cannabis achieves its effects as well as how it can pose risks to some individuals. Cermak believes that most people can enjoy cannabis safely as long as they apply sensible guidelines and precautions. Far different in tone from the heated polemics that cannabis can inspire, Marijuana on My Mind is a deeply informed assessment of what we know about cannabis and how people can deploy that knowledge wisely. Steve Beitler’s work in the history of medicine focuses on how pain has been understood, treated, experienced, and represented. His recently published articles examined the history of opiates in American football and surveyed the history of therapeutic drugs. He can be reached at steve@stevebeitler.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology