Saturday, January 24, 2004
Wheels within Wheels
Brain Waves: Anthroscopes Improve Team Productivity
Brain Waves: Anthroscopes Improve Team Productivity
This is absolutely wild.
It's like every techno-fetishistic-cyberpunk fantasy fiction I've ever seen. It's got to begin somewhere, and this is a good look at the future--the Anthoscope.
While it may sound like a device for looking into the male portion of a flower. (Anther + scope ???), actually "This anthroscope monitors your perspiration and heartbeat, reads your facial expressions and head motions, analyzes your voice tones, and correlate these to keep you informed with a running account of how you are feeling."
Results? "Preliminary results on five people interacting in 12 sessions beginning Aug. 18 indicate that personal sensor readings caused lower arousal states, improved teamwork and better leadership in longer collaborations. "
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
This is absolutely wild.
It's like every techno-fetishistic-cyberpunk fantasy fiction I've ever seen. It's got to begin somewhere, and this is a good look at the future--the Anthoscope.
While it may sound like a device for looking into the male portion of a flower. (Anther + scope ???), actually "This anthroscope monitors your perspiration and heartbeat, reads your facial expressions and head motions, analyzes your voice tones, and correlate these to keep you informed with a running account of how you are feeling."
Results? "Preliminary results on five people interacting in 12 sessions beginning Aug. 18 indicate that personal sensor readings caused lower arousal states, improved teamwork and better leadership in longer collaborations. "
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Friday, January 16, 2004
Framing: Not just for Houses and Art
WorkingForChange-BuzzFlash interview: George Lakoff: "and that people vote their identity"
Lakoff is a Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at UC Berkeley. This piece, in my opinion, explains how Republicans are in charge and Democrats are scratching their heads. By what mechanism? By defining, framing the debate. Dr. Lakoff also touches on the difference between a theorist and a pragmatist--but I'll save that for another post.
Framing is an exceptionally important concept for politics and for therapy. This joke illustrates:
A man was standing on a street corner in Manhattan, tearing up pieces of the local rag into little bits. Another man walks up to him and asks him why he's doing that. First guy replies: "it's to keep the elephants away." Second guy says, "What are you talking about? There are no elephants around here!" The first guy says, "See! It works!"
Once you've defined the frame as "keeping elephants away," it's very difficult to step out of that frame of elephants--i.e. almost anything said in protest will be about "not keeping elephants away". And "not" operators are weak. The unconscious mind strips any sentences of "not" and "keeping elephants away" becomes entrenched in your field of dreams.
So, in this case, where's the way out? How do you get around an elephant? Well, there's the Aikido way, which would be to take his energy and extend it further to destabilize the premise like, "Gosh you're right! In fact, you're doing such a good job of it, I think we should take a break. Personally, keeping elephants away makes me thirsty." This is also the Eriksonian way, accept resistance and use it for your own (therapeutic) purposes.
Another way would be to attempt to reframe the issue, for example, "But I like elephants. Elephants are wonderful creatures, gentle and helpful to human beings. Why they ride elephants in India. Glorious creatures. Why don't you go to the zoo and look at them? What kind of food do elephants eat?" Here we've changed the premise (elephants are bad and must be kept away) and stood the whole thing on its head.
I realize this is very tantalizing. It seems like it would make for brilliant solutions to refractory (love that word) mental health problems. Well it does do that. But its not taught much. Why? Because it's difficult. Dr. Lakoff shows in the article that Republicans have spent 30 years and billions into defining their terms and creating a language to serve their agenda. So if you want to use these tools, you have to familiarize yourself with them. Try these books to start: "Uncommon Therapy" by Jay Haley; "Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution" by Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fitch [BF441 .W35]; and "My Voice Will Go With You: Teaching Tales of Milton Erikson" by Rosen. The "Change" book is available at Wisser Library on campus, I have provided the Dewey reference in brackets. The others are available inexpensively from Amazon.
Another resource at NYCOM is Dr. Goldblatt. He's a practicing psychotherapist and is well versed in all things Erikson. He's generally available around 3 P.M. most days, and he likes students.
Lakoff is a Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at UC Berkeley. This piece, in my opinion, explains how Republicans are in charge and Democrats are scratching their heads. By what mechanism? By defining, framing the debate. Dr. Lakoff also touches on the difference between a theorist and a pragmatist--but I'll save that for another post.
Framing is an exceptionally important concept for politics and for therapy. This joke illustrates:
A man was standing on a street corner in Manhattan, tearing up pieces of the local rag into little bits. Another man walks up to him and asks him why he's doing that. First guy replies: "it's to keep the elephants away." Second guy says, "What are you talking about? There are no elephants around here!" The first guy says, "See! It works!"
Once you've defined the frame as "keeping elephants away," it's very difficult to step out of that frame of elephants--i.e. almost anything said in protest will be about "not keeping elephants away". And "not" operators are weak. The unconscious mind strips any sentences of "not" and "keeping elephants away" becomes entrenched in your field of dreams.
So, in this case, where's the way out? How do you get around an elephant? Well, there's the Aikido way, which would be to take his energy and extend it further to destabilize the premise like, "Gosh you're right! In fact, you're doing such a good job of it, I think we should take a break. Personally, keeping elephants away makes me thirsty." This is also the Eriksonian way, accept resistance and use it for your own (therapeutic) purposes.
Another way would be to attempt to reframe the issue, for example, "But I like elephants. Elephants are wonderful creatures, gentle and helpful to human beings. Why they ride elephants in India. Glorious creatures. Why don't you go to the zoo and look at them? What kind of food do elephants eat?" Here we've changed the premise (elephants are bad and must be kept away) and stood the whole thing on its head.
I realize this is very tantalizing. It seems like it would make for brilliant solutions to refractory (love that word) mental health problems. Well it does do that. But its not taught much. Why? Because it's difficult. Dr. Lakoff shows in the article that Republicans have spent 30 years and billions into defining their terms and creating a language to serve their agenda. So if you want to use these tools, you have to familiarize yourself with them. Try these books to start: "Uncommon Therapy" by Jay Haley; "Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution" by Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fitch [BF441 .W35]; and "My Voice Will Go With You: Teaching Tales of Milton Erikson" by Rosen. The "Change" book is available at Wisser Library on campus, I have provided the Dewey reference in brackets. The others are available inexpensively from Amazon.
Another resource at NYCOM is Dr. Goldblatt. He's a practicing psychotherapist and is well versed in all things Erikson. He's generally available around 3 P.M. most days, and he likes students.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
In the category of abstract nonlinear...
...or, because I can...
...The difference between holistic and reductionistic...
... I think I exemplify in a peculiar habit of mine.
I have a messy habit of maintaining all of my lecture notes in a "the pile" instead of separating them by subject. I find this way easier to get to the lecture I want to find.
Ever clean your house and subsequently discover that you've lost something?
Osteopathic medical students at NYCOM receive written notes of almost all classes. I find that they provide the most convenient method of studying for our exams. Most of my fellow students separate them into subjects, i.e. "nephrology," or "allergy and immunology". I don't.
I would like to think that this means that I am more likely than they are to arrive at a holistic, "...nonlineal...systemic, ecological...circular, recursive, or cybernetic..." (Aesthetics of Change, Branford P. Keeney, Guilford, NY, 1983) diagnosis and prescription for treatment than my more lineal colleagues.
Of course I could just be one rat who realizes that he's in a cage. "A prison built for your mind"
Of course one could argue that the divisions between subjects are there, but they're in my mind, because the proof is in the pudding, that there is no substitute for the thing itself, and that all I'm really doing is creating another self-aggrandizing artificial distinction between myself and my peers. Roshi, roshi...
When I Banged My Head on the Door
When I banged my head on the door, I screamed,
"My head, my head," and I screamed, "Door, door,"
and I didn't scream "Mama" and I didn't scream "God."
And I didn't prophesy a world at the End of Days
where there will be no more heads and doors.
When you stroked my head, I whispered,
"My head, my head," and I whispered, "Your hand, your hand,"
and I didn't whisper "Mama" or "God."
And I didn't have miraculous visions
of hands stroking heads in the heavens
as they split wide open.
Whatever I scream or say or whisper is only
to console myself: My head, my head.
Door, door. Your hand, your hand.
--Yehuda Amichai, The Selected Poems of..., 1996
...The difference between holistic and reductionistic...
... I think I exemplify in a peculiar habit of mine.
I have a messy habit of maintaining all of my lecture notes in a "the pile" instead of separating them by subject. I find this way easier to get to the lecture I want to find.
Ever clean your house and subsequently discover that you've lost something?
Osteopathic medical students at NYCOM receive written notes of almost all classes. I find that they provide the most convenient method of studying for our exams. Most of my fellow students separate them into subjects, i.e. "nephrology," or "allergy and immunology". I don't.
I would like to think that this means that I am more likely than they are to arrive at a holistic, "...nonlineal...systemic, ecological...circular, recursive, or cybernetic..." (Aesthetics of Change, Branford P. Keeney, Guilford, NY, 1983) diagnosis and prescription for treatment than my more lineal colleagues.
Of course I could just be one rat who realizes that he's in a cage. "A prison built for your mind"
Of course one could argue that the divisions between subjects are there, but they're in my mind, because the proof is in the pudding, that there is no substitute for the thing itself, and that all I'm really doing is creating another self-aggrandizing artificial distinction between myself and my peers. Roshi, roshi...
When I Banged My Head on the Door
When I banged my head on the door, I screamed,
"My head, my head," and I screamed, "Door, door,"
and I didn't scream "Mama" and I didn't scream "God."
And I didn't prophesy a world at the End of Days
where there will be no more heads and doors.
When you stroked my head, I whispered,
"My head, my head," and I whispered, "Your hand, your hand,"
and I didn't whisper "Mama" or "God."
And I didn't have miraculous visions
of hands stroking heads in the heavens
as they split wide open.
Whatever I scream or say or whisper is only
to console myself: My head, my head.
Door, door. Your hand, your hand.
--Yehuda Amichai, The Selected Poems of..., 1996
