Dinah Foley

Alain de Botton on the Importance of Breakdowns and Crisis as a Clarifying Force for Authenticity “Crisis… is an attempt to dislodge us from a toxic status quo and constitutes an insistent call to rebuild our lives on a more authentic and sincere basis.”

‘We are — each one of us — far more compulsive, anxious, sexual, tender, mean, generous, playful, thoughtful, dazed, and at sea than we are encouraged to accept.’

www.themarginalian.org/2021/10/13/a...

There's No Justice Without Power A rich guy's lesson for the left.

"Money buys labor. Guns compel labor. The power of the strike stops labor. It is the only equal of the power of money and guns. It's the one form of hard power available to regular people. Our power is that the world can’t run without us."

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/theres-no-...

I’m giving a talk for mental health professionals on working with clients navigating the complexities of reproductive ambivalence- relevant research/history, ambivalence in psychoanalysis, IFS, & Grief therapy. Free, 1 CE (NY only) Please join me!

Thurs 3/13 12pm- 1pm EST
Register: bit.ly/4hgMyDg

Last year Pew published a report on the experiences of U.S. adults who don't have children. One finding was that friendships with people with children feel harder to retain for those under 50- potentially a reflection of the ways in which parenting and non-parenting are becoming more isolating.

Evaluation Alliance for Human Rights - Sign Up for a Workshop PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATOR WORKSHOP

Mental health professionals looking for ways to get involved in immigrant defense: Training this Saturday by IRC's Evaluation Alliance- learn how to do assessments for humanitarian-based immigration cases to improve outcomes in court. 3 CE's and free www.evaluationalliance.org/volunteer/mo...

Dark Times Are Coming The labor movement faces its worst environment in a century.

‘But “we’re so fucked” is neither a useful nor a factual conclusion. For one thing, our own actions affect the future, so as soon as we decide all is lost, we stop trying, and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.’ www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/dark-times...

Thinking about non commodified relational modes: mutual aid, chosen families, other communities & expressions of care as the building blocks of a better world.. these acts & utopian visions, while seeming dimmer than ever at the scale we need, remain my most load bearing emotional buoy

Our environment reinforces extreme protectors that reflect and propel structural harm. Neuroscientist Nim Tottenham: ‘If the environment is enriched and favorable, neurobiology will optimize for growth and development; if the environment is harsh, it will optimize for thrift and adversity.’

Thinking of sacred/non commodified relational modes: mutual aid, chosen families, other communities & expressions of care as the building blocks of a better world. Utopian visions, while seeming dimmer than ever, remain my most load bearing emotional buoy

Catching the Big Fish

Climate anger can lead to action – or curdle into despair. We found out why Almost half of us are now angry about climate change. But who we’re angry at can change whether we turn anger into action – or despair

Just more reasons institutions and corporations are THE place to direct anger

'Interestingly, participants angry about other people’s inaction and apathy had more symptoms of depression and anxiety; participants angry about government inaction and apathy had fewer of these symptoms.'

Pro Bono Therapy for Los Angeles Wildfires

Inarguably so much more than therapy is needed right now but this is an incredible resource. Probono therapy for people affected by the LA fires:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Affective music during episodic memory recollection modulates subsequent false emotional memory traces: an fMRI study - Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience Music is a powerful medium that influences our emotions and memories. Neuroscience research has demonstrated music’s ability to engage brain regions associated with emotion, reward, motivation, and au...

Evidence for what many seem to know intuitively: we can alter the emotional tone of memories with music 🎶
link.springer.com/article/10.3...

Short yet potent interoception (your brain’s perception of your body’s state) exercise:

Omega-3 acids in fish oil may significantly reduce aggression Taking omega-3 supplements or consuming it via food sources such as fish, flaxseed, and walnuts, may make aggressive and violent outbursts less likely, a new study suggests.

Great news! But does it work on an entire military industrial complex
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/add...

Visualization exercises as radicalism: to build utopias we need to imagine them first 🌈 (and an organized working class)

trying this thing where every time I have an impulse to open an app I don’t need to open, I try to pause & add a detail to an internal regulating place- branch on tree etc. Uneven success but convinced it’s helping combat phone addiction. A part clearly wants to go somewhere, give it an alternative!

‘Compersion’ is a beautiful concept applicable beyond the ENM community in which it originated & I just learned about a much older term for same idea: ‘confelicity’: pleasure in someone else’s happiness; the opposite of schadenfreude

The psycho-spiritual pseudoscientific Enneagram test can be a useful tool for self-insight and exploration.. & I think combining it with IFS theory and viewing your number(s) as a dominant protector provides a more holistic and transformative, less absolutist key to internal maps (said like a 2 🙄)

Ambivalence, internal conflict, decision paralysis, dissonance: the experience is constituent of the human condition and in IFS it’s called a polarization. While new language might not be needed, I think IFS offers a uniquely helpful framework and process for navigating the phenomenon

I see IFS Therapy as particularly effective at holding, exploring, and moving towards resolution of ambivalence, and I’d love to learn more about approaches to navigating deeply felt ambivalence in other modalities