33. Are you going to San Francisco?
Flower power has been. People of my generation were born just too late to be its children at that time. That’s not fair, is it? So maybe it’s time for a new ‘flower power’ to hit this planet. Why not? And in order to accommodate me and my generation, and in fact any generation, let’s Read the full article…
32. Can the placebo lie ever be a ‘benign lie’?
‘The truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.’ ◊◊◊ The existence, indeed almost omnipresence of placebo has weird consequences. One of them is that serious people are now asking whether the above saying is valid or not for medicine in the broadest sense, as it is in jurisdiction. ◊◊◊ Indeed, the issue Read the full article…
31. Long live desire!
People are no steam engines. That seems to be clear. ◊◊◊ Yet in a profound way the prevailing (although mostly underlying) idea in Western culture about human desires in general comes down to precisely this: a desire as something that, if not gratified, builds up and … yes … puts steam on the kettle. This Read the full article…
30. Meditation is NOT a therapy
Laughing as therapy. Crying as therapy. Moving as therapy. Not moving as therapy. It seems as if people are looking for ‘therapy’ everywhere. We live in a therapy-based society. Probably because society itself makes therapy so much needed. ◊◊◊ Many people in the West look at meditation as a therapy. This is not quite right. Read the full article…
29. PTSD: a groovy kind of stress
In a traumatic situation, people are more vulnerable to ‘suggestion’ (that is: to be touched in one’s deeper self by the meaning of things) for two reasons. First, the very deep meaning of what happens, has in itself as a matter of fact a huge impact. Second, the power of the trauma shakes and cuts Read the full article…
28. Do miracle cures happen?
What is certain to me, is that miracle cures do not happen in a mechanical way. You cannot simply ‘ask’ something from ‘Above’ and expect to receive it. ◊◊◊ Something very special is needed. You have to transcend mechanical thinking. This can only be done by transcending your conscious thinking, since this is trapped as Read the full article…
27. Medicine of war. Medicine of peace.
Present-day Western medicine is based on the philosophy of war. Diseases are the enemy that has to be attacked as effectively as possible. The weapons to do so are medication, surgical procedures, etc. Behavioral therapy in its pure form is the psychological ally in this continuous battle. The goal is to get rid of the Read the full article…
26. ‘My pain is real! It’s not mental!’
The outcry in the title is the result of a way of thinking that, sadly enough, still pervades our culture very much. It is as if what is mental cannot be real at the same time. This seems to be very deeply ingrained, so deep that many people don’t even question it at any time Read the full article…
25. Getting beyond the symptom is not easy
In another of these ‘sticky thoughts’, I explained that most medications work only symptomatically. This is: they relieve symptoms and this only as long as you take them. If you stop taking them, then either your symptoms return, or you have self-healed in the meantime. ◊◊◊ This is logical, since going beyond the symptom is Read the full article…
24. Love is the ultimate healer
‘Love conquers everything, even death.’ You’ve probably heard it (many times) before. And yes it sounds good, doesn’t it? So you may wonder: is there more to it than just sounding good and ever in a while, maybe, also a bit cheap? ◊◊◊ I think it has been heard and used so many times that Read the full article…
23. Sleeping pills are keeping us awake
Worldwide, many tons of sleeping pills are taken each year. A huge number of people take it on a chronic basis, while it is well known that the effect disappears after 3 weeks. Why is this? A question that may truly keep one awake. ◊◊◊ The answer, which is an answer-in-three-stages, may keep one awake Read the full article…
22. Life isn’t everything
The reason we die is not that nature didn’t find a way to let us live forever. It just didn’t look for one. ◊◊◊ Moreover, death was one of the biggest inventions of nature (or evolution) in order to make ‘better’ life. This is: more complex, more resilient, more all-encompassing life. Life ends itself in Read the full article…
21. The ethics of getting better
It’s already present in the terms: ethics is about ‘being good’, ‘getting better’. Medicine, the beloved art and science of ‘making better’, has always been involved in morality though in the last few centuries of Western cultural development, in a very hidden way. In times not so long gone, illness was explicitly seen as ‘curse Read the full article…
20. The subconscious: dustbin or city of angels?
There are two very opposing views on matters of the subconscious. As the title of this text suggests, one is rather negative and the other, well, altogether more positive. ◊◊◊ Freud is exemplar for looking at the subconscious as mainly a kind of dustbin for repressed emotions and things that in one way or another Read the full article…
19. Your medication or your life
One of the shocks of my professional life came rather late: after 7 years of study, 8 years of medical practice and several years of working on a medical decision support system. It came while reading about how many categories of medication act more than purely symptomatically. Or better said: how many don’t. ◊◊◊ Actually Read the full article…
18. Meditate and win!
Some people in the East (OK, not the average shopkeeper in a tourist resort) practice meditation for years, daily meditating many hours. They make progress towards ‘something’ over this time. Apparently they find it worthwhile … ◊◊◊ In the West, what is called ‘meditation’ is promulgated by many as a good method to cope with Read the full article…
17. Antidepressants: doors wide shut
Antidepressants have not been invented. They have been discovered. It happened through people taking drugs for another purpose. Some of these reported a diminishment in feelings of depression. ◊◊◊ As one says, the rest is history. ◊◊◊ Looking closer at it, the aim of that what has been discovered, is to indiscriminately diminish the suffering. Read the full article…