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Afford-able care
Parched You’re hiking on a hot, sunny day, enjoying the scenery, and thinking about the upcoming travel plans you made. Several miles into the hike on that dusty trail, your thirst increases. That ice cold water you always pack with you beckons; you reach into your backpack and discover it’s missing! In that moment, the…
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The unheard
Dear Colleague, It has been a while. I had hoped to return with news — a publication to share, a milestone to celebrate, something that would justify the silence. The work is still in motion, and I will share more when the time is right. For now, I want to share something that has been…
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Where is my mind?
Until recently, I was unaware of how such really smart people (philosophers, neuroscientists, physicists, all the king’s horses…) were in a state far worse than losing their minds. Apparently, they had never found their minds! (or anyone else’s for that matter). They can’t even agree on what constitutes one’s mind. How could something be so…
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Medsplaining
We’ve all done it. We encounter and embrace a new mechanistic account of a phenomenon that we can’t wait to share with our patients. I remember explaining to the member of the local motorcycle “club” that his back pain was in his “brain.” I remember the knots in my stomach that tightened as I attempted…
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Stream of (sub)Consciousness
Dear Colleague, An astute reader of these newsletters, observed that active inference, that is the process of sense-making through predictions, comparisons, and adjustments to minimize discrepancies between predictions and sensory inputs (prediction errors), is (largely, if not entirely) subconscious. Yes! I agree with that assessment. Why then, this preoccupation with the “lived (conscious) experience”? Glad…
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“You’re gonna need a bigger model”
Last week, we looked at papers which, using qualitative methods, summarized key themes based on the lived experience of persistent dizziness [1-5]: We then asked, Are our current conceptual models and their generative treatments sufficient to integrate and address these complexities? Being influenced by de Haan (2020) [6], I have come to believe that…
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Integrative?
Dear Colleague, We seem to hear (and talk) quite a bit about an “Integrative Approach” to caring for or teaching someone. But does it really mean what we think it means? What are we integrating exactly? The ‘area under the curve?’ I could never do that. I think I received a ‘Mer-C’ in…
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Our journey begins…
Dear Colleague, I am pleased to announce the launch of my website. It will be a place where we can engage, learn, and grow. I will be sharing specifics on future events, such as courses, clinical conversations, and other opportunities for us to connect. Please subscribe to receive blog posts, course announcements, and other opportunities…