Understanding Indigenous Perspectives: Visions, Dreams, and Hallucinations helps future and practicing mental health professionals build the vital cultural competencies needed to differentiate between cultural practice and the presence of psychopathology in practice. The book discusses and explores the differences among visions, dreams, and hallucinations from an American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawai'ian perspective. Each chapter first presents information within the context of culture and then transitions to present information within the context of diagnoses and neurobiology. Throughout, cultural practices are discussed as normative, increasing readers' understanding of diverse populations and their rich heritages. Dedicated chapters explore American Indian psychology, worldviews, and spirituality; ethical and cultural considerations; the inclusion of cultural context within the DSM-5; the neurobiology of hallucinations; and competent discernment. The book includes valuable case studies that breathe life and humanity into a clinically challenging topic. Understanding Indigenous Perspectives is part of the Cognella Series on Advances in Culture, Race, and Ethnicity. The series, co-sponsored by Division 45 of the American Psychological Association, addresses critical and emerging issues within culture, race, and ethnic studies, as well as specific topics among key ethnocultural groups.

This book is a psychological exploration of unusual minds, a religious exploration of demonological myth, and a philosophical exploration of the reaches of pragmatism. It uses topics such as hypnotism, mediumship, and mass possession to argue for a comprehensive understanding of the demonic that acknowledges not only the creativity which it encourages, but also the danger it can bring. Professor Ruetenik uses James' religious pragmatism to evaluate the relevance of psychical research, and to explain common beliefs regarding demons, spirits, and other controlling personalities. The conclusion of this interdisciplinary research is as alarming as it is fascinating: When exploring the demons of William James, we discover that ordinary personality cannot be clearly separated from what we consider the demonic.

Three particular themes are basic to this study. First, that the human race and its environment are involved in a slowly progressive process of revelation and understanding of its inherent features. And that we are all participating in this ongoing evolutionary cycle. Second, and closely related to the first tenet, man is not separable from his environment. We all share in this cyclic development. Third, that our egoic structures, with the data and experiences they involve, can play a key role in our personal understanding of this ongoing developmental process. The role of the ego is paradoxical. It can be a relatively stable reference used to enhance personal insight concerning its own dynamic structure and similar aspects of its environment. Or it can be maintained with a rigidity that hinders progressive learning. That is, the ego unit has the dual possibilities of affording a focus aiding progressive insight, or becoming a barrier that temporarily diminishes it. The aim of this study is therefore to reduce possible restrictive rigidity as we investigate the role of the egoic unit in seeking greater understanding of its own dynamic structures and their similarly dynamic environment. To pursue this aim we refer to insights from medical practice, philosophy and science. The underlying awareness of an evolving consciousness means that the insights and ideas presented are shared in the expectation that they too will be modified in due course. But if they help provoke interest and insight concerning the paradoxical nature o f our personal processes, they will have served their purpose.

Three particular themes are basic to this study. First, that the human race and its environment are involved in a slowly progressive process of revelation and understanding of its inherent features. And that we are all participating in this ongoing evolutionary cycle. Second, and closely related to the first tenet, man is not separable from his environment. We all share in this cyclic development. Third, that our egoic structures, with the data and experiences they involve, can play a key role in our personal understanding of this ongoing developmental process. The role of the ego is paradoxical. It can be a relatively stable reference used to enhance personal insight concerning its own dynamic structure and similar aspects of its environment. Or it can be maintained with a rigidity that hinders progressive learning. That is, the ego unit has the dual possibilities of affording a focus aiding progressive insight, or becoming a barrier that temporarily diminishes it. The aim of this study is therefore to reduce possible restrictive rigidity as we investigate the role of the egoic unit in seeking greater understanding of its own dynamic structures and their similarly dynamic environment. To pursue this aim we refer to insights from medical practice, philosophy and science. The underlying awareness of an evolving consciousness means that the insights and ideas presented are shared in the expectation that they too will be modified in due course. But if they help provoke interest and insight concerning the paradoxical nature o f our personal processes, they will have served their purpose.

For decades we have witnessed the emergence of a media age of illusion that is based on the principles of physics-the multidimensionality, immateriality, and non-locality of the unified field of energy and information-as a virtual reality. As a result, a new paradigm shift has reframed the cognitive unconscious of individuals and collectives and generated a worldview in which mediated illusion prevails. Exploring the Collective Unconscious in a Digital Age investigates the cognitive significance of an altered mediated reality that appears to have all the dimensions of a dreamscape. This book presents the idea that if the digital media-sphere proves to be structurally and functionally analogous to a dreamscape, the Collective Unconscious researched by Carl Jung and the Cognitive Unconscious researched by George Lakoff are susceptible to research according to the parameters of hard science. This pivotal research-based publication is ideally designed for use by psychologists, theorists, researchers, and graduate-level students studying human cognition and the influence of the digital media revolution.

The book explores concepts throughout the history of philosophy that suggest the possibility of unconscious thought and lay the foundation for ideas of unconscious thought in modern philosophy and psychoanalysis. The focus is on the workings of unconscious thought and the role it plays in thinking, language, perception, and human identity.

Interdisciplinary essays on psychedelic consciousness. Presenting an interdisciplinary selection of twenty-five essays first delivered at Breaking Convention 2015, the third conference on psychedelic consciousness, culture, and clinical research, held at the University of Greenwich, London. Breaking Convention is the largest symposium of its kind, featuring more than 120 academic presentations biennially. Widely regarded as one of the foremost global platforms for serious research into psychedelic pharmacology, the conference has been instrumental in altering popular attitudes towards policy reform, with research focusing on the potential benefits that psychedelic therapies might hold in the treatment of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and in harm reduction among habitual substance abusers. Psychedelic Pharmacology for the 21stCentury spans the sciences and humanities, from philosophy and neuroscience through chemical models of action to clinical use. This latest volume includes cross-cultural approaches exploring the global drug economy, clinical MDMA trials, histories of psychedelic literature, the enigma of the pineal gland, acid mediumship and psychedelic landscaping. Contributors Allan Badiner, Rick Doblin, Amanda Feilding, Ido Hartogsohn, Jennifer Lyke, Dale Pendell, Iker Puente

Enactivist Interventions is an interdisciplinary work that explores how theories of embodied cognition illuminate many aspects of the mind, including intentionality, representation, the affect, perception, action and free will, higher-order cognition, and intersubjectivity. Gallagher argues for a rethinking of the concept of mind, drawing on pragmatism, phenomenology and cognitive science. Enactivism is presented as a philosophy of nature that has significant methodological and theoretical implications for the scientific investigation of the mind. Gallagher argues that, like the basic phenomena of perception and action, sophisticated cognitive phenomena like reflection, imagining, and mathematical reasoning are best explained in terms of an affordance-based skilled coping. He offers an account of the continuity that runs between basic action, affectivity, and a rationality that in every case remains embodied. Gallagher's analysis also addresses recent predictive models of brain function and outlines an alternative, enactivist interpretation that emphasizes the close coupling of brain, body and environment rather than a strong boundary that isolates the brain in its internal processes. The extensive relational dynamics that integrates the brain with the extra-neural body opens into an environment that is physical, social and cultural and that recycles back into the enactive process. Cognitive processes are in-the-world rather than in-the-head; they are situated in affordance spaces defined across evolutionary, developmental and individual histories, and are constrained by affective processes and normative dimensions of social and cultural practices.

This book is a compilation of: Short Stories and Metaphors Mind Changing Short Stories and Metaphors Moving Forward The stories are set out alphabetically by their titles. Under the title there is a short description of the meaning of the story that will help the reader to 'cherry pick' in order to select something that is relevant to their situation in life. When used in NLP and hypnotherapy, metaphors have long given insights into the difficulties of people and have shown the ways in which we can escape or improve. If the stories strike a chord with you, then they also show a way out. These short stories, metaphors and interactive scripts will help you to eliminate negative thoughts and achieve your dreams by allowing you to relax while reading stories that can bring about positive change. Some of the stories will relax you, others will make you think. Some allow you to enter a light feeling of hypnosis. Hypnotherapy and hypnosis have been major users of metaphors to show different approaches to problems and their resolution. Milton Erickson, the grandfather of modern hypnotherapy used metaphors to great effect in resolving problems with his patients. Self hypnosis allows you to enter the areas of your mind where you can become imaginative and optimistic. You can create your dreams and the ways in which you will achieve them. The most perfect thing about humans is our lack of perfection. It is what drives us to seek improvement. We should always strive to be better, happier, healthier and fulfilled by loving ourselves, our neighbours and life of all sorts on our planet. When we dream we transport our minds to places where life is better and where your goals should be placed. Positive thoughts eliminate the nightmares we find in sleep and our waking lives. We can realise that there is something better in the future. When we berate ourselves for not being perfect we wallow in failure. When we see that the future can be better we thrive in the optimistic feeling that no matter what has befallen us there is always the opportunity for betterment rather than assuming that we have reached an end point. As you read this book, either to yourself, to other people or to clients you will find answers and will be able to give insights into problems. This allows movement away from difficulties towards finding solutions and implementing them. The decision to look at life from new perspectives gives the chance to earn your true value in the world and to profit from constructive change. Rather than being held back by old beliefs and attitudes, the reader moves into a new way of thinking, a new way of acting and a new way of life. Taking and acting on decisions is paramount to success. By moving forward now, you invest in a brighter future.

What is consciousness? Does it exist? Is it a physical phenomenon or somehow beyond the physical? Does it have any real influence on your behaviour? Can you be sure that you are the only consciousness arising from your brain? Stuff and Consciousness is a fascinating philosophical exploration into the forest of questions surrounding consciousness, encountering along the way many thickets and creepers including randomly firing brains and multiple copies of your own brain and body. Although these are questions that cannot yet all be answered, Pereira sets out the possible solutions being considered in the field of philosophy, assesses their plausibility and argues towards a stance from which the remaining answers may be found.

How do we understand and explain phenomena in psychology? What does the concept of "causality" mean when we discuss higher psychological functions and behavior? Is it possible to generate "laws" in a psychological and behavioral science-laws that go beyond statistical regularities, frequencies, and probabilities? An international group of authors compare and contrast the use of a causal model in psychology with a newer model-the catalytic model. The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality proposes an approach to the qualitative nature of psychological phenomena that focuses on the psychological significance and meaning of conditions, contexts, and situations as well as their sign-mediating processes. Contributors develop, apply, and criticize the notion of a catalyzing mind in hopes of achieving conceptual clarity and rigor. Disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, semiotics and biosemiotics are used for an interdisciplinary approach to the book. Research topics such as history and national identity, immigration, and transitions to adulthood are all brought into a dialogue with the concept of the catalyzing mind. With a variety of disciplines, theoretical concepts, and research topics this book is a collective effort at an approach to move beyond models of causality for explaining and understanding psychological phenomena.

This volume is product of the third online consciousness conference, held at http: //consciousnessonline.com in February and March 2011. Chapters range over epistemological issues in the science and philosophy of perception, what neuroscience can do to help us solve philosophical issues in the philosophy of mind, what the true nature of black and white vision, pain, auditory, olfactory, or multi-modal experiences are, to higher-order theories of consciousness, synesthesia, among others. Each chapter includes a target article, commentaries, and in most cases, a final response from the author. Though wide-ranging all of the papers aim to understand consciousness both from the inside, as we experience it, and from the outside as we encounter it in our science.

The Online Consciousness Conference, founded and organized by Richard Brown, is dedicated to the rigorous study of consciousness and mind. The goal is to bring philosophers, scientists, and interested lay persons together in an online venue to promote high-level discussion and exchanging of views, ideas and data related to the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness.