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No Rack Can Torture me - Emily Dickinson

3/31/2013

Happy Easter all. The implications of Easter in terms of humanity's relationship with the divine, our final destiny, and our human consciousness was captured by Emily Dickinson in this poem. While there is no indication that Emily Dickinson was particularly devout, nor even Christian, this poem captures a profound intuition of the meaning of Easter and the location of the risen body as residing now in all of humankind. The implications of a loosening of the bonds of death through a connatural relationship with Jesus, in a way that we are unable to through our natural existence, seems to be part of what she is saying. Although this theme is submerged under a humanistic understanding of the human person as self-transcendent, a theological meaning can be developed. But perhaps, Dickinson was, in fact, arguing for a completely natural anthropology as the human person as self-transcendent. Transcendence was a feature of the nineteenth century American poets. Furthermore, the early Greeks believed in an immortal soul apart from the body. But, where Dickinson differs, is that she specifically relates that there are "two bodies".

At any rate, Happy Easter and enjoy the day and the season!

No rack can torture me,
My soul ’s at liberty.
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one

You cannot prick with saw,
Nor rend with scymitar.
Two bodies therefore be;
Bind one, and one will flee.

The eagle of his nest
No easier divest
And gain the sky,
Than mayest thou,

Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,
So’s liberty.

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To this day - Shane Koyczan

3/24/2013

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Below is the poem "To This Day" by Shane Koyczan. It is dedicated to "the bullied and the beautiful". When good poetry is read and performed it can take on much greater texture and meaning. Shane delivers this poem, his own creation, with remarkable depth of feeling, humour, and hope. He creatively fuses words, animation, music, symbols, and stories. It illustrates the incredible resiliency of kids who face bullying and is a welcome contribution to the plethora of information on bullying. Based on his experience, he illustrates how facile the "sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me" really is. At the same time, he never falls prey to victimization although he was victimized.

He shows what is is like to be different and all I can say is vive la différence.

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Are we over-diagnosing mental illness

3/17/2013

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Interesting article in CNN on a subject that is debated in mental health frequently; namely over-diagnosis. The problem is confounded by advances in pharmotechnology and the increasing use of various forms of SSRI's and anti-anxiety medication to treat people who otherwise would not fit the clinical criteria as outlined in the DSM - IV.

Indeed, one of the interesting reports is the controversy around the propose new DSM V which was originally slated for release in May of 2013. Dr. Carrol. chair of psychiatry at Duke University noticed with alarm the growing incidence of bi-polar in children.

"You've got all these young kids running around with this diagnosis, yet many of them have never, ever had a manic episode, which is the hallmark of bipolar disorder," said Carroll, now the scientific director of the Pacific Behavioral Research Foundation.

"Many of these kids," he continued, "have never had anything other than irritability. Yet they're exposed to anti-convulsants, anti-psychotic drugs, which have serious long-term side effects in the form of obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and some movement disorders ... that can leave a person extremely disfigured physically."

Finally, there is this quote that sums up the fact that people frequently recover from mental illness (a loaded term!)

"The DSM-5, in many ways, reflects the politics of psychiatry these days," said Dr. Joel Paris, author of "Prescriptions for the Mind: A Critical View of Contemporary Psychiatry," a psychiatry professor at McGill University and researcher at Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Quebec.

"Everybody has a kind of investment in certain diagnoses. Those who are studying a particular disorder often are saying, 'Well, this is much more common than you think they are. Oh, the prevalence is very high.' But we risk losing legitimacy because of over-diagnosis. ... The fact is that most people get by with bad patches in their lives. They recover."

Looks like interesting books for further research and an important topic to reflect on prior to the launch of the DSM V.

Are we over-diagnosing mental health

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O'Malley is selected in the conclave based on face polling research

3/12/2013

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One of the more fascinating pieces of research to emerge in social psychology in recent decades is the finding that people can predict, with greater than random accuracy, the winner of elections based only on photos of the candidates face. These finding hold whether the people know the candidates or not. Further, studies have been able to demonstrated that random people can predict, again with greater than random accuracy, which Fortune 500 executives are most successful based only on the face.

Psychologists at William and Mary conducted a similar experiment to test whether participants could accurately predict who the winner of the conclave will be based only on photos. They were not asked to predict the winner but to assign a number on trustworthiness and other variables based on the face. The results were then collated.

I have attached the full paper below that describes their methodology and data. However, here are some excerpts:

Much prior research has established that face appearance often influences assessments of others and decisions about them. For instance, the Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, and Hall (2005) presented participants with images of faces from competing electoral candidates and asked them to rate them on a variety of features, such as trustworthiness and competence. Participants had no knowledge of the candidates except for the face images, but their ratings enabled better than chance predictions of election outcomes. The differences in ratings were even linearly related to the winning candidates margin of victory. The information involved in these types of assessments seem to be gathered from even very brief exposures to the stimuli (Ballew & Todorov, 2007; Willis & Todorov, 2006).

This case is a bit different in that all of the cardinals know each other (somewhat)and are more deeply engaged in the process than the average voter. Still:

The goal of the current study was to assess whether this strategy could be used to predict the outcome of the cardinal conclave tasked with selecting the next Pope. It provides a good test case, because the selection of a Pope is a decision based on detailed information by a group of experts. Congressional elections are decided by many thousands of votes from a popular electorate exposed to media-driven campaigns that can provide conflicting, misleading, and often negative information. In such an environment, there may be no clearly preferential candidate, such that the appearance of the face may be all that is needed to tip the scales. If the same principles apply to the decisions of a conclave of highly educated, experienced, senior leaders, it would suggest that the power of a face to drive decisions is truly powerful.

They conclude that, so far, it appears, based on their research that O'Malley will be selected. This is consistent with buzz from reporters in Rome. Nonetheless it is possible that another top scoring candidate will be selected.

A less specific prediction is that one of the top scoring cardinals will be chosen as the next Pope. Thus, if not O’Malley, then Erdo, or Sandri will be chosen. If none of these three is chosen then perhaps face appearance does not play as big a role in this selection process as in others.

If their results stand and one of those three is elected, then that certainly adds further reliability to studies around how people arrive at judgements.

Stay tuned!

popefaces.pdf
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B.B. King - Blue Boys Tune

3/11/2013

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A friend passed this along to me. I thought that it was just too good not to share. It features the legendary B.B. King doing what made him the master of the blues guitar.

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The Habit of Perfection

3/7/2013

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One of my favourite poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins is The Habit of Perfection. It is, in many ways, a double entendre. On the one hand it refers to the common understanding of habit as repeated act until one arrives at perfection and on the other refers to the habit worn by religious. Hopkins was a Jesuit priest. The poem speaks of the spiritual qualities leading ultimately to moral perfection and implicitly features the concept of inscape that Hopkins is famous for. Inscape is associated with the Romantics but for Hopkins takes on a spiritual connotation. For Hopkins inscape is the individuated nature of a thing that reveals its true nature as it was called into being by God. Inscape is the opposite of the universalizing tendencies of Greek categories that saw the individual as a species of a more general category (e.g. a dog belongs to the genus of canine which, in turn, belongs to the genus of animal, etc.). With the concept of inscape, inscribed within the individual, is the general category. Therefore, by looking closely at the individual thing, the observer could see grasp the whole without ever having to abstract from the individual.

The Habit of Perfection is a good poem on positive asceticism and has an almost Buddhist and eastern feel.

Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

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Cartoon of the Day

3/5/2013

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Courtesy of The New Yorker

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My Pensées

The title of this blog is an allusion to the famous work of Blaise Pascal. This blog represents the variety of my interests and thoughts on any given day and are strung together, like Pascal's Pensees, in no particular order. I work in the field of mental health, education, and human rights. I write and am a human rights advocate. I enjoy poetry, jazz, spirituality, politics and a potpourri of other interests that you will see reflected in this blog.