Freud was wrong about catharsis

Why does the “talking cure” pioneered by Sigmund Freud and his students help relieve anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses?
Freud famously taught that psychotherapy helped the patient achieve catharsis, or purging of the emotions. This was helpful, Freud thought, because he imagined that our emotions exist in a closed hydraulic system like a steam [...]

Introduction to Biological Anthropology

UC Berkeley neurobiologist Terrence Deacon gives a rousing grand finale to his spring 2009 course Introduction to Biological Anthropology (website, feed).
The final three lectures explore the ways that our bodies and minds have been shaped by evolution, sometimes in ways that leave us poorly prepared for the artificial environments in which we now live.
He’s not [...]

Neurobiology of sex: the birds, the bees, baboons and us

Stanford biology professor Robert Sapolsky is a smart funny guy who sprints from one topic to the next, strewing interesting ideas and punchlines in his path. Sapolsky has long been a favorite of mine (see The best health lecture on the Internet) and recently BoingBoing pointed out that two lectures from his Human Behavioral Biology [...]

Two great sociology classes from UCSD

What was the difference between the apartheid regime in South Africa and the Jim Crow regime in the American South?
According to UCSD sociologist Ivan Evans, the important difference was that South Africa used state power to terrorize and intimidate black Africans while the whites of the American South used non-state threats like mob violence and [...]

10 top things to do with your iPod during a financial meltdown

10) Learn about stress in baboons.
Our primate cousins have a lot to teach us about handling stress according to this lecture (iTunes) by Stanford stress researcher Robert Sapolsky.
9) Take a meditation break.
Get the free audio for short, guided meditations from UCLA’s Mindfulness Awareness Research Center (iTunes) (website). (See Ready for a break? Try meditation)
8) Read [...]

Ready for a break? Try meditation

Are you spending too much time worrying about (pick one or several):

job security,
the financial crisis,
global warming,
terrorism,
your kid’s algebra homework?

Meditation is a proven antidote to stress, and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has a podcast (iTunes) (website) to help. Diana Winston, director for mindfulness education at UCLA’s mindfulness awareness research Center, narrates the [...]

The best health lecture on the Internet

Stanford University stress researcher, Robert Sapolsky, in his lecture Stress and Coping: What Baboons Can Teach Us (iTunes) takes us along to the Serengeti of East Africa where he studies our close relatives, the baboons. Like us, the baboons of the Serengeti have a pretty easy time of it meeting their basic needs. [...]