Mindful self-compassion residential: last morning, reviewing & appreciating
13th May 2017
The first evening of this residential was back on Tuesday and it's now Saturday morning. I've already written an initial post "Mindful self-compassion residential: first morning, doubts & overview". So how am I feeling about the workshop now after three full days ... with just one to go? Happy, touched, …
Mindful self-compassion residential: first morning, doubts & overview
10th May 2017
Well this is interesting. Here we are - Catero, my wife, and I - at the start of a five day workshop on "Mindful self-compassion" run by Chris Germer & Christine Brahler at Drangshlid, Eyjafjoll on the south coast of Iceland. We flew into Reykjavik yesterday from Scotland, met up …
Paired meditation deepens interpersonal connection: how to go about it
6th May 2017
Yesterday I wrote the blog post "Paired meditation deepens interpersonal connection: Tania Singer's wonderful ReSource project" which introduced & overviewed the recent, very impressive ReSource Project. I also discussed the associated JAMA Psychiatry research paper "Effects of contemplative dyads on engagement and perceived social connectedness over nine months of mental …
Paired meditation deepens interpersonal connection: Tania Singer's wonderful ReSource project
5th May 2017
Yesterday I was skimming through the JAMA Psychiatry journal and I got hijacked by Kok & Singer's recent article "Effects of contemplative dyads on engagement and perceived social connectedness over nine months of mental training: a randomized controlled trial". The abstract reads - "Importance Loneliness is a risk factor for …
Complicated grief is worryingly common, poorly recognised & inadequately treated - what can we do about this?
4th May 2017
Complicated grief is ... More to follow ...
Recent research: articles from the winter journals
28th March 2017
I read a lot of research. When I find an article of particular interest I download it to my bibliographic database - Endnote - which currently contains close to 25,000 abstracts. I also regularly tweet about emerging research, so following me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ (click on the relevant …
Personal social networks (6th post): how can we look after our relationships better?
12th March 2017
I have recently written a series of blog posts about relationships - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model", "Personal social networks (2nd post): the sympathy group & the full active network", "Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing", "Personal social networks (4th post): birds of a …
Personal social networks (5th post): the frequency of conflict
11th March 2017
Personal social networks are hugely important for our health & wellbeing, as I've underlined in the first of this six post sequence - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model". However our personal networks are also regularly affected by conflicts, especially with those we're close to. It's not a …
Personal social networks (4th post): birds of a feather flock together
10th March 2017
I've recently written three blog posts about relationships - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model", "Personal social networks (2nd post): the sympathy group & the full active network" and "Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing". Towards the end of the second of these posts I …
Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing
8th March 2017
If you'd like to clarify and potentially look after your personal social network better, a good place to start is to chart it. You can download a simple blank chart here either in Word doc or PDF format. Filling in the whole "Personal community map" can take a good hour …