Category: meditation

The Self Illusion and Psychotherapy

Originally published in Psychology Today on March 21st, 2017. One of the great privileges of working in psychiatry currently is witnessing the amazing progress of so-called ‘biological psychiatry’. Advances in neurosciences and brain imaging are providing us with closer and closer glimpses of the basis of psychopathology. But for some this reductionism can lead psychiatry…

Read More

I Think, Therefore I’ll Die

Published in Psychology Today on 29th September 2016. Are you looking forward to reading an article about death? Probably not. Simply reading it-that-must-not-be-named can arrest us in our place. With torturous futility, we fill our heads with whatever is in mind’s reach to ignore one of the surest of facts: To paraphrase Descartes, “I think, therefore I’ll die”. The certainty that our mortality…

Read More

Nothing Lasts Forever: How an Atheist Copes With the Fear of Death

Published in  Elephant Journal, 19th January 2016: ‘Nothing Lasts Forever: How an Atheist Copes With the Fear of Death’. Excerpt: “Death. Simply reading the word can arrest us in our place, causing an instant tingling of visceral unease. The certainty that our mortality will eventually be realized binds us not only in solidarity, but in…

Read More