Brains On Purpose™

How important is mindset to conflict resolution? Or to anything you do? Aging? Creating? Mediating?

What's your mindset about conflict? Those conflicts that you may be a party to and those that you work with as a conflict professional? What's your mindset about the role of a mediator? Before you answer those questions, read this good overview article about mindsets and their strong influence.

From "Intelligence and Other Stereotypes: The Power of Mindset":

Our brains never stop learning, never stop changing, never stop growing new connections and pruning unused ones. And they never stop growing stronger in those areas where we reinforce them, like a muscle that keeps strengthening with use (but atrophies with disuse), that can be trained to perform feats of strength we’d never before thought possible—indeed, that we’d never even thought to imagine.

...

Not only is intelligence not fixed, but neither are any number of abilities that we may think we either have or don’t have, be they as straightforward-seeming as math skills or as complex as musicality. Walter Mischel and Carol Dweck may have been labeled when young, but at the end, it was their attitude towards those labels and not the labels themselves that ended up determining the course of their lives.

It is a remarkable thing, the human brain.

Amen to that! Click to read the rest.

Read all about it in the New York Times: Brains on purpose = self-directed neuroplasticity

The phrase "brains on purpose" was included in a blog post this weekend published in the New York Times:

One can decide to be a more attentive and compassionate partner, mindful of the other’s motives, hurts and longings. Breaking old habits isn’t easy, since habits are deeply ingrained neural shortcuts, a way of slurring over details without having to dwell on them. Couples often choose to rewire their brains on purpose [emphasis added], sometimes with a therapist’s help, to ease conflicts and strengthen their at-one-ness.

Yes, we all can choose to rewire our brains on purpose. We've been saying that around here at this blog for a few years now. It was great fun to see the phrase in a national newspaper.

The New York Times post is a very short overview of some aspects of interpersonal neurobiology and neuroplasticity. Click here to read "The Brain on Love."

Note: (added March 27, 2012): Another article which picks up the phrase "brains on purpose": "How love goes to one’s head" (Mercator.net).

Note (added April 6, 2012): Although I don't often refer to a New Age guru, Deepak Chopra makes some good points in responding to the New York Times article and criticizing the materialist point of view: "Can Your Brain Fall in Love?" (San Francisco Chronicle). Excerpt:

Yet the basic premise of the article is problematic. She doesn't crudely claim that your brain is in love and therefore you are, too. (We suppose that's why the article is titled "The Brain on Love' rather than "The Brain in Love"). But at bottom it's still the standard materialist argument, bolstered by tons of data from neuroimaging, which fails to separate brain from mind. When a person experiences love, the brain registers and expresses that experience through electrical and chemical reactions, the way a radio playing music registers and plays every note that Mozart wrote. But the brain isn't in love any more than the radio is enjoying music.

Interview of authors of new book EMOTIONAL LIFE OF YOUR BRAIN

Click to watch Charlie Rose conduct a short interview of Richie Davidson and Sharon Begley about their book Emotional Life of Your Brain. In reading the book, I particularly appreciated that it reminds the reader of two things:

• We each are unique and thus one size does not fit all
• We can change our brains (and thus behavior) if we want to.

Note (added March 15, 2012): Click for an interview  of the authors by Diane Rehm of NPR.

One-minute lessons on changing your brain: Reminders of why attention choreography is so important

How do you change your brain? Pay attention to what you're paying attention to; watch your mental flashlight. How do you help others to change their brains (e.g., parties to a dispute, attendees at a presentation)? Facilitate their attention, be an attention choreographer, an attention conductor.

Nothing new. We've looked at this critical role of attention in neuroplasticity many times before here on this blog. However, it's nice to have quick (under 60 seconds) and smart reminders of the role of attention and the fact that we are never too old to change our brains. And that's what Anette Prehn has created . . .

• Click to watch her video on self-directed neuroplasticity
• Click to watch her video on teaching old dogs new tricks

Note: Prehn's telecourse on reframing starts tomorrow, February 15. And to see more videos as she posts them, watch this space on YouTube.

"A Role for Volition and Attention in the Generation of New Brain Circuitry"

What's the role of volition and attention in reshaping our brains through self-directed neuroplasticity? Here's the answer straight from the mouth of the man who coined the term "self-directed neuroplasticity." This article to which I link below focuses on treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) but its author Dr. Jeff Schwartz in his new book You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life has shown how volition and attention can be used to make other changes in one's life.

Excerpt:

The use of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) as a means of enabling people suffering from OCD to overcome their repetitive responses to bothersome intrusive conscious phenomena offers a valuable source of data to those interested in the study of the mind-brain interface. Because there is strong evidence that the core experience common to essentially all OCD symptoms — a gnawing, intrusive, inescapable and predominantly passively experienced sense that ‘something is wrong’ — is generated by faulty brain circuitry (for review see Schwartz, 1997a; 1998a), a close examination of the mental processes used by people learning how to wilfully alter their behavioural responses to OCD can yield significant insights about the processes whereby changes in the meaning or value one places on distressing conscious phenomena can result in active changes in how one responds to those phenomena. The training techniques which are used to accomplish that clinical goal explicitly encourage OCD sufferers to arrive at a new understanding of the relationship between their brain, their conscious experience, and their choice of behavioural responses to that experience (Schwartz, 1996). Since an understanding of the basic brain circuitry involved in OCD forms a key part in the theoretical basis of the cognitive training techniques we utilize at UCLA, and since significant alterations in the metabolic activity of those circuits occurs in response to successful treatment, a brief review of the basic brain mechanisms of OCD seems in order.

Click to read the rest of "A Role for Volition and Attention in the Generation of New Brain Circuitry: Toward A Neurobiology of Mental Force" (Journal of Consciousness Studies) [posted with the author's permission].

Interview with Jeffrey Schwartz, MD, on how to rewire your brain, problems with materialism in science, and his new book

Click to listen to an excellent interview [link is also below] in which Dr. Jeff Schwartz talks with Michael Ray Dresser about the new book You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life, and the many problems with thinking your brain controls who you are, what you think, and how you act.

Jeff says, "The brain can control your entire life if you let it." He then talks about why you would not want your brain to be in control, how to make sure you are not living a rat-like, habit-driven life, and the benefits of living life in a conscious, discerning, and mindful way.

The interviewer is very skilled and knowledgeable, and Jeff is articulate, passionate, and clear. Highly recommended!

Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz-6-30-2011-Track 1

 

The science behind the allure of 'bad boys': Dr. Jeff Schwartz explains

Dr. Schwartz visited the studios of CBS Los Angeles to talk about women being attracted to men who are proud and moody. Click "Scientific Proof Behind The Allure Of ‘Bad Boys’" to watch the interview. Or watch below.

In brief, he said that, yes, women may be attracted to these men at a hormonal or brain level, but we are not our brains and we can transcend these animal impulses. If we each consult our inner Wise Advocate, it will enable us to recognize signals that are brain-based and assist us in rising above these signals, in order to make decisions that are in our best interest. His new book You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life, which comes out tomorrow, explains all of this in depth, including how to be in frequent touch with your Wise Advocate. I have read the book, and highly recommend it to you if you want to operate at your highest potential.

Jeff Schwartz: CBS Los Angeles Interview from BrightSightGroup on Vimeo.

Conference: Mind & Its Potential

From the event Web site:

Change your mind: change your brain
How do we learn? How should we teach? How do we overcome adversity and disability? How should we live our lives? Join world leaders in science, education, psychology and the arts in exploring these profound questions at Mind & Its Potential 2011.

Be motivated and inspired by an amazing gathering of 40+ speakers! Keynotes include leading authority on creative thinking, Dr Edward de Bono, world renowned neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield, Mind Mapping guru Tony Buzan, acclaimed neuroplasticity researcher Dr Jeffrey M Schwartz and learning and the brain expert Dr Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.

The conference, to be held in November in Sydney, will include these programs:

• You are not your brain - Dr Jeffrey Schwartz
• The view from within the mind studied from without - Dr Baljinder Sahdra
• Outside the box: the neuroscience of creativity - Baroness Susan Greenfield
• Use your head – innovative learning and thinking techniques to fulfill your potential - Tony Buzan 
• The rewards of mental effort - exercising your imagination and creativity - Professor Erica McWilliam
• How to have a beautiful mind - Dr Edward de Bono

Click for more details about the conference.

Short description of self-directed neuroplasticity

As you will recall, when you have a brain on purpose, or change your brain with your mind, you are engaging in self-directed neuroplasticity (SDN). A quick overview of seminal work in SDN is given in a new article "The Neurobiology of We" (Parabola):

The breakthrough in imaging techniques led Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, now a research psychiatrist at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles and author of The Mind & The Brain, to wonder two decades ago, “What kind of internal experience is generated by the neuronal activity captured on a brain scan? Even more important, how can we use scientific discoveries linking inner experience with brain function to effect constructive changes in everyday life?”1 A student of Buddhist meditation, he developed a form of therapy to change the faulty chemistry of a well-identified brain circuit: that of the patient with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (OCD is

A reminder that one role of a dispute professional is attention choreographer

Click to watch a video in which neuroscientist Jeff Schwartz describes research looking at the power of linguistic labeling of emotion to calm our amygdala. (Here's a blog post about this same research on labeling the affect.) The cognitive use of language to manage emotions is one of several topics he covers in this short clip from a talk he recently gave at the Mayo Clinic entitled "The Quantum Brain and Self-Directed Neuroplasticity."

He also explains the statement "the brain puts out the call; the mind decides whether to listen." Whether to listen and how we listen determines if we just follow the brain's commands in an animal-like way or if we activate the frontal cortex. If we do the latter, we can decide not to mechanistically follow the brain.

Of course, in order to label our emotions or to make the decision not to heed the brain's call, we need to be paying attention to what we are paying attention to. In order for our clients to make those decisions to move from reactive to reflective, they need to be paying the same kind of attention.

As you watch, you will see that attention is a main theme of this talk excerpt. Jeff also explains the quote from William James: "Volitional effort is effort of attention." He looks at the value of directing our attention, especially under circumstances of painful or emotionally evocative stimuli. As we all know, conflict often involves such stimuli. Attention is a key skill in handling pain and emotion.

Listening to this short clip can remind you why conflict professionals can be more effective by seeing themselves as attention choreographers.

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.

Interview of renowned OCD researcher Jeffrey Schwartz

Kellie Madison [on Twitter] is working on a movie titled Machine Man about a man with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In this video, she and Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz are interviewed by Dawna Lee Heising about the movie and about OCD.

Notes:

• Jeff Schwartz's upcoming book: You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life
• Jeff Bell's book: Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Press release about the movie: Veteran Female filmmaker Kellie Madison tackles obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) with narrative feature film; Kicks off never-been-done-before grassroots campaign to raise awareness and funding
• Facebook page for Machine Man