Brains On Purpose™

Free and open to the public: Stanford conference on law and memory

From the Stanford Web site:

Emerging discoveries about the science of human memory could have significant implications for law and society. This one-day conference at Stanford Law School will bring together leading neuroscientists, psychologists, ethicists, legal academics, and practitioners to explore the science of human memory and its implications for law. Beginning with what we now know about the science of memory, the conference will then focus on the legal issues around both detecting and manipulating memory. Presented by the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Interdisciplinary Group on Neuroscience and Society, with support from NeuroVentures, the Stanford Institute for Neuroinnovation and Translational Neuroscience, and Stanford Law School.

Click to read the agenda, and to see the list of speakers and descriptions of their presentations. The event will be held on April 1, 2011.

Attention: Here's an excellent resource—Articles galore for anyone who works with clients

I was delighted to learn that all the articles published by Psychotherapy Networker are available to read at the publication's Web site. Although these articles are written for therapists, lawyers and other dispute resolution professionals will likely find many of them helpful, too.

Click for the edition on the brain, which includes:

Brain to Brain by Janina Fisher
As we learn more about the brain, it becomes apparent that therapists need to pay at least as much attention to the body and nervous system—both their clients' and their own—as to the words, emotions, and the meaning-making processes of the ind.

The Brain's Rules for Change by Bruce Ecker
For the first time, we're beginning to understand how to directly delete emotional meanings attributed to disturbing past events.

The Complexity Choir by Daniel Siegel
As unlikely as it may sound, the mathematics of complexity theory could offer us the key to the elusive secrets of mental health and personal well-being.

Guitarist and jazz great Kenny Burrell has endorsed YOU ARE NOT YOUR BRAIN

Although many people are excited about the upcoming book You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life, I was particularly happy to see one of the book's endorsements.

As regular readers here know, I sometimes write about my strong interest in music and its role in conflict resolution. Therefore, I was pleased to see what jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell said about the book. Burrell wrote:

The book YOU ARE NOT YOUR BRAIN will be very helpful to those who want to improve their outlook on life and enhance their quality of life.  As this book shows, and most every musician knows, You Are Not Your Brain.  The Heart and the Spirit are the source of real creativity.  The brain is a vehicle to express that creativity.

I am in wholehearted and whole-spirited agreement with this jazz great.

Brochure for this year's Northwest Dispute Resolution Conference available

Click to access the brochure for the 18th Annual Northwest Dispute Resolution Conference [pdf]. The event will be held in Seattle on April 29-30. (No, I won't be going; for well over a decade, I have been attending the Greeley/UNC Jazz Festival which is set for the same dates.)

A list of conference highlights from the brochure:

• Ethical challenges for mediators and ethical guidelines for the lawyer’s role in mediation
• How understanding brain science can help you as a mediator or arbitrator
• Mediation in politics and the politics of mediation
• Intercultural aspects of ADR
• Facilitation processes
• Managing high conflict cases

Click to read the rest.

 

Given the diversity of reviews, I am curious to read THE SOCIAL ANIMAL and come to my own opinion

The good, the bad, and the ugly. Reviews of David Brooks' new book The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement are certainly not monolithic.

Looking at the list of books [pdf] he read in order to research The Social Animal, I probably will not agree with all that he has written. The authors he lists are for the most part a crew of materialists.

Some of the reviews (I'll continue to add to these links):

• "The Social Animal" (Christian Science Monitor)
• "David Brooks Defines The New 'Social Animal'" (NPR)
• A review critical of the science included in the book: "The Mind Readers" (Wall Street Journal)
• The most negative review I have seen: "David Brooks' dream world for the trust-fund set" (Salon)
• "The Social Animal by David Brooks: A Scornful Review" (Forbes blogs)
• "Mean Street: What David Brooks Got Wrong and Montaigne Got Right" (Wall Street Journal blogs)
• "David Brooks’s Theory of Human Nature" (New York Times)
• "'The Social Animal,' by David Brooks" (San Francisco Chronicle)
• "A case for the supremacy of the unconscious mind" (Boston Globe)
• "Social Animalapalooza" a series of reviews at Forbes blogs
• "Thinking and Talking: Where's the Human in David Brooks' Social Animal?" (Psychology Today blog)
• "David Brooks: The man who can measure true happiness" (Guardian)

Click to listen to Brooks talk about the book: Charlie Rose interview. Click to read an excerpt of the book from The New Yorker. Here's an excerpt from The New York Times. And an animated video depicting a selection of Chapter 5. Click to watch a TED video of Brooks talking about topics covered in the book.

John Cleese gives some tips on creativity: How might they help resolve a conflict?

Watch this short video to learn some of Cleese's ideas about encouraging creativity. Then find what he calls an oasis, and be creative in thinking about how each of these can be incorporated into a mediation, or other conflict resolution process. (Do this exercise only if you think creativity aids dispute resolution, of course.)

Cleese's tips (all consistent with what we know about the brain):

• Sleep on the problem
• Let the unconscious help your creativity
• Maintain uninterrupted time for creating, avoiding interruptions
• Get into the right mood, not racing around
• Create an oasis in your life, a tortoise enclosure, with boundaries of space and time
• Give yourself a start and finish time