In this conversation, we talk about a gentle, inspiring approach to meditation practice and self-discovery. Linda Modaro and Nelly Kaufer are the authors of: Reflective Meditation: Cultivating Kindness and Curiosity in the Buddha’s Company. Linda Modaro is spiritual director and lead teacher of Sati Sangha, an online meditation community. She also mentors teachers and offers ethical reflecting for Buddhist teachers. Formerly an Acupuncturist and master of Qi Gong, Linda created a bestselling four-part Qi Gong video series, Discovering Chi (1995). Nelly Kaufer is founder and lead teacher at Pine Street Sangha, a meditation center in Portland, Oregon. A psychotherapist in private practice, she integrates Buddhist psychology into her clinical orientation as well as in continuing education workshops for mental health professionals. Nelly has co-authored several books, including A Woman’s Guide to Spiritual Renewal (Harper, 1994). See their website.

In conversation with Raja Selvam, we explore the practice of developing the capacity for emotions by making more room for them in the body. Dr. Raja Selvam, PhD, who has taught in over twenty five  countries on six continents, is a licensed clinical psychologist from California, a senior trainer in Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing (SE) professional trauma training programs, and the developer of Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP), a science-backed, body-based, and emotion-focused complementary approach designed to reduce treatment times and improve diverse outcomes in all therapy modalities including existing body psychotherapy approaches. He is the author of the best-selling book The Practice of embodying emotions: A Guide for improving cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. His work is informed by older body psychotherapy systems (Reichian Therapy, Bioenergetic Analysis), newer body psychotherapy systems (Bodynamic Analysis, Somatic Experiencing), and bodywork systems (Postural Integration, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy). It is also inspired by Jungian and archetypal psychologies, Kleinian and intersubjective schools of psychoanalysis, affective neuroscience, quantum physics, yoga, Polarity Therapy, and Advaita Vedanta (spiritual psychology from India). See: www.integralsomaticpsychology.com. 

In this conversation with Seth Zuihō Segall about his new book, The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism, Seth talks about his journey, making sense of life through the practice of psychology, Buddhism, and philosophy. We talk about values, and the importance of pluralism in modern liberal democratic societies. Seth Zuihō Segall, Ph.D. is a Zen Buddhist priest at Pamsula Zen of Westchester and a guest teacher at the New York Insight Meditation Center. He was formerly Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at the Yale University School of Medicine, and Director of Psychology at Waterbury Hospital. Seth’s most recent book is The House We Live in: Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism (2023). He is also the author of Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings (2003), Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective (2020), Living Zen: A Practical Guide to a Peaceful, Positive, and Balanced Life (2020), and chapters in The Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation (2022) and the Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality (2022). He is a contributing editor for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, a review editor for The Humanistic Psychologist, and the science writer for the Mindfulness Research Monthly. See also a one-minute excerpt of this conversation as “the mindful practice of pluralism.” See also other conversation with Seth Zuihō Segall.

Maia Szalavitz blends personal experience and years of investigative research into an inspiring perspective on addiction. She eloquently makes the case that addicted people need to be understood on their own terms, instead of being further marginalized by constructs that reflect society’s biases. Maia Szalavitz is the author, most recently, of Undoing Drugs:  The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction, which is the first history of the movement aimed at focusing drug policy on minimizing harms, not highs. Her previous New York Times bestseller, Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction wove together neuroscience and social science with her personal experience of heroin addiction.  It won the 2018 media award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and has written for numerous other publications including TIME, Wired, Elle, the National, and Scientific American. The Proactive Twelve Steps: A Mindful Program For Lasting Change

We do our best to avoid anxiety, and in so doing, risk missing out on the best of the depth and mystery of existence. We also risk compounding the very anxiety we hoped to avoid and becoming destructive as a result. This conversation with Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D., touches on a topic of great relevance to us as therapists, therapy clients, and human beings: Anxiety can be life-enhancing; how can we make it so?  Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D., is the author of the new book “Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World.” He is a licensed psychologist and leading spokesperson for contemporary existential-humanistic psychology. Dr. Schneider is the current president of the Existential-Humanistic Institute (EHI), Council Member of the American Psychological Association (APA), past president (2015-2016) of the Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32) of the APA, recent past editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (2005-2012), and adjunct faculty member at Saybrook University and Teachers College, Columbia University. A Fellow of the APA, Dr. Schneider has published over 200 articles, interviews and chapters. His other books include The Spirituality of Awe, The Polarized Mind, The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, Existential-Humanistic therapy, Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy, and the Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy. His work has been featured in Scientific American, the New York Times, Psychology Today and many other publications. See his website.

How does the Polyvagal Theory affect our understanding of mindfulness? Blake O’Connor interviews Serge Prengel. This conversation expands on the article on Polyvagal-informed mindfulness. Serge Prengel is a therapist, a co-founder of the Integrative Focusing Therapy training program, and the editor of Active Pause. Blake O’Connor is the Education Director of the Polyvagal Institute. Published February 2023

In this conversation, we talk about freeing meditation from the pressures of what we believe it should be and welcoming every aspect of our inner experience. Dr. Elizabeth English began meditating as a student in 1983. Three decades later, she was appointed as Cambridge University’s first ever Mindfulness Practitioner. Her courses are the subject of research published in The Lancet showing significant benefit to students, and are now also offered more widely online. Elizabeth draws on four decades of personal meditation practice and her ordination within a Western Buddhist tradition, as well as her doctoral research at Oxford, where she studied Buddhist meditation texts. She is also a certified teacher of Focusing, Somatic Experiencing, and Nonviolent Communication. She spends much of her time singing and writing, both poetry and prose. Her first ‘gentle guide’ to meditation was published this year: Journeys to the Deep: A Gentle Guide to Mindfulness Meditation. She lives in Cambridge with her cocker spaniel, Cherub. For more information on her courses and her book, see her website. Published July 2022.

Antonio Damasio described Nora Arikha as “a poet and a painter with the soul of a scientist.” Our conversation is informed by psychology and neuroscience. It is grounded in the firm intention to pay attention to the embodied quality of our experience and the context in which it emerges. Noga Arikha is a philosopher and historian of ideas. Her The Ceiling Outside: The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind, was published by Basic Books (UK & US) in Spring 2022. Neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese called this book “a moving journey to the roots of the self, which uniquely combines the author’s deep knowledge of its neuropsychological foundations with a touching humanistic sensibility.” She is also the author of Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours (2007). She is an associate fellow of the Warburg Institute and an honorary fellow of the Center for the Politics of Feelings, London, and a research associate at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris. She is currently based in Florence, Italy. See website. Published July 2022

Lawrence Berger and Serge Prengel discuss how we make sense of the world and our place in it, i.e. what is usually called philosophy or spirituality. We approach this from somewhat different perspectives:– One emphasizes a connection with a sense of something greater than ourselves in which we can find meaning and purpose (“there’s nothing more important than why we’re here”). – The other emphasizes the moment-by-moment process of finding meaning and purpose as we live (“I get in touch with my sense of meaning and purpose as I face life moment by moment”). Lawrence Berger, PhD, is a long-time practitioner of mindfulness and has taught philosophy at several universities. He is working on a book entitled The Politics Of Attention & The Promise Of Mindfulness. Serge Prengel is a therapist and explorer of creative approaches to mindfulness. He is the editor of Active Pause and is developing a course on Polyvagal-informed mindfulness.

We explore a concept that is very important to Bruce Gibbs, finding the right distance from our experience. We talk about how the right distance varies with the context, for instance how it is different in meditation and in Focusing. And we talk about what finding that distance entails. Bruce Gibbs, Ph.D., has explored consciousness, both academically and experientially, for many decades. He has practiced Yoga, Vipassana, and Zen meditation. He is a long-time meditator and Focusing teacher. He is dedicated to experimenting with the crossing of the two, and he has developed a form of Felt Sense meditation. Published April 2022.