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Rather be certain than right?

16 February 2018
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In today’s polarized climate, some people deny the glaringly obvious—insisting, for instance, that there is no climate change. More insidiously, they may twist facts to manipulate them into their own truths.

At a commencement speech in 2017, President Donald Trump said, “The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead. … You aren’t going to let other people tell you what you believe, especially when you know that you are right.”

To him, the very existence of opposition means “you are right.” This is a self-sealing maneuver, in which every inconvenient fact is twisted to mean the belief is right, protecting it from disproof. When the long-promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act failed, Mick Mulvaney (the White House’s budget director) made an excuse.

To President Donald Trump, the very existence of opposition means “you are right.”

“What happened is that Washington won,” he said, according to NBC News. “I think the one thing we learned this week is that Washington is a lot more broken than President Trump thought that it was.”

Trump added, “The best thing that could happen is exactly what happened.”

The first example is simply blaming; the second repackaging of the facts goes beyond making the best of a bad situation. Trump twists the facts to mean that he’s right.

Winning the debate or manipulating the results?

Another researcher in that era found that whites performed more slowly than blacks, and concluded, “Their [whites’] reactions were slower because they belonged to a more deliberate and reflective race.”

So in spite of results that showed advanced performance by blacks, these researchers made the evidence fit their beliefs, protecting their feelings of racial superiority. This maddening imperviousness to truth has been called a “self-sealing” maneuver, in that the belief system turns disconfirming truths around to mean they support the beliefs—“sealing” the system against disproof.

How cults choose beliefs over facts

Cults are closed groups run with sophisticated mental manipulation—prisons without walls.

I became interested in the vagaries of dangerous thinking when my brother joined a religious cult, distanced himself from the family, and adopted activities that were puzzling and self-destructive. Trying to understand what was happening, I learned that cults are closed groups run with sophisticated mental manipulation—prisons without walls.

Naïve people (often confused young adults) are lured into cults with promises of respect, membership in a “special” group that knows secret truths, and relief from their uncertainties. After the initial “love-bombing” phase, the group and its leaders indoctrinate them in their belief system, which is often bizarre. They are kept in the group by harangues about the evils of the outside world, even though the cult’s own lifestyle may consist of suspicious in-group intrigue, isolation from loved ones, and endless unpaid labor.

Why do they stay? One reason (of many) is that cults explain away inconvenient truths so that if you try to reason with cult members, they have ready-made armor for repelling your facts. Perhaps no truth is more inconvenient or obvious than the failure of the world to end on the date that the leader prophesied. Given how many times the end has been predicted and failed to materialize, it’s surprising to me that eccentric people continue to predict it.

Fascinating research has been done on the mental maneuvers that disappointed cultists may engage in to explain away the non-appearance of the apocalypse. In one case, researchers infiltrated a group whose leader claimed that extraterrestrials would save her and her followers when the earth was soon destroyed. The deadline predicted by the leader passed, and the group decided it had only been an “alert.” Second and third deadlines passed.

After blaming the clock, the leader concluded, “Suppose they gave us a wrong date. Well, this only got into the newspapers on Thursday and people had only 72 hours to get ready to meet their maker. Let’s suppose it happens next year or 2 or 3 or 4 years from now … Maybe people will say it was this little group spreading light here that prevented the flood.”

A few hours later she added, “Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of good and light as now floods this room.” This is a comforting rationalization.

Another favorite religious explanation for an untoward event is that God (or the leader) allowed it to happen “in order to test our faith” or “to give us a lesson.” Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was the Indian guru who came to grief in America. His followers explained away the contrast between his teachings of love and the paranoid, violent atmosphere of his compound in Oregon.

“They were, for example, able to convince themselves that the watch towers and the 150-member police force armed with semiautomatic weapons were devices employed by Rajneesh to make them aware of their aggressive impulses by showing them what could happen when such impulses were exaggerated.”

Though he cautions against lumping all fundamentalists together, scholar C.O. Lundberg observed: “The fundamentalist version of truth has a self-sealing insularity: it is not troubled by specifics of context, history, or contrary evidence. … The idea of a strongly held truth, of fidelity to a fundamental tenet of faith authorizing true believers to ignore epistemic [evidential] challenges, is undoubtedly a characteristic of religious fundamentalism.”

Creating proof even when there is none

Self-sealing doctrines can be found in other places too—some of them uncomfortably close to home. Psychoanalysis made some valuable contributions to understanding the human psyche, but its founder was convinced that his theories were universally true, and any challenge was simply further proof of them.

One commentator wrote, “Once Sigmund Freud was convinced of the universality of the Oedipus complex, he looked for it in every patient, whether they admitted it or not … Anyone who failed to agree with Freud’s interpretation of these cases either lacked the special expertise of the initiated or else was repressing the obvious because of personal unresolved complexes.”

Here Freud says the other person is “part of the problem” and therefore not qualified to criticize. A literal example of this comes from one of his published lectures about sex: “Nor will you have escaped worrying over this problem, those of you who are men. To those of you who are women this does not apply—you are yourselves the problem.”

Thus he disqualifies in advance the opinions of those he is discussing; whatever they may say in refutation of his ideas will not be admitted because “you are yourselves the problem.”

Continuing to protect his theory, Freud went on: “For the ladies, whenever some comparison seemed to turn out unfavorable to their sex, were able to utter a suspicion that we, male analysts, had been unable to overcome certain deeply‑rooted prejudices against what was feminine, and that this was being paid for in the partiality of our researches. We, on the other hand, standing on the ground of bisexuality, had no difficulty in avoiding impoliteness. We had only to say, ‘This doesn’t apply to you. You’re the exception. On this point you are more male than female.’”

This argument is armed against refutation. If females dispute his point, they are either “part of the problem” (what problem?). And if they don’t, they again prove his point because they are exceptions to the theory. They are not simply exceptions but “more male than female.” So the admirable qualities are still ascribed to masculinity. Freud also introduced the social convention “politeness” into what purports to be a scientific discussion.

In another example from early psychoanalytic thinking, Alfred Adler was told by another analyst that he had found evidence of the Oedipus complex in dogs. His puppy, it seems, likes to sleep with its mother. Learning that the mother dog had a larger basket than the father dog, Adler asked the analyst to test his theory by switching the baskets. Not surprisingly, the puppy climbed into the familiar larger basket, now occupied by its father. Undaunted, the analyst exclaimed, “Shouldn’t that prove to you that the puppy has now reached the second stage of sexual growth and become homosexual?”

See how this works? You simply claim that the inconvenient evidence is further support for your theory. Of course, you may have to make your cherished theory increasingly complex to account for disconfirming evidence.

You simply claim that the inconvenient evidence is further support for your theory.

The biggest difference between politics, religion, and science

In fact, Thomas Kuhn, in an influential history of science in 1970, argued that this is exactly how genuine science works—a theory is a valuable tool for collecting observations and explaining them but not the ultimate truth. Over time, disconfirming evidence is noticed. Resisted at first, and then reluctantly worked into the theory in increasingly Byzantine corollaries, the disconfirming evidence eventually topples the old theory—or rather, the old “paradigm,” meaning an interconnected set of theories.

Then, scientists “shift” to a new paradigm (partly because adherents of the earlier one have died off). Of course, Kuhn was referring to the historic evolution of ideas taking place over decades and centuries.

Astrophysicist and science educator Carl Sagan offered a more immediate and sympathetic view from the standpoint of a practicing scientist.

“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again,” Sagan says. “They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

Unfortunately, resistance to unwelcome findings has occurred even among scientists, and even in the field of psychology. The racist interpretation given in the anecdote that started this essay was made by none other than the eminent pioneer of American psychology E. L. Thorndike.

Commenting on psychoanalysis, physicist Robert Oppenheimer wrote that “a self-sealing system … has a way of almost automatically discounting evidence that might bear adversely on the doctrine. The whole point of science is just the opposite: to invite the detection of error and to welcome it.”

To a diligent researcher, it’s wise to think of critics as unexpected friends. They’ll save you from embarrassing yourself, and they may even help your career.

Georg Von Bekesy, a medical researcher, recommended that you should “have friends who are willing to spend the time necessary to carry out a critical examination of the experimental design beforehand and the results after the experiments have been completed.”  Bekesy, who was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Medicine, went on: “An even better way is to have an enemy. An enemy is willing to devote a vast amount of time and brain power to ferreting out errors both large and small, and this without any compensation. The trouble is that really capable enemies are scarce; most of them are only ordinary. Another trouble with enemies is that they sometimes develop into friends and lose a good deal of their zeal. It was in this way that the writer lost his three best enemies.”

What’s missing from the self-sealing mindset

A huge commitment to a cult, an ego unable to accept defeat, or a paranoid tendency may all operate to make it impossible for a person to admit being mistaken.

Trump’s biographer Michael D’Antonio, the author of “Never Enough” and “The Truth About Trump,” told Yahoo! News: “I think Trump is temperamentally inclined toward conspiracy theories and, at the same time, disinclined to do the work of studying matters fully.”

Delving deeper, he added, “It takes a flexible, curious mind to seek out competing ideas and weigh them. Then it takes even more rigor to fashion a complex solution to a vexing problem. It’s much easier to listen to one or two voices who affirm your preconceptions and dismiss all others because (you think) they are somehow against you.”

The self-sealing doctrine temporarily makes life easier. Its users don’t have to really entertain inconvenient evidence. They can even turn it aside in ways that make them feel better.  

Taking the high road in politics

How do we avoid such damaging attachment to false beliefs and such twisting of any evidence that disproves them? I believe we need the courage to question our theories, to take inconvenient evidence seriously, and to resist the temptation to use self-sealing maneuvers. This is easy to say but not so easy to do if it’s your own belief that is being challenged.

In his autobiography, physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman offered an inspiring perspective: “It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance [and] the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.”

The self-sealing doctrine is indeed a rich topic. This little verse of mine captures its essence:

Protected from having to question and wonder,
They stifle their doubts, pressing discomfort under.
So whether they follow a leader, or sit all alone at night,
The tragedy is that they’d rather be certain than right. 

Linda Riebel received her Ph.D. from Saybrook (then called the Humanistic Psychology Institute) in 1981 and has been on Saybrook’s faculty since 1993. Originally a clinician, she now serves on the Transformative Social Change and Creativity Studies faculties. Her volunteer efforts involve opera, wildlife, and environmental causes. Do you know a case of the self-sealing doctrine? Please send it to her at [email protected].

Biofeedback therapy: A natural cure for tension and migraine headaches

2 February 2018
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Numerous controlled studies show that biofeedback therapy is highly effective for tension and migraine headaches.

A bad headache can feel inescapable. So, naturally, all too often we reach for over-the-counter prescription drugs to in search of relief; a quick remedy for a problem that usually has a deeper, chronic cause.

However, the mind-body technique of biofeedback can be a natural treatment for tension and migraine headaches. Using innovative science and technology you can train your body to treat itself.

Learn more about biofeedback treatments with a degree in Applied Psychophysiology

What is biofeedback?

Next, I’ll explore the causes of tension and migraine headaches and how biofeedback can be an effective alternative to over-the-counter medication in treating each type of a headache.

What causes a tension headache?

Tension headaches originate from muscles kept too tense for too long anywhere in the head and neck—especially including the jaw. People who have muscle-related pain usually cannot tell how tense these muscles are. This leads to muscles being kept tenser than necessary for longer periods than required. In fact, muscles kept only five percent tenser than needed for less than a half hour longer than necessary leads to pain which can be sustained for an entire day.

How does biofeedback help tension headaches?

Biofeedback devices record tension that generates pain in the muscles and shows those levels to the patient. The patient learns to associate actual levels of tension with sensations from the muscles, so muscles are kept appropriately relaxed.

Most people learn to recognize their levels of tension and to automatically keep them at appropriate levels. People who successfully learn this skill and apply it eliminate or vastly reduce the intensity, duration, and frequency of their tension headaches.

What causes a migraine headache?

Migraine headaches usually begin during adolescence or young adulthood with no obvious initiating incident. They may begin abruptly or gradually and may or may not be related to sexual maturity.

These type of migraine headaches can be effectively prevented through behavioral techniques such as biofeedback. However, migraine-like headaches caused by trauma such as an auto accident or which come in clusters usually cannot be effectively treated through behavioral interventions.

How does biofeedback help migraine headaches?

Nearly all people with migraine headaches have less near-surface blood flow to the fingers and toes (and sometimes noses) than those who do not have migraine headaches. These people tend to have relatively cool extremities because all of their heat emanating from the fingers and toes is generated by near-surface blood flow. Biofeedback devices can accurately record the temperature of the fingers (or any other body part) and show the temperature to patients so they can learn to recognize and then control finger temperature and maintain normal levels.

People who can learn this skill and maintain normal levels of fingertip temperature do not get migraine headaches as often or as severely as previously. Many entirely eliminate their headaches. Most also significantly decrease or eliminate their need for migraine medications.

Evidence supports biofeedback effectiveness

The evidence supporting the effectiveness of biofeedback (frequently used in conjunction with related techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation training) for the treatment of tension and non-traumatic origin migraine headaches is very strong.

Numerous controlled studies with reasonably large numbers of patients and long follow-ups (of up to ten years) show that biofeedback is highly effective for tension and migraine headaches. Roughly 4 of 5 people who experience tension and migraine headaches not caused by trauma can reduce their headache frequency, intensity, and duration by an average of about 80 percent using biofeedback-based behavioral interventions.

–For information about biofeedback:

  • PATIENTS: If you have migraine or tension headaches and would like to look into biofeedback-based interventions, go to the website bcia.org to locate a certified biofeedback practitioner near you.
  • PROFESSIONALS: If you are a therapist and would like to find out more about how to treat headaches using behavioral interventions such as biofeedback consider exploring our Ph.D. in Applied Psychophysiology program.

‘Child of apartheid’ and Saybrook alumna influencing South African education

4 January 2018
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Recognizing one’s privilege is a difficult road to travel. But for Carolyn Burns, a Saybrook alumna in the Counseling Psychology program, there was no escaping the privilege she had as a child. The self-described “child of apartheid” chose to use her professional background to try to right some wrongs by starting the community outreach program Ukulapha.

After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, nonwhite South Africans (a majority of the population) were the victims of apartheid. Under the governance of President F.W. de Klerk, in 1991, South Africa finally took a turn for the better. But even though apartheid has been well-documented in and out of the continent, Saybrook alumna Carolyn Burns quickly confirms that the traumatic impact of apartheid is still a subject some citizens choose to deny.

Carolyn Burns

“I was acutely aware of having automatically received privilege as a child during apartheid,” Burns says. “But most white South Africans prefer not to admit it happened because it’s very inconvenient for them. Equality is very inconvenient for them because they no longer have the privilege that they had during apartheid. However, they still have more privileges than people of color today. It’s still very touchy.”
But Burns didn’t just acknowledge her privilege. She decided to do something to try to level the playing field after advancing her own education.

Saybrook’s transformative, experiential program in Counseling Psychology caught her attention. Burns—who already holds three nursing diplomas in general nursing, midwifery, and pediatric nursing—decided to pursue the degree at the age of 47.

“After leaving South Africa and a marriage that wasn’t conducive to my mental or physical health, I realized that I needed some therapy,” Burns says. “Along that road, my therapist encouraged me to do the lay person counselor training program at the Citizens Counselling Centre in Victoria, B.C. What they do is offer counseling to less privileged people. I realized that this was a good fit. It was something that inspired me and got my juices flowing and something that I really wanted to be involved with because my initial work was also in the helping profession, in nursing. I healed so much through therapy and wanted to be part of that collaborative team. So that’s what led me to pursue a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology at Saybrook.”

After 25 years of living in Canada and with her new degree, she moved back to South Africa.

“Because of my training, I wanted to start a counseling center to train entry-level counselors who could then work in the community,” Burns says. “First though, friends gave me money to start an organization, Ukulapha, which would provide substantial food parcels to child headed households stricken by the AIDS crisis.”

She worked with seven families and managed monthly food deliveries to children throughout the community.

One of those children, 11-year-old Mantombi Mngadi, won over her heart simply by sitting in the backseat of her car while Burns delivered groceries. Mngadi’s mother died a little more than a year before their car rides, and Burns couldn’t ignore the “bright, young soul who was just looking for love and connection.” Burns knew that handing out food parcels alone wasn’t going to help someone advance in their lives, and she still had an itch to do more.

That’s when Ukulapha expanded to work at the underprivileged Slangspruit Primary School (SPS), located in the township where Mantombi was a scholar. The ongoing goal, according to Burns, is to improve teaching and learning conditions at the school.

“We started off with about 790 children at Slangspruit Primary School,” Burns says. “There now are 1,090, which means that we are able to impact their lives and their families’ lives. We also offer high school scholarships to Alexandra High where they receive a well-rounded quality education. This provides an opportunity toward a brighter future.”

Mngadi, now a 20-year-old mom, and Burns still keep in touch. Additionally, Burns has also kept in touch with her Saybrook family. Dan Leahy, the Director of the Seattle Campus, was Burns’ lead faculty at the time and is someone Burns has visited off and on over the years. Burns calls him her “cheerleader” for his continuous support since her graduation from Saybrook.

Through Dan Leahy, Burns was introduced to faculty at The Chicago School and International Liaison Officer for South Africa, Kari Prince, who was organizing graduate student field experiences to South Africa. From this networking, two faculty members and 10 students from The Chicago School’s Educational Psychology and Technology Ed.D. program completed their first study abroad course in South Africa.

Recommended Reading: “Learning about education with a South African lens”

“We were really impressed with the maturity, the talents, the enthusiasm, and the hard work of the 10 students,” Burns says. “Within the first 15 minutes of their workshops, those students had the teachers interacting. I was blown away at the skill set they used to bridge the gap even with limited technology, how they made the teachers feel comfortable. I look forward to more students returning.”

With high hopes of more programs such as The Chicago School’s EPT program educating both South African teachers and students, as well as U.S. students, Burns has a couple other things on her bucket list: Secure more funds to cover salaries for Ukulapha to have a young, Zulu face as the on-site manager of the programs; upgrade the underprivileged high school in the township that most of the students graduating from SPS attend; and offer intensive “in classroom” training programs for Slangspruit Primary School teachers in  2018.

“I would love to be more involved as a Saybrook alumna, out in the field,” Burns says. “With the teamwork that The Chicago School and Saybrook have built, it would be really satisfying for me to continue to see that grow. And also help underprivileged children in the process.”

Importance of ‘checking in’ after silent meditation

30 October 2017
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In the third part of a multi-part blog series, Saybrook alumna Dr. Tamami Shirai discusses her experiences with group meditation. In part one, she discussed “Mindfulness of McMindfulness: Can we learn from the West adopting Asian cultures?” and in part two “Relax, release, rebuild through silent meditation.”

Increasing participants’ awareness

After leading silent meditation at a San Diego cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation hospital, I always initiate a “checking in” process with the meditation group. I intentionally ask several questions: “How is your physical and your emotional condition today?” “What kind of self-care did you do in the last seven days?” “How is your exercise routine going?” “How is your diet recently?” One by one, the group members respond to them. The “checking in” questions I periodically ask are based on Michael Arloski’s coaching model for lifestyle modifications and are also rooted in the humanitarian contribution of Abraham Maslow.

The purpose of “checking in” is to increase participants’ awareness of their conditions and remind them to pay attention to making ideal lifestyle modifications. In other words, my questions are not the kind to be answered easily with “I am fine.” Participants carefully examine their conditions and activities over the past several days, and then describe their physical and emotional conditions. Specifically, participants in cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation sometimes suffer anxiety and/or depression due to their conditions. Thus, asking about their emotional condition is an important element of concern.

One participant, “Laura,” is in her early 50s and previously had valve replacement surgery. (Her annual medical checkup resulted in needing surgery without any early symptoms.) She gradually described that she feels miserable about herself in the rehabilitation center’s exercise room. Laura felt many other participants at the rehabilitation center looked much older than her and believed their conditions were much milder, such as having cardiac arrhythmia or with a few stents. However, she gradually learned there were several people who had also undergone open-heart surgery like herself, including a heart transplant patient, survivors from dissection of aorta, and a “Stent Champion” with over 25 stents. Laura stopped feeling self-pity and started speaking with other participants in the center’s exercise room.

For most people, including Laura, the process of physical recovery coincides with psychological recovery. Meditation class provides a safe place where people can begin to understand that this tragic event is not just about themselves.

Modifying lifestyle 

Participants in my meditation class know that they should come to the rehabilitation center two or three times a week for exercise. Even when they are not feeling well, they try to come at least once a week—as their numbers of days of exercise will be an indicator of the depth and effectiveness of their self-care activity. Of course, they can perform other kinds of self-care besides exercise, such as receiving a massage, having quality time with family, ensuring they get enough sleep, and so forth. I encourage them to do whatever contributes to their well-being.

Today, weight control and diet are the most important elements for managing all chronic disease. After the holiday season, I always ask, “What kinds of treats did you eat during the holiday season?” It’s always fun to confess (myself included) to each other that “I had meatloaf” or “I had cheese.” My purpose is not to make anyone feel guilty about what they ate during the holiday. It’s to encourage them to understand a healthy and unhealthy diet because there is some confusion about diet and many people don’t have the latest correct knowledge. I encourage my participants to see a dietician or nutritionist if necessary, and also share new information from conferences that may be beneficial to them.

Transformation by speaking about yourself

What I have learned from my participants is that they need to talk about themselves. The safe environment of our meditation class allows them to increase awareness of their well-being; to exchange experiences with each other; and to speak about themselves, including both positive and negative emotions. Some days participants who are holding onto a deep sadness from a personal loss say they want to opt out of the “checking in” question. But in the following weeks I will encourage them again in hopes they may be brave enough to tell the group about their deep sadness.

“Emily,” another participant, had a stroke that left her with a speech problem. She was quiet in the first few meditation classes, but gradually she began using our “checking in” session to practice her speech. Once participants decide to engage during “checking in,” the time for change begins. Because she was courageous enough to share her mind-set during “checking in,” Emily began to feel more comfortable about unveiling her emotions and became a regular participant.

I have observed repeatedly that participants’ acts of small courage or determination bring new transformation into their lives. In the group setting, one participant’s openness or honesty invites other participants to be more open. Ultimately, we all learn that we are not the only people who are suffering. We all have similar experiences, both good and bad. It is always a beautiful moment to observe a group member’s transformation toward his or her well-being. Witnessing human growth is powerful and moving. My cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation center is a place for all of us to learn to recover from life-threatening events, share the stages of life, and to experience our potential to grow.

Dr. Tamami Shirai

Dr. Shirai is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Medicine, University of California San Diego. She is a researcher, educator, and advocate of lifestyle medicine, and the facilitator of a meditation class at a cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation in San Diego. She is originally from Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Shirai also serves as assistant director research of Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance (LMGA).

Leadership Eastside’s CEO James Whitfield addresses Saybrook grads

2 October 2017
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Keynote speaker at Saybrook’s 2017 graduation, James Whitfield, encourages graduates to “make America greater than it’s ever been.” See his speech below.

Thank you to the Saybrook trustees, faculty, staff, and distinguished guests. I am here because I love Saybrook, and I’m a huge fan of what Saybrook stands for. I’m a fan of the transformation that Saybrook is all about around health care and a learning experience, organizations, and community. The organization I run is also committed to changing the world through ordinary people.

I know that you have undergone a personal transformation as a part of your Saybrook journey. And as you graduate, I’m here to invite you to consider one more transformation as you take what you’ve learned and embark into the future. In January of this year, I had the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream and visit the Holy Land: Israel and Palestine. It was life-changing in a lot of ways, in ways I never would have imagined. One of the visits we made really transformed me, and I would like to share it.

The group that I was with visited an orchard outside of Bethlehem. These days Bethlehem is a part of the occupied territories. It’s outside of Israel. This orchard is owned by an Arab family that happened to be Christians, and surrounded by what Israel officially calls “neighborhoods” and what the rest of the world refers to as “settlements.” The family who resides there has documentation all the way back to the time when the Turkish empire ruled that part of the world. However, the state of Israel, due to security concerns, have been trying to get this family to move for the past 30 or 40 years. Now let me be clear. This is not a story about how Israel has real, legitimate security concerns because they do. News stories and international NGOs tell us that anti-semitism is up strongly around the globe. This is a story about what this particular family has chosen to do as they are caught in this historic tug-of-war.

You have to walk to this orchard because the Israel Defense Force, IDF, closed and blocked the road when the family was featured in a “60 Minutes” story. They started getting too many supportive visitors, and the IDF decided that nobody was going to slow that down. They would make it more difficult for people to visit. So you have to walk up this road for about a mile. As you walk, you come across a painted rock that says in Arabic and Hebrew and English the most powerful words I have ever seen. The words were, “We refuse to be enemies.”

Roll that idea in your head for a second. “We refuse to be enemies.” For them, this isn’t just some motto. When the IDF bulldozes their trees, the family seeks to grow their compassion. When the Israeli legal system tells them that they can’t actually visit the courthouse, where their issue is being heard, they refuse to see an eye for an eye. When Israel cut off their water and limited the amount of rainwater they were allowed to collect, they still shower their opponents in love. What transformed me was their commitment to look beyond the current circumstances and focus on the final solution. To put it into words from Martin Luther King Jr., “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

They’re committed to demonstrating what the right future looks like today. Now in my opinion this is a lesson that has been lost from the great transformational movements of the past: The commitment to move beyond protesting the offensive presence toward demonstrating an optimal future.

Let me give you a few examples from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement to explain what I mean. The power of a sit-in at a lunch counter was the fact that a black demonstrator and a white demonstrator sat together. They were showing the future. They were saying, “See, black people and white people can sit together and have lunch, and we are willing to suffer the consequences of showing that to you so that one day you can sit here with us.”

This is what the Freedom Riders did. Black and white people broke the interracial, interstate travel ban, by sitting on a bus together, singing songs, crossing borders. They could’ve staged a protest. They could’ve shut down all traffic on those roads in order to demonstrate, in order to protest how bad it was that they couldn’t ride together. But instead of standing still to protest the present, they were on the move to show our country where it should be headed. One of the things that people forget about Civil Rights marches is that black people frequently wore their Sunday best, and they walked hand-in-hand with their white sisters and brothers. They were saying “See, America, this is the future. There is nothing to fear other than billy clubs, fire hoses, and German Shepherds. And when you’re done with all of that, we’ll still be standing here ready to hold your hand.”

When people train to do nonviolent protests, they have to adhere to a set of things that were called The Ten Commandments. And one of those said that, “Our goal is not victory. It is justice and reconciliation.” Now the importance of this approach is crucial.

C.S. Lewis wrote that, “We who are ‘they’ to them do not exist as persons at all. And this applies as much to our opponents as it does to us. When we imagine them as unredeemable, we don’t work toward a future that redeems us all.” Demonstrations show us what our joint success looks like rather than merely protesting one side’s failure. We don’t demonstrate “against.” We demonstrate “for.”

Demonstration is an act of love for your enemies. The way Martin Luther King used to put it is, “Man must evolve for all human contact, conflict, a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” Justice isn’t about fixing the past. It’s about fixing the future. Someone has to decide where your enemies fit in your transformed world. Will we relegate them to foot stools and doormats?

Most scholars agree that that approach paved the way for Germany’s defeat in World War I to Hitler’s descent in the second World War. And unfortunately we are still fighting Nazis today. Demonstration has a history and a future of success. This nation was born by imagining a shared future greater than the repeated injuries and usurpations that made our independence necessary. That’s the power behind, “All men are created equal” and unalienable rights, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The founders weren’t confused. They knew that they weren’t writing about the existing, utopian president. They were laying the groundwork for an ever-improving future.

America isn’t perfect. I’m not sure it ever will be, but America has a future to strive for. Something worth demonstrating for. And I don’t want you to make America great again. I think that’s aiming too low. I want you to make America greater than it’s ever been before. That’s the foundational promise.

That’s the foundational promise of this crazy experiment, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Before we ended our visit at Bethlehem, we were brought into a cave on his property. The cave is where his family lived hundreds, if not over a thousand years ago. This cave was not dissimilar to the caves scholars believed that Jesus or Nazarius was born in, not very far away. Sometime after the masters built a house on their property, the Israeli government stopped granting the ability permits so the cave is the only meeting location. We sat in this cave. He taught us a couple of Christian worship songs in Arabic, and then he lead us in singing that classic song of successful demonstrations, “We Shall Overcome.”

Imagine this. We’re sitting in a cave in Bethlehem with an Arab Christian in the occupied West Bank. Settlements are closing in on all sides, and he sings, “We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. I believe, deep in my heart I believe, that we shall overcome someday.” What’s transformative to me is not that we sang that song. It was the fact that for him, the “we” was not just Palestinians. And the “we” didn’t only include Christians. It also included his enemies, his opponents. And you know how I know? I know because he prayed for the people who were systematically trying to remove him from his land.

You want some information in this world? It starts with the transformation in your life that began here at Saybrook University. But going forward, it requires more. It requires refusing to be enemies. Demonstrating your most loving future. And that’s how we shall overcome someday. Congratulations Saybook’s Class of 2017. Let’s make this a more just, humane, and sustainable world.

Saybrook adjunct connects MLK’s influence to psychology, other APA Convention events

17 August 2017
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Saybrook University’s contributions to the field of psychology was once again very evident at the recent American Psychological Association (APA) Convention. During the convention, the new leadership of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (APA Division 32) assumed office.

Donna Rockwell

Saybrook faculty member Donna Rockwell is the new President of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (SHP) and another Saybrook faculty member, Dr. Nathaniel Granger, Jr., began his role as president-elect. Additionally, Kirk Schneider, also a Saybrook faculty member, completed his term as past president.

Two Saybrook alumni began terms on the board of the Society of Humanistic Psychology. Veronica Lac was elected as SHP’s Secretary of the Board. She also began her term inthe role of the Awards Committee. Saybrook alum Lisa Vallejos began her term as a member-at-large on the board.

At the APA convention, one of the primary highlights was when Dr. Nathaniel Granger—who teaches in the Existential, Humanistic, and Transpersonal Psychology Specialization—gave an embodied re-enactment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1967 speech to APA. He was also featured in a documentary, “Creative Maladjustment,” which was presented and discussed at the convention. This documentary and discussion considered Dr. King’s relevance and influence in the field of professional psychology.

Other presentations by faculty in Saybrook’s Existential, Humanistic, and Transpersonal Psychology (EHTP) Specialization included:

  • The Resurgence of Awe in Psychology: Promise and Perils by Kirk Schneider (EHTP Faculty). This was part of the Symposium “Don’t Worry, Be Happy—Cultural, Theoretical, and Clinical Critiques of the Positive Psychology Movement.”

  • Poetry, Social Media, Healing, and Growth by Louis Hoffman (EHTP Faculty). This was part of the symposium “Innovation and Creativity in Supporting Mental Health Needs Through Technology.”

  • “Developing an Existential-Humanistic Approach to Case Formulation and Treatment Planning”by Louis Hoffman (EHTP faculty) and Heatherlyn Cleare-Hoffman

  • “Key Influences on the Development of Existential-Humanistic Psychology” by Heatherlyn Cleare-Hoffman and Louis Hoffman (EHTP faculty)

  • “Strategies and Skills for Becoming an Effective Ally to Diverse Populations” by Lisa Vallejos (Saybrook alumna), David St. John (EHTP faculty), and Shawn Rubin

  • “Entering into Animal Worlds: Experiential Approaches to the Environment of Animals and Humans” by Scott Churchill (EHTP faculty)

  • “Reframing Internal Validity, Reliability, and External Validity for Phenomenological Research” by Scott Churchill (EHTP faculty)

Video recap: Experiencing humanity

16 August 2017
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The world is always waiting to be discovered. Studying abroad allows students to explore it, challenging their perspectives and introducing them to various cultures while confronting them with pressing issues they’ll face as professionals and throughout life.

Saybrook University encourages this type of personal journey and interactive educational experience for our students.

Witness our inspiring video recapping a 10-day visit to Berlin for the “Immigration in Contexts” course offered last year. Students encountered refugees at the emergency refugee shelter of the Berliner Stadtmission (a.k.a. “The Balloon”), an air-inflated shelter assembled in 2014 to assist in housing a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers.

It was the first in a series of study-abroad programs from the “Education Beyond Borders” initiative of TCS Education System. Students bonded with the shelter’s residents, inviting them to participate in the PhotoVoice project. It paired the fortunate and the less fortunate, asking them to tour Berlin while using simple photography to answer a complex question: “Who Are You?”

Experiencing humanity in its darkest hour, many students found that even in darkness there remains a beacon of light. As one student said, “I can’t forget the noise—not from crying, yelling, or other sounds of distress—but from people laughing and talking and children playing.”

Education isn’t always found in a book. Many times it must be sought out through transformative experiences. At Saybrook University our students learn about the world by engaging with it. This creates opportunities to truly learn about the issues affecting the global community, and then act to solve them.

Watch the full video to discover the impact you can have on the world while pursuing an education that goes beyond borders.

Calm, cool, collected: Saybrook alum assists highly sensitive people find inner joy

9 August 2017
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Saybrook University alumna Julie Bjelland is on a mission to help highly sensitive people (HSPs) find inner joy and self-acceptance with the help of her 2017 book, Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person, and her eight-week online global course on the topic of HSPs.

Julie Bjelland

Bjelland’s initial interest in psychology came trotting out on four legs. The 2012 MFT psychology graduate and then-guide dog trainer learned that a person’s behavior doesn’t just affect him or herself. It also reflects those around them, including family pets.


“I used to think about being a veterinarian when I was in my 20s,” says Bjelland, who earned a master’s in Psychology with Marriage and Family Therapy.

“I got a job as a vet tech in my early 20s and later applied for a job to be a trainer at Guide Dogs for the Blind. I ended up starting my own business to train people’s pet dogs. This is where my interest in psychology was heightened. Most of the time while I was training dogs, it was about what the human was doing.”

Using one client as an example of why this theory still holds strong, Bjelland received a call that a dog was uncharacteristically barking “all the time” when the pet was previously never this loud.

“I would find myself asking questions like, ‘What’s changed in your life?’,” Bjelland says. “And the owner would say something like, ‘Oh, I just got this new job. I’m totally stressed out.’ It became so apparent that the dog was reacting to the guardian’s behavior. I started loving the human psychology part of the work and instances like this were part of what made me decide to become a psychotherapist.”

These findings were used as inspiration for her first book Imagine Life with a Well-Behaved Dog: A 3-Step Positive Dog-Training Program.
 

We have two parts of our brain: the emotional/irrational brain (limbic system) and the thinking/rational brain (cognitive brain). … Research shows that most HSPs spend more time in the limbic system (emotional brain) than non-HSPs. … When our stress levels are very high on a daily basis, we are too close to activating our limbic system so it becomes nearly impossible to bypass it.  Fortunately there are tools that can teach us how to lessen our daily stress and therefore be more successful at getting out of and bypassing the limbic system.

— excerpt from Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person

Another major influencer in Bjelland’s psychotherapy work

The author chose to further her education at Saybrook because of the school’s “humanistic, client-centered approach.” And there was another Saybrook talk that left a mark in her higher education degree—a discussion with a student about Elaine Aron, the author of “The Highly Sensitive Person.”

“I had come across her book before,” Bjelland says. “But there was something about the conversation that I had with some of the students who were familiar with her work that really lit a light bulb inside of me and made me think that was my calling. That’s where I started to really get into the research about the sensitivity trait.”

As the kind of reader who would read a neuroscience book for fun, it made sense that Aron would intrigue her. But in Bjelland’s case, there was also a personal connection that linked her to psychotherapy and her future clients.

“HSPs tend to be some of the most successful people at their jobs,” Bjelland says. “On the flip side of that, HSPs like myself also have some of the highest levels of stress and anxiety. The training in my book and my HSP course is a practice of being able to lift that overwhelming feeling and have more access to all those great cognitive gifts that come along with the trait. But it requires a lot of self-care. And that is something that a lot of HSPs need more of.”

The brain has what is called a “negativity bias.” Once we understand why our brain responds the way it does, we are able to find compassion for ourselves and compassion is the key that opens the door to be able to make changes. … It’s interesting to note that negative messages tend to go directly into our long-term memory, but positive ones require several more seconds of awareness to be deposited into our memory. This means that if you start to focus more on positive things longer, your brain will finally store more positives than negatives. That’s why we generally learn from pain faster than we learn from pleasure.

— excerpt from Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person

The 8-week course to combat anxiety, help HSPs

So far, Bjelland has taught the eight-week “Techniques to Reduce Anxiety and Overwhelming Emotions: An Eight-Week Online Course” three times. The next eight-week course will start in September 2017, with a goal of teaching the course on a seasonal basis.

“When I put a group of HSPs together, I knew it was going to be a beautiful experience ,” Bjelland says. “This course is a space to go ‘Wow. Other people are like me and have some of the same challenges and some of the same beautiful traits as well.’ It’s really a beautiful experience to share.”

If you are among the 70% of us that are introverted HSPs, you will have limited social energy, so you want to be sure you are prioritizing where that energy goes. If you have people in your life that drain your energy too much, you might want to limit your interactions with them. Teach your closest friends and family that when you are invited to things, you will need to determine how full or empty your energy tank is before you can say yes to going. Good friends will want to understand you and do things that support your well-being.

— excerpt from Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person

In addition to teaching the eight-week course, next up for Bjelland is to write a third book on HSPs and intimacy in relationships. Bjelland also loves working with HSPs individually all over the world.

“One of my biggest goals is to be able to help HSPs connect to their super strengths, live their best lives and thrive.”

Relax, release, rebuild through silent meditation

3 August 2017
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The second entry in a multi-part series of blogs, Saybrook alumna Dr. Tamami Shirai speaks to her experiences with silent meditation. In part one, she discusses “Mindfulness or McMindfulness: Can we learn from the West adopting Asian cultures?” and in part three “The importance of ‘checking in’ after silent meditation.” 

Music-induced meditation

In my meditation group for a San Diego cardiac rehabilitation hospital, I always start by having participants engage in silent meditation for five to eight minutes with soft music playing. Silent meditation is the first part of four parts of a mindfulness-based meditation class. In order, the four parts are:

  • Silent meditation
  • Checking in
  • One modality
  • Sharing

The entire four-part class takes about 30 to 40 minutes for a small number of participants and 40 to 60 minutes when there are more than seven participants. The purpose of the class is to teach participants how to be mindful. The first silent meditation is when many participants fall in love with mindfulness-based meditation. Also, it comes in handy for those struggling with “monkey mind” —when the mind cannot be quiet.

Of course, many meditation textbooks and articles suggest using breathing techniques during meditation. However, rather than have participants focus on their breathing, I prefer to use contemplative healing music such as the music of Deuter (a German-born, US-based musician) for silent meditation. I have observed that music makes people concentrate easier, ignore outside noise, and calm down faster during the meditation session.

I once had a participant named “Michael” who returned to my class after two years. Michael had participated in my class only a few times before his condition forced him away. But when he came back, he asked me which music I had used two years before. He still remembered. Although the music collection I draw from for my meditation class consists of more than 120 recordings, I always pay attention to which participant likes what kind of music. So after playing only three pieces of music, I was able to find the one Michael had tried and failed to find on his own for over two years. He looked very happy to have finally found what he was looking for. Music is very influential in our lives, and its power makes people long for it. Famous neurologist Oliver Sacks noted that the question of why music has so much power goes to the very heart of our being.

Personalized objectives

My class is part of a cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation facility that includes both phase II and III cardiac patients. Phase II is the acute phase, for example, when they have just been released from the hospital after open-heart surgery. Phase III is a maintenance phase after the participant has experienced a few months of rehabilitation.

Pulmonary rehabilitation is often applied for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); some need oxygen and/or a wheelchair in the everyday life. We also have people who are waiting for a lung or heart transplant. The fundamental objectives of my meditation classes are stress management and lifestyle modification.

For cardiac patients, the goal of meditation is to reduce anxiety and depression, and control their medical conditions, including maintaining appropriate blood pressure. For people with COPD, specifically, the goals of meditation are overcoming inactivity and feelings of helplessness and controlling their medical conditions.

Sometimes people with COPD hesitate to join my meditation class because they are concerned that their cough, the sound of their portable oxygen tank, or the use of their wheelchair will interrupt other participants during silent meditation. That is not an issue, and I welcome anyone who is open to participating. I also think it is beneficial to include their family members to join meditation classes, a group of people who can also benefit most from meditation.

A participant with COPD named “Sally” had difficulty speaking because of a cerebral infarction. She came to my class in a wheelchair pushed by her daughter. Immediately after their first meditation experience together in my class, they told me they found it “amazing!”

Due to Sally’s limited ability to walk and speak, silent meditation was, she said, the only moment when she could gain freedom from her disabilities and regain her dignity. Sally was one of the most unforgettable participants in meditation class—someone who was very committed to coming to rehabilitation even when she did not feel well and was very close to the end of her life. She would sometimes come to my meditation class and leave home afterward if she didn’t feel like exercising—just coming to my class took a huge amount of energy and effort for her. Sally’s healthy daughter “Roberta” also enjoyed silent meditation because as a caregiver she needed restful time, even if it was only a half hour.

Most people with COPD do not encounter any problems engaging in silent meditation. However, “David,” another participant, grew anxious whenever I used the phrase “breathe in and breathe out” during my introduction to silent meditation. David has had long episodes of bronchitis since he was a small boy and wasn’t allowed to join any gym classes when he was in school. When he told me about his anxiety, I stopped using the word “breathe” in my class and instead invited participants to concentrate on music.

After a year of weekly participation in my class, David had naturally learned how to do deep breathing during the silent meditation and became s regular participant in one of my classes. He enjoyed combining exercise in the rehabilitation center’s gym and my meditation class—a perfect mind-body relationship. Surprisingly enough, after 74 years of life, David told me that it was because of our meditation class that he first began enjoying exercise and reducing his episodes of bronchitis.

Most of the participants in my class do not have prior experience with meditation. For that reason, I find that music-induced silent meditation creates a foundation of practice that quickly calms them down. I also suggest that my participants practice silent meditation for 20 minutes twice a day by themselves to make meditation practice part of their daily routines. I tell them that through continuous practice, silent meditation will gradually become their anchor for removing stress and staying connected to their inner peace in daily life. Fortunately, because most participants are experiencing serious physical conditions and have mild anxiety and depression, they are motivated to learn and practice meditation very well.

Dr. Tamami Shirai

Dr. Shirai is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Medicine, University of California San Diego. She is a researcher, educator, and advocate of lifestyle medicine, and a facilitator of meditation classes at a cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation center in San Diego. She is originally from Tokyo, Japan.

Green burials, home funerals: Closure for end-of-life care

3 August 2017
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Diana Johnson, a Transformative Social Change degree student at Saybrook, grew connected to the aging process and caregiving early in life. Her mother was a volunteer caretaker. But instead of going into the medical field, Johnson wanted to learn more about the social aspects of aging, including end-of-life care. This summer, Johnson attended a training on green burials and home funerals taught by end-of-life-doulas. She left with new ideas to make end-of-life care “more intimate and meaningful.”

As a Saybrook student, I’d like to create a space for us to delve into considerations surrounding aging and the end of life, without looking at death solely as a medicalized event. Home funerals and green burials are options that align with an intimate and sustainable approach, facets of end-of-life considerations that I find central to transformative social change.

As part of the Saybrook community, we dedicate our lives to bettering the human condition. Our collective work spans the life course from supporting the youngest among us to comforting our elders through palliative care. We promote sustainable ways of being, devoting much of our time to work that positively impacts others and the planet. So how can this work continue even after we are gone? Have we considered how we might continue this legacy in death? Green burial and home funerals provide options in line with these values.

Why the sustainable option of a green burial is in line with my mission

What we choose to do with our bodies, after they have served us for a lifetime, is one way we can continue this legacy of conscious sustainable service. Current burial practice in most of our nation’s cemeteries requires a cement vault for internment. Cement vaults, in addition to nonbiodegradable caskets, perpetuate a burial system that is not sustainable. Cremation offers a more environmentally friendly option but still requires the use of natural gas and may release harmful chemicals. Some cemeteries have set aside space dedicated to green burial practices, and there are also burial grounds dedicated to preserving the land and local wildlife. Green burials do not include embalming, an invasive practice, which uses cancer-causing chemicals, harmful to workers and the environment. Rather, a body in its natural state is buried in a biodegradable casket, or shroud.

While participating in the Green Fair this summer, I was surprised that even among the socially and environmentally conscious, most people were unaware of these options. However, each person stated that they would prefer them now that they had more information.

There’s no place like home … funerals

Home funerals are an option that often precede a green burial. It is standard practice for funeral homes to require embalming, which would rule out a green burial. Historically, people have cared for their own loved ones after death. It was only after the Civil War, and the invention of embalming, a practice created to get fallen soldiers home to their families, that our modern death care industry was born. Death care eventually became big business, and a symbol of status—the grander the display, the better.

Home funerals provide space to create an intimate experience. Families can either pre-educate themselves in after-death care, or hire a support person (ex. end-of-life doula) to provide guidance. Over the course of a number of days, family and friends can stop in to honor their loved one. There is the option to partake in the healing power of art, ornamenting the casket. Sometimes people chose to paint on, color, or otherwise decorate the biodegradable casket. Children can be a part of the process at their level and comfortability.

There are no set standards for a home funeral, but this is the beauty. Time and presence are afforded to create an intimate and personalized experience with the potential for ceremony, healing, and closure. This is a family-led time, with the option to bring in a celebrant, or someone experienced in guiding the process.

Preplanning is essential for home funerals. Some barriers exist, but each state does legally allow you to care for your loved ones in your home. They don’t have to be taken somewhere else. The end-of-life doula that I worked with provides guidance on how to care for a deceased family member’s body within the home. This includes washing the body, dressing the body, and laying them out at home rather than a traditional funeral home. Family and friends come to the home to sit and honor their loved one, similar to a traditional memorial service, but from the comfort of the deceased’s home (or caregiver’s home).

Why sustainable end-of-life practices matter in my Transformative Social Change studies

I strongly believe that attention and resources need to be directed toward the oldest among us, and as a Transformative Social Change student, this is where my passion lies. There is an intergenerational disconnect that I believe leads to our current death-denying culture. I hope to be a part of the bridge that leads us back to ourselves and our awareness that our time here is finite. Death is indeed a sensitive topic. However, we will all eventually be faced with the death of a loved one, and one day, our own mortality as well.

The gift of time can be honored in so many ways. We can take time to consider, discuss, and record our own wishes for what we would like done when “our time” comes. We have the option of giving our own time and attending to our loved ones during and after this sacred transition, within the home environment we chose.

And finally, as we consider the ultimate resting place of our own body, the body that has been the vessel in helping us serve humanity and the natural world, we can choose to honor this lifetime through the sustainability of green burials. If we are able to look at ourselves as aging beings, we will be that much more cognizant and helpful at addressing the challenges and wishes of the loved ones around us.

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