Soothing My “Death Valley Brain”

I once spent ten days of my graduate school education out in Death Valley on a Native American Vision Quest. The school was neurologically ahead of its time, believing in the facilitation of learning by organizing safe, structured, direct experiences that had manageable stresses and risks associated with them. Clearly some profound learning took [...]

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Making the Friend of Your Friend, My Friend

        This past Monday I received an email from a friend that saddened and surprised me. It was a copy of an Open Letter written by Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass and Sharon Salzberg. A few years ago, each of these folks had been intentionally supportive of a Handbook I put together intended for therapists [...]

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Dancing With the Dark Side of the Season

        In 1960 an extremely promising baseball career lay wide open in front of me. I was eleven years old and that summer I had been honored with the “All-Around Athlete” award at Yale’s summer camp for disadvantaged kids (Now, past 60, I can still hit a 90 mph fastball!). In anticipation of a [...]

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On Not Fearing Fear Itself

         A number of years ago some friends and I researched and trained a small group of volunteers for a local community service agency. Our desire was to provide a healing sanctuary for kids who’d lost a parent to an automobile accident or to cancer or a heart attack or to any other sad misfortune. [...]

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The Neuropsychology of Joy

        John Sperling has pledged 3 billion dollars – that’s billion with a B – for research to help us live longer (and to help our kids live even longer still). When that research begins to pay greater dividends than it’s already paying, it will be a good thing if much of that longer [...]

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