The Modern Mind

The impact of culture on human experience

Liah Greenfeld Ph.D.

The Making of a Lone Wolf Terrorist

Why insanity defense may be appropriate for school shooters but not appropriate for home-grown jihadis

A Bloggers’ Quarrel

I would suggest to my fellow blogger Dr. Rettew that the agreement between our positions is probably far greater than the disagreement...

Choices, Children, and Happiness

Our society lays stress on choices, rather than children. Other societies still emphasize children over choices. We consider such societies repressive, narrow-minded. Don’t we deceive ourselves?

The State of Psychiatry Today

The explanation of the consistent failure of psychiatry to find the causes of and cure the most devastating illnesses within its purview lies in the early, empirically unwarranted, commitment of the psychiatric profession to the biological paradigm, a commitment which is instead based on career-enhancing considerations of social prestige.

The Mind and Its Diseases

To understand mental illness from a cultural perspective, we need a clearly defined concept of culture, pointing to concrete, empirical phenomena, clearly and demonstrably related to mental functioning.

Culture, Mind, and Genius

Genius results from the unusually close integration of the symbolic process on the collective level (culture) and the symbolic process on the individual level (mind).

Anatomy of the Mind 3

While human beings can well do without the thinking self, human existence without it would be impossible. It is a necessary condition for the culture process on the collective level: what makes possible self-consciousness for any one of us is that which makes possible indirect learning and thus the transmission of human ways of life across generations and distances.

Anatomy of the Mind 2

By definition, the will is free: it is always up to the human agency, to the acting self to decide which symbolic tack to take.

The Anatomy of the Mind

Identity mediates between one’s natural or animal capacities and one’s functioning as a person, one's humanity. A damage to one’s cultural identity will alter mental performance dramatically.

The Man of My Life Is Turning Sixty

I reflect on how lucky I’ve been to be in love since 24.

Is Homo Sapiens The Only Human Species?

If we define humanity logically, turns out dogs are human too.

When Does Human Life Begin?

Does the possibility that embryos are not human complicate the abortion issue?

The Death of a Cat

It is remarkable how meaningful a relationship can one strike sometimes with animal, who is not even one’s pet.

Life Is Too Short. Or Is It?

Medical advances in prolonging life may have unintended consequences.

The Judgment of the People

Why do we join the French in celebrating Bastille Day?

A Break-Up

A father is heart-broken over the fact that his son is gay. Why?

A Little Love Affair

There is love to be found, even at 85, when one answers someone’s cry for help.

The Greatest American Challenge

Even in the midst of summer and even as we celebrate the Fourth of July, we should not forget that every fourth American student is depressed. Depression may be endangering our country’s future.

Women And Sex

Women’s sex-life may be more complicated than we were taught to think. And it's not only because of depression.

The Mind As Culture in the Brain

While culture can be referred to as “collective mind,” the mind can be conceptualized as “culture in the brain,” or “individualized culture.”

Would You Like to Live Forever?

Is a longer life necessarily a better life? Would we want to live eternally?

What Can Darwin’s Great Theory Teach Us About Culture?

It is Darwin’s theory of evolution which allows us to recognize culture as an autonomous empirical reality that can be scientifically studied.

Learning, Memory, Imagination

The native intelligence, learning ability, and creative imaginative capacity of some animals well may be as well or better developed than those of humans, but these innate capacities do not create culture.

A New Perspective on Human Nature

What distinguishes us from animals? Certainly not our superior brain power or emotional sophistication. What then?

Are Souls Real?

Few of us would say the soul is a scientific subject in the sense that it can be studied and understood by science. Many neuroscientists, in fact, don’t even believe that the soul exists. In this post, I would like you, my readers, to participate in proving such neuroscientists wrong.

Gender and Neuroscience

How would you justify your belief in gender equality?

Home-Grown Terrorists: Actually Terrorists or Mentally Ill?

The focus on international terrorism prevents us from seeing the extent of the mental health problem at home.

Is Depression A Real Disease?

Depression is a culture-bound syndrome. It is also a terrible real disease. It can be cured. But we must at last open our eyes to its cultural causation.

The Real Trouble With DSM-5

DSM is an expression of the confusion in the mental health community in regard to the nature of the human mental processes—or the mind. Before this confusion is cleared, none of the problems with the DSM and the resulting mental health practice can be resolved. And the criticism of the DSM should apply also to its critics and judges, such as the NIMH.

The Modern Mental Disease

People living in societies such as ours, democratic, prosperous, relatively secure, and offering its members numerous life-choices, are different from people who lived or live in other types of societies. We experience life differently and suffer from a uniquely modern mental illness.

  • Previous
  • Page 1 (current)
  • Next