Sacred Disorder | Cliff Bostock's blog – 'Finally, I came to regard as sacred the disorder of my mind' (Rimbaud)

Archive for the "Uncategorized" Category

Broken-hearted, lost in a labyrinth, encountering angels

PSYCHOLOGICAL LIFE  begins in the imagination. That’s one reason I have a sign in my office, dangling from the mantel, that asks clients if they have a dream to share or if something unusual happened since their last session. The latter — odd, sometimes surreal experiences — often communicate at great depth what is going […]

Read More ›

The Frantic Muse: Write a book in 30 days

A group of us are undertaking the rather scary project of writing (the rough draft of) a book in 30 days. The experiment’s “text book” is a PDF file that offers instruction for a novel in particular. But I think it’s pretty applicable to nonfiction too. We have a couple of spaces left. This is […]

Read More ›

CL cuts back ‘Grazing’ after 20+ years

I received bad news from Creative Loafing today. The new editor has decided to discontinue my “Grazing” column, which I’ve written over 20 years. The reason was financial, according to dining editor Besha Rodell, who was given the task of informing me. I may be writing a monthly version and will likely continue posting on […]

Read More ›

Charlie Sheen: cracking up with America

As I’ve explained many times, I don’t watch TV, so the Charlie Sheen brouhaha didn’t enter my awareness until a few days ago when I came across the above  video.  Then I Googled and found a zillion articles and video clips in which every mental health professional on the planet, like Dr. Drew, proffers an […]

Read More ›

When therapy is all about the money

Is talk therapy going silent? Not entirely, but the Saturday edition of the New York Times featured an article entitled “Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy.” This is very old news to anyone in the mental health field — as a patient or practitioner. But it’s good to see that The […]

Read More ›

Is compassion a lost virtue?

There is a new, wonderful video by Krista Tippett for TED. She is host of the NPR  show “On Being.” I especially like the way she compares tolerance and compassion. Many people inappropriately conflate the two. Followers of James Hillman’s work will be interested to hear that Krista associates compassion with beauty and notes that […]

Read More ›

Eat, eat, chew, chew, swallow

Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life from Harvard SPH on Vimeo. (UPDATED BELOW) If you have any contact with psychotherapy these days, you’ve heard about mindfulness training. Adapted from Buddhist psychology, it’s a method of staying fully conscious in the present moment. My own decision to study psychology for an MA and PhD was very much […]

Read More ›

Sleep, dreams and creativity

The New York Times has been publishing a blog, “All-Nighters,” which it describes as “an exploration of insomnia, sleep and the nocturnal life.” It’s of personal interest to me since I’ve suffered insomnia ever since my mother’s death four years ago. I found the March 19 entry, “Why We Need to Dream” by Jonah Lehrer, […]

Read More ›

Another birthday

Tuesday, June 16, is my birthday. It’s also Bloomsday, Dublin’s annual celebration of writer James Joyce and his world-changing novel, Ulysses, published in 1922. Bloomsday is named after Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, which describes a single day in his life, June 16, 1904. I’ve always enjoyed the coincidence of being born on the […]

Read More ›

A blast of synchronicity, courtesy of Shambhala

Okay, I need to let everyone know that I’m awaking to full enlightenment by 10 p.m. Sunday. This means that after tonight you cannot reasonably question anything I have to say. Of course, it also means that even if you do question me, I’ll respond with such equanimity that you’ll gladly believe the sky is […]

Read More ›

 

Essentials

Meta

Pages

Categories