Michael R Edelstein is a clinical psychologist with a practice in San Francisco, and globally via Skype. As a teenager, he was depressed and anxious, and a chronic procrastinator. After a long, unsuccessful stint of psychoanalysis, Michael discovered the pioneering work of Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).
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Doug Lisle, PhD, is an evolutionary psychologist, Director of Research at True North Health Center, and co-author of one of the most important and – to me – challenging books on human happiness and health, The Pleasure Trap. The other author, Alan Goldhamer, was a recent guest on this podcast, and credited his desire to beat Doug at basketball as the motivating factor behind his own search for the truth about health.
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Hey there, it’s me, Howard.
My mind has been buzzing lately, full of input from some of the guests I’ve interviewed over the past few months. It’s like they’ve been talking with each other, in my mind, and I have these momentary revelations and confusions as I go on runs, sit down to write, and lay awake at night when I’m not tired enough to sleep
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Matt Frazier and Sid Garza-Hillman have teamed up to produce plant-base meal plans that are designed to get us to the point where we no longer need meal plans.
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Bob Cafaro was enjoying a successful career as a professional cellist with the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was struck with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in December, 1998. After some serious denial and three increasingly nasty attacks, he was forced to confront the reality and severity of his diagnosis.
With Bob’s eyesight worsening to the point of blindness and his hands unable to control the cello, it was only natural for his doctor to write him a note for permanent disability. And slip him a script for an antidepressant to help him cope with the loss of his profession, his livelihood, his passion, and his independent existence
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Nina Cooke is a performance coach who specializes in helping people find success, balance, and happiness in their lives by questioning their most subterranean beliefs and thought patterns. I met her through a mutual friend who shared with me how helpful Nina had been in showing him how to unlock his own potential.
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I just recorded a wonderfully inspiring interview with professional cellist Bob Cafaro, who beat MS using, among other things, a plant-based diet. But there’s so much more to his story than broccoli and rice! We talked about Nolan Ryan, Bobby Fisher, Lance Armstrong, the US Army Survival Manual, Nando Parrado, finding free parking in Manhattan,…
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True confession: I usually multitask while I eat, despite telling other people not to. I read, I Facebook, I talk on the phone, I create presentations, and so on. I rationalize it very well: I’m busy, I can still chew slowly (note to self: “BS!”), and this is the last time.
And luckily, I tell myself, it’s no big deal.
Marc Schoen, PhD, assistant clinical professor at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine, disagrees. And after reading his absolutely amazingly important and helpful book, Your Survival Instinct is Killing You, he’s convinced me.
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Vlad Chituc is a behavioral economics researcher at Duke University. He works with Dan Ariely at the Center for Advanced Hindsight, and focuses on issues of ethics, morality, and decision-making.
When we chatted briefly a few weeks ago about his veganism and his commitment to reduce animal suffering, I was struck by his contrarian views and the really cool research behind them.
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Irving Kirsch is a soft-spoken researcher who accidentally stumbled upon one of the biggest and most costly errors in modern medicine. His cautious yet relentless search for the truth has made him persona non grata to much of the psychiatric profession and pharmaceutical industry, and a hero to the rest of us.
His findings, documented in his book The Emperor’s New Drugs as well as in dozens of published papers and book chapters, has generated a lot of controversy, including a 5-page cover story in Newsweek and a segment on 60 Minutes.
His conclusion: antidepressant drugs, including blockbusters like Prozac and Paxil, don’t work. They’re no better than placebo, meaning the only reason people feel and get better when they take those drugs is because they believe they will.
When you look at the evidence collected and analyzed and curated by Kirsch, it’s hard to disagree.
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