People commonly cope with chronic low back pain (cLBP) by ignoring and distraction. Can mindful interoceptive exposure to the pain sensation itself and its phenomenological components be an alternative approach? Single-arm feasibility study in patients with cLBP using a 2-minute attention exercise guided by a smartphone app several times per day over 8 weeks. We assessed feasibility, pre/post...
Integrative oncology combines conventional and complementary, or integrative, therapies for a holistic treatment of cancer patients. Yoga is increasingly used as a complementary therapy for cancer patients, but there is no direct evidence for its effect on cancer pathophysiology like tumor response, or patient outcome like overall survival. In this narrative review, we present in detail...
In this reflection on my sociological practice and academic leadership across four decades, I discover abiding themes otherwise hidden by the keywords featured most prominently: solidarity, martial arts, and contemplative practices. Articulations across knowledge cultures and leadership responsibilities distinguished by place, emphasis, spirit, and (non-)violence move me to conclude with an...
Mental disorders are increasingly understood as involving complex alterations of self that emerge from dynamical interactions of constituent elements, including cognitive, bodily, affective, social, narrative, cultural and normative aspects and processes. An account of self that supports this view is the pattern theory of self (PTS). The PTS is a non-reductive account of the self, consistent...
Subjective experience is central to the nature of mental illness, yet it has not played a central role in most empirical approaches to psychopathology. While phenomenological perspectives in psychiatry have seen a recent resurgence, there remains a need for more detailed models of psychopathological processes based on explicit phenomenological and enactive foundations. We present a framework...
The Bhagavad Gita concentrates on awakening, which serves as the scripture’s overarching core theme. Meditation and expanding one’s consciousness can help one achieve self-realisation. Reflection and self-awareness are crucial in realising one’s true nature and achieving self-actualisation. The Bhagavad Gita generally gives a complete and multifaceted view of self-realisation. This notion...
Daoist Celestial MedicineCommunity, Cultivation, and Compassion Jack Schaefer (bio) What is the connection between Daoist practitioners and medicine? At first glance, people may see Daoism only as a path of self-cultivation. While this is certainly true, there are many aspects to Daoist cultivation that go beyond the study of philosophy and meditation. Medical care is actually an important...
Este artigo oferece um mapeamento provisório de alguns dos impactos afetivos do Antropoceno, uma época geológica proposta para ilustrar a indissociabilidade entre agência humana e fenómenos planetários. O artigo decorre de dois projetos de investigação: um doutoramento que levou a cabo uma análise ontológica de práticas meditativas Vipassana e Zen em França, Portugal e Reino Unido e um projeto...
A few years ago, an illusionist theory of consciousness appeared in the philosophy of consciousness. It makes an unexpected statement – there is actually no phenomenal consciousness, it is illusory. This illusion is created introspective distortion of physical processes in the brain, which seem to us to have special phenomenal properties. However, an equally strong form of physicalism in the...
Self-transcendence (ST) is a state of consciousness associated with feelings of ego-dissolution, connectedness, and moral elevation, which mediates well-being, meaning-making, and prosociality. Conventional paths to ST, like religious practice, meditation, and psychedelics, pose nontrivial barriers to entry, limiting ST's study and application. Aesthetic chills (henceforth "chills") are a...