Deconstruction and Excision in Philosophical Posthumanism

Seriously geeky . . . .

Deconstruction and Excision in Philosophical Posthumanism

David Roden

davidroden7@googlemail.com

Journal of Evolution and Technology - Vol. 21 Issue 1 – June 2010 - pgs 27 - 36

http://jetpress.org/v21/roden.htm

Abstract

I distinguish the ethics of transhumanism from a related metaphysical position which I refer to as “speculative posthumanism.” Speculative posthumanism holds that posthumans might be radically non-human and thus unintelligible in human terms. I claim that this transcendence can be viewed as analogous to that of the thing-in-itself in Kantian and post-Kantian European philosophy. This schema implies an impasse for transhumanism because, while the radically non-human or posthuman would elude evaluation according to transhumanist principles such as personal autonomy or liberal freedom, it is morally unacceptable for transhumanists to discount the possible outcomes of their favoured policies. I then consider whether the insights of critical posthumanists, who employ a cyborg perspective on human-technology couplings, can dissolve this impasse by “deconstructing” the opposition between the human and its prospective posthuman successors. By exhibiting its logical basis in the postructuralist philosophies of Derrida and Deleuze, I show that the cyborg perspective is consistent with both cyborg humanism and a modified speculative posthumanism. This modified account treats the alterity of the posthuman as a historically emergent feature of human and posthuman multiplicities that must be understood through their technical or imaginative synthesis, not in relation to a transcendental conception of the human.

Contemporary transhumanists argue that human nature can and should be altered through technological means where such enhancements are likely to lead to the majority of individuals leading better lives. This ethic is premised on prospective developments in Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science – the so-called “NBIC” suite. One of the areas of particular concern for transhumanists is the use of such technologies to enhance human cognitive functions such as learning, memory, and attention. For example, such pharmacological agents as Modafinil are currently used to enhance learning and working memory. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of areas of neural tissue may, one day, be routinely employed to increase the neural plasticity associated with learning and memorization (Bostrom and Sandberg 2006). More speculatively, micro-electric neuroprostheses might interface the brain directly with non-biological cognitive or robotic systems (Kurzweil 2005, 317).¹ Such developments could bring the day when all humans will be more intellectually capable, whether because of enhancements of their native biological machinery or through interfacing with artificial information processing systems.

However, some transhumanists such as Vernor Vinge, Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec argue that a convergence of NBIC technologies will not only enhance human intelligence, but give rise to beings with superhuman intellectual capacities. Since designing intelligence is, itself, a feat of intelligence, a super-intelligence could design a still more super intelligence, and so on through an unbounded series of recursive improvements. Beyond this threshold, there would be an exponentially fast change in the level and quality of mentation. Vinge refers to this point as “the technological singularity,” claiming that such a singularity could occur with the creation of a single super-intelligent machine (Vinge 1993; Bostrom 2005, 8). Vinge is sensibly agnostic about the precipitating causes of such a singularity: the super-intelligence in question might result from some targeted biological alteration in human beings, from the use of “human/computer interfaces” of the kind anticipated by Kurzweil, or from an emergent property of large information systems (Vinge 1993).

Since such a situation is unprecedented, the best we can do to understand the post-singularity dispensation, Vinge claims, is to draw parallels with the emergence of an earlier transformative intelligence: “And what happens a month or two (or a day or two) after that? I have only analogies to point to: The rise of humankind” (Vinge 1993). If this analogy between the emergence of the human and the emergence of the posthuman holds, we could no more expect to understand a post-singularity entity than a rat or non-human primate – lacking the capacity for refined propositional attitudes – could be expected to understand such human conceptions as justice, number theory, and public transportation.

Vinge’s position nicely exemplifies a generic philosophy of the posthuman that I will refer to as “speculative posthumanism.” Speculative posthumanists claim that descendants of current humans could cease to be human by virtue of a history of technical alteration. The notion of descent is “wide” insofar as the entities that might qualify could include our biological descendants or beings resulting from purely technological activities (e.g., artificial intelligences, synthetic life-forms, or uploaded minds).

Speculative posthumanism claims that an augmentation history of this kind is metaphysically and technically possible. It does not imply that the posthuman would improve upon the human state or that there would exist a scale of values by which the human and posthuman lives could be compared. If radically posthuman lives were very non-human indeed, we could not assume they would be prospectively evaluable. For example, Vinge suggests that a super-intelligent machine might lack awareness of itself as a persistent “subject” of experience. For a modern tradition exemplified in the transcendental philosophy of Kant and later phenomenological philosophers, this possibility is problematic. For Kant, this is because the subject is not a “bare locus” of identity but has a transcendental function of synthesizing or “unifying” sensory information given under the subjective forms of space and time into experiences of a common, objective world.

However, Kant allowed that there could be thinkers whose mental life does not entail the synthesis of sensory representations. In the Critique of Pure Reason, he speculates about non-sensory “intellectual intuition” that produces objects rather than, as in humans, imposing a synthetic unity on their sensory affects (Kant 1787, B 307). A being with intellectual intuition could have unmediated knowledge of things as they are-in-themselves (noumena) rather than as represented under the sensory forms of space and time (phenomena).

If Kant is right, then the presence of first-person subjectivity in humans does not preclude a radically non-subjective phenomenology in non-humans. Most of Kant’s successors in the idealist and phenomenological traditions have rejected both the in-itself and the possibility of intellectual intuition, claiming that a thing is nothing other than an object for a possible subject. Subject and object would then be indissociably related (Meillassoux 2006). “Correlationism,” as the philosopher Quentin Meillassoux christens this position, has dominated post-Kantian European philosophy, morphing into a slew of postmodern idealisms. However, as Meillassoux argues, correlationism has the absurd consequence that the cosmic emergence of subjectivity or language becomes inconceivable; for, since nothing exists outside the correlation, it has no history. If we reject correlationism, however, we must hold that reality is not exhausted by any system of correlations: the unconditioned thing-in-itself must be admitted and so must the possibility of different modes of access to it. Thus even if our way of accessing the real requires a subject, others may not. Given this minimal realism, Vinge’s speculations about posthuman non-subjective intelligence are conceptually coherent, irrespective of their technical possibility.

It seems, then, that a posthuman reality could be, as Vinge (1993) avers, “too different to fit into the classical frame of good and evil.” Our public ethical frameworks arguably presuppose that candidates for our moral regard have phenomenologies similar to humans, if only in the sentient capacities for pain, fear, or enjoyment. Moral conceptions such as autonomy or responsibility would be inapplicable to a subjectless posthuman. The central value that modern liberal theory places on liberty and democratic legitimacy would be likewise unintelligible.

How should transhumanists respond to this possibility? Should they simply discount it, confining their attention to the evaluable outcomes of transhumanist intervention? Discounting the posthuman is morally irresponsible, though, given the possible role of transhumanist intervention in producing it. Thus transhumanists should try to evaluate the emergence of an incommensurate posthuman alterity. However, if we recognize evaluation as a non-starter, any attempt to do so would be incoherent. Thus it appears that transhumanists are morally obliged to evaluate the unevaluable. We can refer to this impossible demand as the “posthuman impasse.”

However, this formulation of a transhumanist aporia invites a critical riposte from a position distinct from speculative posthumanism or transhumanism: critical posthumanism.

Read the whole thing.

Tags: Philosophy, Psychology, Transhumanism, technology, Deconstruction and Excision in Philosophical Posthumanism, David Roden, Journal of Evolution and Technology, posthumanism, speculative posthumanism, postructuralist philosophies, Derrida, Deleuze

Parabola - JUNG’S RED BOOK: Life After Depth

Cool - I still want to get a copy of the book, but it'll have to wait for now. This excellent article comes from Parabola.

JUNG’S RED BOOK: Life After Depth

Abraxas, © Jorge M Machado

JUNG’S RED BOOK: Life After Depth
By Claire Dunne

The knowledge of death came to me that night….I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and live within….I turned away and sought the place of the inner life! —C.G. Jung, The Red Book

The Red Book, an epic chapter in the life of C.G. Jung, is now available to us fifty-eight years after his death. This fabled volume bound in red leather, which Jung initially called Liber Novus (New Book), echoes a medieval manuscript in its calligraphic text and richly toned symbolic paintings. It reveals a process that was primal in its energies and labyrinthine in its journey, one that became the genesis of his psychology. "The numinous beginning that contained everything", he wrote of it in 1957, four years before he died.

Cary Baynes, a former patient who was asked by Jung to transcribe the text, called it a "record of the passage of the universe through the soul of a man." It records the search, experiences, and initial findings of a man who at age forty had, by his own account "achieved honor, power, wealth, knowledge and every human happiness," yet had somehow lost his soul.

"Meine seele, meine seele, wo bist du?" "My soul, my soul, where are you?" Jung writes in the Black Book series that preceded and was elaborated upon in The Red Book. In his introduction to The Red Book, editor and translator Sonu Shamdasani, a London-based historian of psychology and psychiatry, sets this potent work within the context of Jung’s time and life.

It began in 1913, the year Jung broke with Freud. Inner experiences were drawing Jung into a way of being not primarily dependent on intellect. There were dreams he didn’t understand and then a repeated and dramatic sign–a daylight vision of horrific floods, Europe devastated, rivers of blood, and an inner voice that said: "It will come to pass."

"I thought my mind had gone crazy," wrote Jung. He undertook a psychological self-examination but became stuck. To tap into underlying material, he devised a "boring method" that evolved into "active imagination," which was to become a keystone of his psychology as a means of accessing and penetrating fantasy. From late 1913 to mid-1914, he recorded a relentless avalanche of inner openings, images, and dialogue, material to be worked on as Jung’s "most difficult experiment."

Often these experiences occurred at night in his library, following a day’s work with patients and dinner with family. He sometimes did yoga-type exercises to quell emotional turmoil and empty his consciousness. He then went into the spontaneous fantasies that appeared, as if entering a drama, engaging in conversations with its characters. But he remained uncertain of the meaning and significance of their content. Mental illness was a recurring fear.

"Finally I understood," he wrote in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. His early symbolic pre-cognitions had been given terrible form. Understanding gave Jung the courage to begin a handwritten draft of his Liber Novus. He transcribed the Black Book material, adding further interpretations of each episode, and often combining these with a lyrical elaboration.

Here are some snapshot impressions of the book that may yield the skeleton of its content. Inner battles take place. In the prophetic opening the Spirit of the Depths spars with the Spirit of the Times in him. The contemporary and changing thinking of Time constantly has to give way to the immemorial and shaping future contained in, and arising from, the Depths.

A spiritual message emerges, a new way for the time we live in today, with Jung becoming the task, interpreter, and bearer of it. The teaching is of a new God image–an immanent God who is in everything big and small, dark and light. The paradox in this holds that "the highest truth and the absurd is one and the same thing." Moreover, "the melting together of sense and nonsense produces the supreme meaning"; and "if you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child." The task is to hold the opposites together, "the goal is not the heights but the center"–the center or Self which can be said as "God in us."

Jung came to believe that "You should be…not Christians but Christ, otherwise you will be of no use to the coming God." He realised he needed to live all of life in him, God spirit and human animal, together in unity.

In Jung’s personal journey his feminine Soul voice battles with him to recognize and balance his own opposites. There is a peeling back of distrust, scorn, judgment, pride, defiance, doubt, confusion, rage, and fear. The need to develop patience—a waiting, enduring, receiving mode as the feminine (or anima) within—is put to him. He discovers that thinking and feeling need each other.

Jung has to face what least he wants to—symbolised as desert, hell, murder, and more, till "nothing human is alien to me." Opposites, he realises, are brothers: "the other is also in you." Soul counsels acceptance of solitude, the inner loneliness of knowing, uncertainty of path or goal, and fear and possibility of madness as part of his journey. "I believed…soul knows her own way….perhaps no one will gain insight from my work. But my soul demands this achievement….I should be able to do this just for myself, without hope–for the sake of God."

Jung carves his own path, insisting "my path is not your path" and, "to live oneself is to be one’s own task." The fantasies deepen in a spiraling journey of recurring, evolving patterns. The horror and the positive aspects of collective human history unfold before him. Soul insists he accept it all. "I feel the things that were and that will be". He initially recoils at the enormous task ahead. "Futurity grows out of me; I do not create it, and yet I do."

A transformative image of black snake appears, winding up, becoming white, and emerging through the mouth of the crucified Christ.

"To give birth to the ancient in a new time is creation," he writes.

"We need it [magic]… to find the way that we are unable to conceive." Looking for inner help, Jung is "apprenticed" to Philemon, a "guru" figure that first appears in dream as a winged man bearing four keys, and then as the archetypal Magician. From him, Jung learns about objective reality beyond the personal. He risks the letting-go that is needed to bring together powers that conflict in the soul of man into a true marriage. Reason and understanding must unite with unreason and magic. Unity brings an apparent standstill that is "the forbearing life of eternity, the life of divinity." Yet his inner guidance reveals that the personal "life has yet to begin." This section ends with: "the touchstone is being alone with yourself. This is the way."

Another section opens with a devastating self-criticism of the "shadow" side of his state. "If I tame you, beast, I give others the opportunity to tame their beasts." Jung is encouraged by Soul to "be unwavering and create" while a haggard male inner image tells him, "you must bleed for the goal of humanity." As World War I savages on, Jung asks his Soul: "Which depths do you require me to advance to?" The answer "Forever above yourself and the present."

For nearly a year, the voices of the depths fall silent. Jung writes a draft of his Liber Novus. Then the voice of Philemon returns. "Self-willing is not for you. You are the will of the whole….Draw nearer, enter into the grave of God. The place of your work should be in the vault."

The dead appear to his inner vision and Soul declares "The dead demand your expiatory prayers." Jung reluctantly accepts. Soul announces that the "the ruler of this world" demands the sacrifice of Jung’s fear because he has "been summoned to serve him." "Why must it be me?" protests Jung. "I cannot. I don’t want to."

"You possess the word that should not be allowed to remain concealed," declares his Soul.

Philemon, who Jung had felt as "the presence of the good and the beautiful," now appears in priestly robes and gives "Seven Sermons to the Dead," a kind of Gnostic creation myth, including humanity’s role in it.

From Pleroma, unmanifest, infinite, eternal, in which "there is nothing and everything,, arises differentiated levels of Creation that are permeated with Pleroma. Pairs of opposites, which are balanced and void in Pleroma, appear as separate in created beings, eg., good and evil, sameness and difference. The striving at bottom is for "your own essence" as being.

Everything "created and uncreated" is Pleroma itself, the totality of being. The first manifestation devolving from Pleroma is Abraxas, a god forgotten by mankind, whose state of being is "effect," a paradoxical "improbable probability and unreal reality." It is "force, duration, change" at once. The next level of manifestation is more definite. God is creation. God is in essence "effective fullness" while Satan, his opposite, is in essence "effective emptiness."

Then there is a multiplicity of gods that act as either heavenly gods that "magnify," or earthly gods that "diminish," the four principal ones being Sun God, Eros, Tree of Life, and Devil. Spirituality and sexuality, "daimon manifestations of the gods," are opposites of the same spectrum, celestial in spirituality, earthly in sexuality. Man and woman "stand under the law" of both in differing ways.

In the last of the "Seven Sermons," Philemon reveals that man "is a gateway through which you pass from the outer world of Gods, daimons, and souls into the inner world; out of the greater into the smaller world." In this world "man is Abraxas, the creator and destroyer of his own world," who has a star as his own "guiding God."

Much later, Jung told a colleague that the "Seven Sermons to the Dead" were a prelude of what he had to communicate to the world. They are the skeletal nucleus of Jung’s psychology including individuation, the conflict of opposites, and the co-creation of man with the godhead.

Yet, the journey of The Red Book continued on. Philemon had a further teaching about man: "You, being, are the eternal moment." Death as shade, and celestial mother in mantle of stars, also appear, requiring further sacrifice from Jung before he can give birth to his stellar child. Jung realizes that "only fidelity to love and voluntary devotion" lead to "my stellar nature, my truest and most innermost self, that simply and singly is."

Finally, a shade (Christ) enters. Philemon kneels to "my master and my brother," telling Christ "your work is incomplete" while man merely imitates his life. "The time has come when each must do his own work of redemption."

By the end, clear lines are drawn between personal Jung and the inner beings that have appeared throughout, including Elijah, Salome, and earth spirit Ka, in addition to Philemon. There is a final tussle with Soul as Jung refuses unconditional obedience to the gods. He insists that man is no longer "slave" to them, though "They may devise a service in return." After initial outrage the gods agree. Soul tells Jung: "You have broken the compulsion of the law." Christ (as shade) offers a final word as gift. In accepting light and dark together: "I bring you the beauty of suffering."

In 1916, while on military duty, a series of twenty-seven mandala images came to Jung. The first depicts a multilevel relationship of microcosm with macrocosm. Abraxas, "lord of the physical world," is at the bottom; Phanes, golden winged "divine child," is at top. Over time Jung transcribed his work into calligraphic form on parchment, illustrated the text, painted dramatic symbolic images of his journey and inserted it all into a six-hundred-page folio bound in red leather.

Patients recall seeing it, open, on an easel in his library. Jung counseled them to create their own kind of Red Book as a method of dealing with their particular inner processes. Christiana Morgan recalls Jung saying "You can go to the book, turn over the pages and for you it will be your church–your cathedral–the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal….for in that book is your soul."

He stopped work on The Red Book in 1930 when the impact of a Chinese alchemical text, The Secret of the Golden Flower, brought him "undreamed of confirmation" of his ideas, and the link between East and West. In 1959, a single handwritten page was added to the book by Jung, reaffirming its contents: "I always knew those experiences contained something precious." It ends in mid-sentence.

The Red Book continues to offer us profound insight into the processes of life, into Jung and his work, and into the need to honor our own inner lives in our own way.

The Red Book is published by W.W. Norton at a list price of $195.00.

Tags: Psychology, soul, personal growth, books, C.G. Jung, The Red Book, Carl Jung, Jung, Parabola, Philemon, JUNG’S RED BOOK, Life After Depth, Claire Dunne, Cary Baynes, Sonu Shamdasani, active imagination

TED Global 2010 - The Connectome: Do neural maps define our identity?

Interesting talk - I'd like to be able to see it and not just read about it. Sebastian Seung is a Professor of Computational Neuroscience at MIT and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

He has posted many of his articles, if not most, on his site as PDFs, which is very cool. I'll include one article relevant to this talk at the bottom. This article comes from Wired UK.

The Connectome: do neural maps define our identity?

By Duncan Geere |16 July 2010

"I am my connectome" intones the audience in the Player's Theatre in Oxford at TEDGlobal 2010, under the orders of computational neuroscientist Sebastian Seung. "But you don't even know what a connectome is yet!" smirks Seung, before embarking on a precise, detailed explanation about what might be at the root of identity.

The connectome is a map. It's a map of the neurons in your brain and how they interact with each other -- which are connected, where, and how strongly. Some neuroscientists believe that it's this map that defines who we are -- associating memories with other things in your brain, in the same way that a smell of baking can conjure up an image of your kitchen.

Mapping those connections could give us the best chance yet at discovering how brains work, how memories are stored and accessed, and perhaps even changing them without causing irreparable damage. But it's a daunting task. Your neurons are tangled together tighter than headphone cables after a week in your desk drawer, and it's thought that there are millions of miles that need unravelling -- as task far behind current computational capabilities.

"How could we even dare to think we might understand this?" asks Seung. "It's the work of generations." So he and his colleagues are starting small, focusing on getting tiny, partial bits of the whole map, colouring them different shades in what is wonderfully called a "Brainbow". Even these small sections could contain valuable data on memories.

A sequence of muscle actions, like playing a series of notes on a piano, should represent itself as a series of connections between a pair of neurons that fire in turn. If those can be located, then the memory of what order the notes should be played in will be found, and could potentially be modified.

But, as someone ending a relationship might say, "people change". And their connectomes change, too. Over time, neurons will lose branches, grow new ones and twist into new and different shapes. Experiences, memories and emotions will shape your connectome, creating new links and causing old ones to die.

"The metaphor I like to use is a 'stream of consciousness'", says Seung. "The connectome is the bed of the stream, and your neural activity is the water. In daily use, the water flows along the stream bed, but over time, it forges new channels and twists the streambed into a new shape, leaving oxbow lakes and derelic,t backwaters behind it."

Seung ended his talk with a brief detour into the world of cryonics, raising the question of whether it would successfully preserve the connectome. There's evidence that the connectome disappears rapidly after death, and if that's true then cryonics would need to be fast, or it'd be impossible to resurrect someone with their memories and personality intact.

The only way to be sure would be to defrost someone, extract their brain, and see if the connectome is intact. Given we still aren't anywhere close to mapping a human connectome yet, it's going to be a while until we can find out.

Photo Credit: Flickr CC: Mike Blogs

Here is a related article dealing with connectomes. Be warned, this is geeky science stuff.

Reading the Book of Memory: Sparse Sampling versus Dense Mapping of Connectomes

By H. Sebastian Seung

Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Correspondence: seung@mit.edu

Neuron 62, 17-29 (2009)
DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2009.03.020

Many theories of neural networks assume rules of connection between pairs of neurons that are based on their cell types or functional properties. It is finally becoming feasible to test such pairwise models of connectivity, due to emerging advances in neuroanatomical techniques. One method will be to measure the functional properties of connected pairs of neurons, sparsely sampling pairs from many specimens. Another method will be to find a ‘‘connectome,’’ a dense map of all connections in a single specimen, and infer functional properties of neurons through computational analysis. For the latter method, the most exciting prospect would be to decode the memories that are hypothesized to be stored in connectomes.

In constructing a neural network model of brain function, it is standard to start from a mathematical description of spiking and synaptic transmission, make assumptions about how neurons are connected by synapses and then numerically simulate or analytically derive the activity patterns of the network. Success is declared if the model’s activity patterns reproduce those measured by neurophysiologists.

Initially, the model neurons used in such networks were highly simplified to the point of being naive. But they have become more sophisticated over the years, incorporating findings about intrinsic and synaptic currents in neurons. In contrast, many assumptions about neural connectivity have been used by theorists for decades without revision, because they have been difficult to test empirically.

It has been popular to assume that the connectivity between any pair of neurons is a function of variables associated with the neurons. These variables, which I dub cell labels, are attributes of a neuron that can be measured without determining its connectivity directly. The cell label can include what neuroanatomists call cell type, which is defined classically by shape and location (Bota et al., 2003; Masland, 2004). In the retina, photoreceptors make connections onto horizontal cells, a rule of connectivity based on cell type (Masland, 2001b). A cell label could also include some property that is determined by a neurophysiologist through activity measurements. For example, some models of the primary visual cortex assume that excitatory neurons with similar preferred orientations are connected (Somers et al., 1995; Ben-Yishai et al., 1995), so that the cell label is preferred orientation.

For testing such a pairwise model of neural connectivity, two standard neuroanatomical methods are available. Sparse reconstruction relies on light microscopy and sparse labeling of neurons, and dense reconstruction relies on electron microscopy and dense labeling. Both methods have been problematic. Axons can be less than 100 nm in diameter (Shepherd and Harris, 1998), and dendritic spine necks can be even narrower (Fiala and Harris, 1999). Since 100 nm is less than the wavelength of visible light, these structures cannot be resolved with a light microscope if they are entangled in a densely stained neuropil (but see Hell [2007] for exceptions to this rule). However, one can see a single neuron stained with dye, as long as the surrounding neurons are unstained and hence remain invisible. This trick was employed by Golgi, who invented a stain that marked a sparse subset of neurons in the brain.

Cajal used Golgi’s stain to reconstruct the branching patterns of neurons. If two neurons made contact with each other, Cajal inferred that they were connected. However, he could not rigorously prove this inference, because he could not see synapses. Contact suggests that a connection exists, but a synapse must be identified to prove it. In short, connection = contact + synapse.

In the 1970s, neuroanatomists began to use electron microscopy for dense reconstruction of neurons. In principle, this imaging method has enough spatial resolution to see all of the axons and dendrites in a densely labeled neuropil. It is also possible to identify synapses through telltale markers such as vesicles. Most famously, electron microscopy was used to map every connection in the nervous system of the nematode C. elegans (White et al., 1986). For every synapse between two neurites, the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons were identified by tracing the neurites back to their parent cell bodies.

Read the whole article.

Tags: TED Global 2010, The Connectome, neural maps, define identity, Wired UK, H. Sebastian Seung, Reading the Book of Memory, Sparse Sampling, Dense Mapping, Connectomes, Psychology, brain, consciousness, identity, memory, mind, neuroscience, models of connectivity, neurons, stream of consciousness, brainbow, neurons, Duncan Geere

Upaya Dharma Podcasts - Mindsight: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness (Pts 5 and 6 of 9)

The excellence continues . . .

Dan's most recent books are Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (for general readers) and The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician's Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (more scientific).

Mindsight: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness (Pt 5 of 9)

Speakers: Roshi Joan Halifax & Dan Siegel
Recorded: Friday Jul 9, 2010

Roshi Joan begins the evening by reading a poem by Lisel Mueller. Dan Siegal then tells a story that affected his life and the development of Mindsight. Dan introduces a list of 9 functions that integrates the cortex, limbic area, brain stem, the body and the social world. The list includes regulating the body, attuning to other people, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear modulation, mental time travel, empathy, morality and intuition.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Mindsight: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness (Pt 6 of 9)

Speakers: Roshi Joan Halifax & Dan Siegel
Recorded: Saturday Jul 10, 2010

How do we make this world of a better place? Dan says that we need to understand relationships, but also need to understand the nervous system. Through this, it changes what we do with our attention. Empathy can be stimulated by focused attention. How we focus our attention harnesses something that changes synaptic connections, improves immune functions and changes epigenetic control of gene expression. Dan introduces the concept of the Eight Domains of Integration, and explains for first 3, which are Consciousness, Horizontal and Vertical integration.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: Psychology, Buddhism, brain, meditation, Upaya Zen Center, Dharma Podcasts, Mindsight, The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness, Part 5, part 6, Roshi Joan Halifax, Dan Siegel, neuroscience, mindfulness, empathy, health, Eight Domains of Integration, epigenetics, regulating the body, attuning to other people, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear modulation, mental time travel, empathy, morality, intuition, 9 functions, integration

Why Is Marc Gafni Featured in 3 Sessions at the 2010 Integral Theory Conference? #itc2010 [Comments Reopened]

[8-8-2010 - comments are now reopened - Additional thoughts added at the bottom]

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[UPDATE 2: The conference organizers have asked that this thread be closed at this point. They do so from the perspective that representatives from both sides of a controversial issue have been able to express their views, which they feel is important. And from the perspective that there are more appropriate places for these perspectives to continue to air their differences. This request was made by them out of a commitment to keep the energy of the conference focused on the development of academic discourse.]

I agree and am cool with this - we can take it up at later date in a less adversarial forum.

[UPDATE: I have been asked by conference organizers to remove the link to and quotes from Marc's paper - it was never intended for publication or public use. Marc owns copyright and without his permission, posting it is a violation of trust. I apologize for not checking with organizers about this before resharing the link. I have also been asked to include the letter of support from Sally Kempton and Ken Wilber - it is in the comments.

MY STANCE: I do not want the conference to be overshadowed by this issue. I stand by my criticisms, but there are many wonderful presenters and people at this conference. Let's have fun and enjoy the learning.

Following the conference, we can take this topic up again, and perhaps do so in a more compassionate way - I was wrong to make this the first post on the conference.

I would to like to return our focus to sharing and learning. Thank you for your passion about this, and your understanding.]

As many readers may already know, I am the official blogger for the 2010 Integral Theory Conference this weekend at JFK University. Although the conference does not begin officially until Friday, I am beginning my blogging efforts today.

Having looked at the schedule pretty closely to see what I will be missing as I blog the events Mark and Sean want to highlight, I noticed that Marc Gafni will be speaking in three separate sessions (one of his own), but there was no paper posted in the list of presenters. I figured he may not have submitted a paper, or it had not been received yet.

What I didn't figure was that he had submitted a paper, and that it is horribly written (not the slightest bit of editing), and that far from academic, it is little more than a self-justification (in his own mind) for his history of sexually inappropriate relationships with students.

An anonymous reader of this blog left a comment on an earlier post about the conference and provided me a link to the article (which has subsequently been removed from the ITC site - and with good reason).

Here is the comment that was left, with the original PDF link to Gafni's article (removed) (because this was left as a public comment on the blog and not sent as a personal email, I am assuming I can repost it here) - nothing ever disappears completely in cyberspace:

I’m curious if you’ve had a chance to read the paper Marc Gafni submitted for the conference, entitled “Spiritually Incorrect: Sex, Ethics and Injury.” Rather than a clear, academic presentation of Integral theory, it’s 32 pages of rambling self-justification for his sexually abusive behaviors, attacks on the women who spoke up against him, distortions of Kabbalistic teachings presented as means to defend himself, and quotes by so-called “power feminists” aligned with his perspective. Also included is the suspiciously repetitive insistence that now that he’s partnered with Mariana Caplan, he’s completely monogamous.

His writing reveals that, if nothing else, this is a man who is using his teaching platform to promote his own self-serving and warped agenda.

According to the posted schedule, Gafni will be presenting three times at the conference.

You’ve been so good about raising public concern about questionable spiritual teachers; there are many of us who are profoundly grateful for your articulate voice of integrity! So I thought you might want to be alerted to this recent example of the inappropriateness of this brilliant yet disturbed and dangerous man being presented as a leader in the Integral world.

For some reason Gafni’s name and paper no longer appear with the list of presenters on the ITC website (hmmm, curious), but here’s a link to the paper if you’re interested:

I downloaded the article and have read it (well, skimmed it after the first several pages - it was too garbled to read closely).

I read the article all the way through - painfully.

At one point, Gafni "critiques" the work of Glen Gabbard and Peter Rutter - explicated in Rutter's book, Sex in the Forbidden Zone: When Men in Power - Therapists, Doctors, Clergy, Teachers, and Others - Betray Women's Trust. He suggests that this book is filled with "absolutist language" about relationships with clients - “absolutely never,” “Never at all,” and “There are no exceptions whatsoever” (p. 12).

With his history (The Awareness Center has been tracking his sexual misconduct for years, although the main page they had on him is now missing), one might guess he would not enjoy that book at all. On the other hand, I have not read the book, so maybe it sucks.

Yet, ALL of the ethics boards for therapists condemn and prohibit sexual relationships with clients, including the APA, ACA, ISPA (school psychologists), NBCC, and nearly every other ethics body - including the American Association of Pastoral Counselors.

Gafni's argument in opposition to this collective body of wisdom is this (by the way, this is one of the clearer passages) (quote deleted): the codes are amber fundamentalism, little more than dogma. And he concludes that even Jung transgressed these codes. Further, the authors he cites believe a therapist needs little more than 1-2 years of rehabilitation before returning to practice/

It is not coincidental that Gafni spent two years doing "therapy and inner work," at least according to him, after his "incident" in Israel.

If we ignore his use of the psychoanalytic model to explain transference (this is not accurate for most other models of therapy, including contemporary versions of psychoanalysis), we can focus on his real objection - the book is not based in integral theory. Yet he latches onto the one element of the book, one might assume, that justifies his continued role as a teacher - that one who transgresses can be rehabilitated.

When he first returned to public life after his "rehabilitation," Gafni tried to convince members of the integral community, including me, that if one takes an integral view on his behavior, he did nothing wrong - I am convinced he sincerely believes this to be true. But claiming an integral context does not make it right - nor does claiming an unconventional lifestyle.

Here is the real crux of his argument, however - it's the women's fault he had sex with them. (quote deleted) Their shadow use of power is equally to blame for what happened.

So far, we have two main points - (1) you have to be integral to understand his sexual relationships with students, and ethics code forbidding such relationships are simply dogmatic, and (2) his relationships are outside the conventional paradigm for what is acceptable, and blaming them on his "masculine" shadow while ignoring the feminine shadow is more dogma.

I have no doubt that the women played a substantial role in what happened - these were not rapes, they were inappropriate relationships with students. In this situation, it is the teacher who is SUPPOSED TO KNOW BETTER and do the right thing. He has failed many times in this regard.

This next passage could almost be a quote from Warren Farrell, another friend of Wilber, except that Farrell would likely not be citing feminists of any kind (deleted) - he references some feminists who have critiqued the tendency toward women filing false rape/assault charges against men. In general, they are solid writers and thinkers, but I wonder how they might like be referenced by Gafni in this context.

The interesting thing about Gafni is that some of what he says has merit - some women do have sexual relationships with men and then try to hurt them with claims of abuse and harassment when it ends, and men do use their power to coerce women into having sex with them sometimes. Both of these are shadow material acted out in real time.

If one does not read this stuff with a critical ear, it's easy to get snowed by his arguments in defense of his own actions, which is all this "paper" amounts to. He has submitted a 32 page paper in defense of being sexually inappropriate with students - AND he gets to present this at the Integral Theory Conference.

I know some people involved with the conference raised their objections to his presence - and I also know that Gafni and Wilber have been friends for many years, not to mention that Sally Kempton and Diane Hamilton both support him for some strange reason I cannot conceive.

I'm sure this will not win me any friends among conference organizers, but now you know what Gafni will speaking about and you can read the paper in advance - so use that time to go see someone else.

For example, Dustin DiPerna will be speaking about spiritual development from an integral perspective, Marilyn Hamilton will be speaking on integral meshworking for resilient environments, and Dan O'Conner will be speaking about integral praxiology, an integral science of human action (I'll be blogging this one).

**********

UPDATE: 8/8/2010 - Comments Reopened

In the time since this post went up, I have received a LOT of email from people sharing their perspectives on all of this - some of whom have been among Gafni's "partners."

I have been warned that the reason other sites have removed their posts on Gafni's sexual history and allegations of coercion is that his method is to dig up dirt on people and then "convince" them to pull the posts/articles. His other approach, as he has done with The Awareness Center and with Luke Ford is to discredit them very publicly with material from their past (like chasing like, I suppose) - I guess I have that to look forward to if I continue to raise ethical issues.

For the record: I did a LOT of drugs and alcohol in my past - I was promiscuous, though not while in relationships - I did some "time" as a teenager for growing my own weed, vandalism, minor in possession, and a few other petty crimes - I was once a {shudder} a Republican (briefly), and for a couple of years I was a Communist - I have written some really terrible poetry - oh yeah, and this will be news to some people and not to others, I am bisexual.

OK, then - have at it.

**********

I did not get to attend any of Marc's presentations - Sean and Mark kept me as far away as possible. I did hear from those who attended Mar's solo session that there was no question and answer period after his sermon - his was the ONLY session where this was the case.

So much for open inquiry in the integral community.

Tags: Integral, ethics, sexuality, Marc Gafni, self justification, Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, Diane Hamilton, 2010 Integral Theory Conference, Spiritually Incorrect, Sex, Ethics, Injury, #itc2010, integral community, open inquiry

Learn the Internal Family Systems Model in a Weekend Workshop with Jay Early, PhD.

Jay Early is one of the most experienced teachers of the IFS model developed by Richard Schwartz. This workshop is taught in the Bay Area (Mill Valley), but Bonnie Weiss also does a free 2 hour phone workshop that is not nearly as in-depth, but is still a nice introduction.

For those who care about such things, Jay is integrally informed, and he is a long-time student of the Diamond Approach of A. H. Almaas, a spiritual path that integrates psychotherapy insights and techniques with wisdom traditions in a unique Western approach to spiritual realization.

Basic IFS Weekend Class in August

Learn to use IFS to work on yourself and with a partner. I am excited to be offering this Basic IFS Class in a weekend format for the first time in more than a year.

This weekend workshop gives you an introduction to the fundamental structure of the IFS model. We work on identifying parts, unblending, getting to know protectors, and developing a healing relationship with them. You learn how to access and support the Self, the healing agent in the system.

The workshop includes teaching, individual sessions in class, group exercises, and work with each other in pairs on skill development. Homework involves reading and practice in pairs. Class is limited to 12 participants.

Sat. and Sun. Aug. 14-15, 10:00-5:00
Mill Valley, CA
Cost: $230
Click here to enroll

IFS Classes

Do you want to:

* Be more deeply in touch with your inner life?
* Understand the forces in your psyche?
* Develop an inner practice for working through problems?
* Learn a powerful method for psychological growth?
* Join a community of conscious people?

Today's personal growth approaches can be self-led. You can learn to work on yourself or with a partner in peer counseling. You don't need to depend on a psychotherapist, workshop leader, or spiritual teacher (though there is still an important role for them). And if this work happens in community, the resulting self-reflection, caring, and connection can become part of our culture and not just something we do in isolation to improve our lives.

We offer classes on self-led Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS). Through these classes you learn how to work on yourself using IFSSM and how to partner with a friend as they work on themselves. These classes are also useful for people who are working with an IFS therapist because they increase your skill in using the model.

IFS(sm)

IFS is a new form of psychotherapy developed by Richard Schwartz that is compassionate, inclusive, spiritual, powerfully healing, and deeply respectful of our inner life. Despite the name, it is primarily a form of individual therapy. IFS recognizes that our psyches are made up of different parts, sometimes called subpersonalities. You can think of them as little people inside us. Each part has its own perspective, feelings, memories, goals, and motivations. For example, one part of you might be trying to lose weight and another part might want to eat whatever you want. We all have parts like the inner critic, the abandoned child, the pleaser, the angry part, and the loving caretaker.

IFS also recognizes that we each have a spiritual center, the Self, which is compassionate, understanding, and grounded. Through IFS you can learn to stay in Self, develop a relationship with each of your parts, and heal them. This is quite empowering because the healing comes from you. For a short article on IFS, click here.

The Classes

Since 2005, Jay has taught IFS Classes to hundreds of people. They learn the IFS model and apply it in their lives; they do deep and powerful peer counseling sessions with each other. The telephone classes have worked quite well for most people, not only in learning the material but also in feeling connected with the group over the phone. Classes are recorded so you can listen to any class you miss.

Endorsement from a participant: "Thanks for contributing so much to helping heal wounds I thought would always be there. And when I worked, how well you listened and knew just what to say. You were patient, with a gentle light touch, present and able to really track and support each of us. You made the teaching of the material flow organically and effortlessly. And what a wonderful support the IFS work is for anyone who wants to work with painful and avoided parts. For this and the warm supportive group we had, my wonderful partners, and many other details, I am grateful." Click here for more quotes from participants.

Click here for more details on the classes.

ALSO:

Introductory IFS Telephone Call
Led by Bonnie Weiss
Wednesday 4:30-6:30pm pacific (7:30-9:30pm eastern)
Sept. 8, FREE
Email bonnieweiss@gmail.com to enroll and get call-in info.

Tags: Psychology, therapy, personal growth, education, Jay Early, weekend class, Basic IFS, Internal Family Systems, Richard Schwartz, parts, parts work, subpersonalities

Stephen I. Deutsch & Richard B. Rosse - Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Evidence-Based Psychotherapeutic Strategies for the Difficult-to-Treat Patient

This article was first published in Psychiatry Weekly.com, Volume 5, Issue 18, on July 26, 2010. I like the dialectical part of DBT, or the mindfulness part. Not yet convinced by the behavior therapy aspect, except for short-term symptom management.

You can learn more about DBT at Marsha Linehan's site, or at DBT Self Help.

PsychRounds

Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Evidence-Based Psychotherapeutic Strategies for the Difficult-to-Treat Patient

July 26, 2010

Stephen I. Deutsch, MD, PhD

Ann Robinson Endowed Chair in Psychiatry, Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, Eastern Virginia Medical School

Richard B. Rosse, MD

Chief of Psychiatry, Mental Health Service Line, Department
of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington, DC; Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine

First published in Psychiatry Weekly.com, Volume 5, Issue 18, on July 26, 2010

Introduction

Intense displays of affect, self-injurious behaviors, persistent threats of suicide and other treatment challenges presented by patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are bewildering and often fearful for psychiatric residents, whereas these patients can put senior psychiatrists at-risk of burnout. Given the complexity of these patients and the negative counter-transference that they elicit, it can very easy for the therapeutic relationship to deteriorate into an adversarial one and to regard the patient as manipulative, splitting and noncompliant.

Fortunately, an evidence-based therapeutic strategy has emerged, known as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), that can provide clinicians with a doctor’s bag of useful skills to impart to patients, such as the “mindfulness” skills of non-judgmentally observing and describing a situation, thus overriding “emotion-mind”-based thinking. Teaching patients these skills can facilitate, at least some of the time, collaborative work between therapist and patient. DBT was developed by the psychologist Marsha M. Linehan of the University of Washington, is based on a “blending” of principles of cognitive control of emotional regulation and Eastern meditative practices, and has been shown to be efficacious with sustained benefit in controlled clinical trials with longitudinal follow-up. Importantly, formal exposure to DBT should be incorporated into the curriculum of the psychiatric resident.

How DBT Can Help

Empirically, the authors have found two therapeutic strategies of DBT to be very helpful in quickly establishing rapport and constructive collaborative relationships with diagnostically-heterogeneous groups of difficult patients. The first is “validation and acceptance,” which is a perspective adopted by the therapist and a powerful message conveyed to the patient. Most simply, validation/acceptance means that a patient’s behavioral repertoire is a logical outcome of the interaction of the disordered biological/genetic endowments and what may have been chaotic social-rearing experiences. Thus, the feelings and behaviors of the patient with BPD have legitimacy and are understandable. The experience of validation is a powerful message that can prevent premature eruption of intense hostile feelings towards the therapist. The second therapeutic strategy involves the invitation to work collaboratively on the patient becoming more “effective”—helping the patient achieve their desired outcomes.

Conclusion

Some aspects of DBT are clearly complex, but there are some simple principles that have wide and almost immediate applications, including prioritizing safety (all initial therapeutic efforts should be focused on keeping the patient safe, and moving on to dealing with Treatment Interfering Behaviors (TIBs). These principles are implemented pragmatically and with common sense, including the notion that the patient’s relationship with the therapist is not unconditional, and that there are limits to clinicians’ availability and what they can do for the patient. Perhaps, DBT (or application of some of its therapeutic principles) is indicated whenever a resident refers in a pejorative fashion to a patient as manipulative or when a senior staff psychiatrist complains, “This patient is burning me out!”

Disclosure: Drs. Deutsch and Rosse report no affiliations with, or financial interests in, any organization that may pose a conflict of interest.

Tags: Stephen I. Deutsch, Richard B. Rosse, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Evidence-Based, Psychotherapeutic Strategies, Difficult-to-Treat, Patient, Psychology, therapy, meditation, DBT, Marsha Linehan, emotional regulation, mindfulness

Shinzen Young: Deep Concentration in Formal Meditation and Daily Life (Theory and Practice)

Excellent new talk and teaching from Shinzen Young - a Google Tech Talk (must be awesome to work there and be exposed to all these great teachers).

Google Tech Talk
27 April 2010
Presented by: Shinzen Young

ABSTRACT

Renowed meditation teacher Shinzen Young leads a meditation session on concentration and discusses the application of the concentrated mind in daily life.

Tags: Shinzen Young, Deep Concentration, Formal Meditation, Daily Life, Theory, Practice, Google, tech talks, Buddhism, meditation, consciousness

Upaya Dharma Podcasts - Mindsight: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness (Pts 3 and 4 of 9)

The goodness continues . . . .

Dan's most recent books are Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (for general readers) and The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician's Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (more scientific).

Mindsight: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness (Pt 3 of 9)

Speakers: Roshi Joan Halifax & Dan Siegel
Recorded: Friday Jul 9, 2010

Roshi Joan begins the talk by quoting William James, “Each of us literally chooses by his (or her) way of attending to things what sort of universe he (or she) shall appear to inhabit.” Dan introduces the “Wheel of Awareness,” which he describes as the architecture of the mind. Dan leads a guided meditation through the 4 sections of the wheel of awareness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

* * * * *

Mindsight: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness (Pt. 4 of 9)

Speakers: Roshi Joan Halifax & Dan Siegel
Recorded: Friday Jul 9, 2010

Participants begin the afternoon by sharing what they experienced during the wheel of awareness exercise. Dan then leads the group in awareness training and how to stabilize the mind. He introduces the mental subjective experience diagram, where subjective experience meets physical dimensions of neuro-firing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: Upaya Zen Center, Dharma Podcasts, Mindsight, The Psychology and Neuroscience of Awareness, Part 3, Part 4, Roshi Joan Halifax, Dan Siegel, Personal Transformation, The Mindful Therapist, Psychology, Buddhism, brain, personal growth, meditation, neuroscience, Wheel of Awareness, mental subjective experience diagram, embodied

Sharda Rogell: The Wisdom of Equanimity and Compassion

Nice podcast from Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

Sharda Rogell


Donate to Sharda Rogell
Sharda Rogell's Website

My focus in teaching is to provide the support that students need to turn their life to the dharma, to truth, and to find ways to come out of their pain and suffering. The retreat experience is an invaluable aid to this exploration; however, what matters more is how one integrates this under- standing into everyday life.

I care that students see through the illusory wall between formal meditation and their daily life. Then, what remains is a meditative attitude to all that occurs.

Vipassana practice helps us to become respectful and caring towards ourselves and others. This generates the conditions of mind and heart that allow us to awaken to the truth of who we are, rather than believing in our limited assumptions. As we see the impersonal nature of our own mind, we then experience a deep engagement with life that allows for a complete transformation of the heart. When we know this deeply, we can no longer unconsciously engage in actions that will lead to suffering and the ongoing destruction of our planet.

As a teacher, I am accessible and able to meet people at an intimate level. I am interested in how the language that we use can show where we are holding on. I look to the concepts about reality that people believe in as the key that unlocks the door to liberating insight. People can easily discount their experiences and forget that they hold the seeds to liberation, that the wisdom is already within them. As people speak what is in their hearts, affirmation brings about the confidence needed to take the next step, which can often seem confusing and daunting as one walks into the unknown territory of the mind.

2010-07-22
The Wisdom of Equanimity and Compassion 56:33
Download Stream Order

When we see the world through the veil of our ego, our love flows in distorted and confused ways. Through mindfulness and metta and insight we can begin to understand these conditioned patterns and transform them into love and connection.

Spirit Rock Meditation Center: Metta Retreat

Tags: Sharda Rogell, The Wisdom of Equanimity and Compassion, Buddhism, compassion, equanimity, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Metta Retreat, mindfulness

Buddhist Geeks, #181: Exchanging Dharma – The Consumer Mindset (Hokai Sobol)

Nice to hear another chat between Hokai and Vince.

BG 181: Exchanging Dharma – The Consumer Mindset

26. Jul, 2010 by Hokai Sobol

Download

Episode Description:

We’re joined again this week by Buddhist teacher and scholar Hokai Sobol, to continue our exploration of the hidden mindsets and cultural forces that shape Western Buddhism. In this episode Hokai explores a tradition of exchanging knowledge, which is at least 1,000 years old in Europe, that of the “master & apprentice.” Hokai describes the process by which Europeans used to, and in some cases still do, learn a particular trade, by first becoming a novice apprentice, eventually striking out on one’s own as a journeyman, and then finally coming back to become part of the local guild, as a full master of one’s craft. This model, he explains, has striking similarities to the traditional model found in the Asian countries where Buddhism thrived.

He then presents a new model for how we might look at exchanging Dharma. This model includes three mindsets, or roles that we take on as Dharma practitioners and teachers, with the first one being the “consumer mindset.” We look at both the immature and mature versions of this consumer mindset, and how as a consumer we tend to approach the exchange of Dharma. In the next episode Hokai completes his contemporary model by describing the client mindset and colleague mindset.

This is part 2 of a multi-part series. Listen to part 1, The Invisible Forces that Shape Western Buddhism.

Episode Links:

• Hokai Sobol : Practitioner, Scholar, Pathfinder, Buddhist Geek
• Internet access is ‘a fundamental right’

Transcript

Tags: Buddhist Geeks, #181, Exchanging Dharma, The Consumer Mindset, Hokai Sobol, Vince Horn, Buddhism, culture, Western Buddhism, client mindset, colleague mindset

Guest Post: Mark Walsh - Leadership and Communication Skills

[Cross-posted at The Masculine Heart.]

Mark Walsh heads leadership training providers Integration Training: based in Brighton, London and Birmingham UK. Specializing in "embodied" ways of working, they help organizations get more done without going insane (stress and time management), coordinate action more effectively (team building and communication training), and help leaders build impact, influence and presence.

Leadership and Communication Skills

I run a leadership training company helping people around the world develop their personal impact, influence, and presence. We take an integral approach looking at embodied aspects of leadership, interpersonal communication skills, psychological development, and cultural factors. Much of what we do in the business training and non-profit sector world applies equally to men and women . . . but I suspect not all. I’ve been looking forward to writing this article unashamedly with only men in mind . . . though of course if you’re a woman feel free to snoop and get some insight.

Men are from Snickers

Making far-reaching generalisations about men’s and women’s communication in the style of trite magazines and populist psychology is dangerous and unfair...but that’s what I’m going to do, because I trust you not to hold it too tightly or start a PC warlock-hunt. The following is based on my limited personal experience, a less than thorough review of the scientific literature and frankly, a big set of nuts.

Heartfelt Leadership

If you don’t have direction you’re useless. Typologically and developmentally of course, some men are more inclined towards going with the flow and that’s fine - if it it really makes you happy, go back to the hot-tub. The vast majority of men I’ve gotten to know well, however, are far happier, sexier, and richer if they are leading their lives with passionate focused intent. This to me, rather than having followers or being on a grand crusade, is the essence of personal leadership. To take action on a sea of troubles based on what breaks your heart and demands you set sail. I would encourage men out there to lead from your passion and your pain . . . and if you’re not regularly, privately fearful and publicly first mocked then attacked, you’re not yet leading.

Leadership Training

After an education based on encouraging conformity, preparation for a mechanised soulless workplace, and de-individualisation, some from of leadership training is often beneficial (and if you avoided that and were raised by nice soft hippy parents instead, it is definitely necessary). My own leadership training was in the form of an extended period of residential martial arts study, apprenticing with a number of aikido teachers in the UK and abroad, followed by peace-work in conflicted countries using what I’d learned. I now see that I actively sought this difficult, painful, and poverty-stricken initiation in order to find a form of leadership training that wasn’t available from my schooling or family. Before I crossed this bridge, there was a lot of wasted time, alcohol, and womanising under it, and I was utterly miserable. Until a man has made some type of hero’s journey (and it may look VERY different from mine if you have the soul of an artist, farmer, or monk for example) he has no claim to leadership and is merely a dangerous boy.

The Embodied Leadership Challenge

Leadership isn’t a theoretical affair that you can learn from a book but rather a lived and continual sharpening of experience and in whatever you make your dojo. Peak events and weekend workshops won’t cut it...regular dedicated practice is essential to build the embodied leadership presence that is both necessary to lead and obvious to others.

I would recommend the courses of Integral College and Newfield Network in Europe and the Strozzi Institute in the states for those looking for open public programmes with an embodied component and genuine transformational element.

Communication Training

Let’s face it, most men are shit at communication (take that utterance for example) - the cliche is based in truth. By the standards of expressing ourselves, building relationships, and coordinating action (the I, we and it of communication) we are often tested and found wanting. I would therefore highly recommend some kind of communication training for all men. I have made a journey in this regard from “a 1 out of 10 to at least a 5,” as some old female friends joke, and this has been very valuable to me personally and professionally.

Unfortunately much of the communication training that exists seems like it is designed as a form of slow painful penis removal by people stuck in a touchy-feely relativist swamp. Challenge and accountability are two aspects of communication found in a number of forms of men’s work that I enjoy, and I think add to the equally important aspects of emotional self-awareness, empathy, and support that are encouraged in more feminine communication training. I, we, and it aspects of communication are all vital.

I would also like to say that communication, like leadership, is poetry not prose, and you won’t find yours here. No man is an island, or an undifferentiated ocean either. Leadership training turns up from flotsam to navigators . . . and communication means we will not sail alone. For me this is worth the trouble, and if you’re a man not in this kind of trouble yet . . . I challenge you to dive in.

* * *

Mark Walsh heads leadership training providers Integration Training: based in Brighton, London and Birmingham UK. Specialising in "embodied" ways of working they help organisations get more done without going insane (stress and time management), coordinate action more effectively (team building and communication training) and help leaders build impact, influence and presence. His background includes work with blue-chip companies, non-profit sector work in war zones, an academic degree in psychology and an aikido black-belt. In his spare time he dances, meditates and enjoys being exploited by two cats and one baby niece. His life ambition is to make it normal to be a human being at work.

Tags: Guest Post, Mark Walsh, Leadership and Communication Skills, men, leadership, communication, personal growth, Integration Training, communication training, leadership training

No Internet For a Day or Two

I will be mostly offline for the next couple of days - until Cox gets me reconnected. In the meantime, please browse the archives for good stuff you may have missed.

When I return, Jami and I should be a little more moved into our new house.

Tags: internet, moving, offline