Show Notes
Depression is a relapsing disease and preventing future depressive episodes is critical for lifelong mental health. Psychiatrist and UCSF Professor Emeritus Stuart Eisendrath’s new book, When Antidepressants Aren’t Enough: Harnessing mindfulness to alleviate depression, is a layperson’s guide for depression relapse prevention. His book offers detailed psycho-education on depression and anxiety (something most patients rarely receive) and features an easy-to-follow program of targeted breath exercises, meditations, and innovative visualizations from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), an evidence-based, 8-week course offered for many years at the UCSF Depression Center. It was a great honor to have time with Dr. Eisendrath and I know this conversation will be deeply informative for both clinicians and people suffering with depression and anxiety. Stuart Eisendrath, MD, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences is a psychiatrist who cares for patients with depressive disorders and treatment resistant depression, and was UCSF Depression Center's founding director. A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, he has authored many books on psychiatric disorders and using mindfulness to treat depression.
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More from Groundless Ground Podcast
It's time to say farewell to the GG Podcast. GG Episodes are now housed on Lisa's YouTube Channel. This is an invitation to all the GG listeners to subscribe and listen to the new Buddhist Psychology Podcast. Thank you for all your support over these 6 years. See you on BPP which cam be found on all the usual podcast apps and my Integrative Psychotherapy Substack! Subscribe to the Buddhist Psychology Podcast BPP Episode 2 Apple podcast link
Clinician Paula Scatoloni returns to the Groundless Ground 6 years later, to share the evolution of her clinical work which now integrates sound therapies and energy medicine techniques along with somatic psychotherapy. This is a fascinating episode covering several kinds of sound modalities, such as: The Safe and Sound Protocol a unique listening experience that has been filtered through a patented, evidence-based algorithm highlighting specific sound frequencies which help regulate the autonomic nervous system and stimulate the vagus nerve. Binaural beats and Bio-lateral beats whose proponents assert these sound waves enhance certain beneficial brainwaves, though those claims lack good clinical research. And Biofield Tuning which utilizes a tuning fork to identify and resolve energetic disturbances in the subtle body nervous system. While all of this may sound far-fetched, Paula and I try our best to present it with the clarity and levelheadedness you deserve. Paula Scatoloni LCSW holds a degree in social work and is certified in Somatic Experiencing, Biofield Tuning, Reiki, Brain Spotting, and many other forms of somatic therapy. She integrates her Western framework with earth-based practices for sound journeying and her gifts in vibrational healing
How can mental health professionals understand mental confusion from a Buddhist psychological perspective? This episode features a dharma talk by Lisa Dale Miller on a profoundly informative Sutta from the Pali Canon which offers answers to that question. Lisa also provides supplementary psychological commentary on the Sutta after the talk is finished.
Lisa Dale Miller starts this episode with an explanation of why the Groundless Ground Podcast has been on hiatus for the last year. Then the episode presents a dharma talk Lisa gave at Marin Sangha one month ago. Her talk is a reminder that every moment is an invitation to decrease the mass of human suffering by seeding the world with at least one more quiescent, wise, and compassionate mind committed to non-harming. Lisa explicates why cultivation of Bodhicitta is the ultimate path to accomplishing that aim, right in the midst of ordinary daily life. Longchenpa's Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind Lisa Dale Miller, LMFT, LPCC, SEP specializes in working with high-performing professionals (engineers, scientists, executives, physicians/psychologists, first responders) struggling with unresolved traumatic experiences: particularly medical trauma, C-PTSD, combat and war trauma, moral injury, high-impact injuries, burnout, workplace harassment, traumatic grief, and challenging life transitions. Lisa authored Effortless Mindfulness: Genuine mental health through awakened presence a highly regarded textbook on Buddhist psychology for mental health professionals. Lisa has been an outpatient clinician for the VA San Jose, has taught a variety of Mindfulness-based Interventions, and is an AAMFT Clinical Fellow. Lisa is a Buddhist teacher and has been a yogic and Buddhist meditation practitioner for over four decades.
This is a recording of a dharma talk Lisa Dale Miller gave March 19, 2003 at Marin Sangha. Recently neuroscientist Richard Davidson reiterated a long-held tenet of Tibetan Buddhism that all human beings share the same wish to be happy and free of suffering, and that this wish emerges from innate basic goodness. This goodness is often viewed in Mahāyāna and Vajrayana Buddhism as an expression of Buddhanature, the fundamental awakened mind of all beings. There is not much in the Pāli Canon to support the notion of innate goodness. However, the Buddha did teach unconditioned mind—a mind purified through contemplative effort, not an innately awakened mind. This dharma talk compares these two frameworks and explores the cultivation of ethical goodness using specific suttas and findings from affective neuroscience. And I am joined by a co-teacher ChatGPT, which explicates historical references to goodness and investigates its own sense of how to engage in ethical conduct. Lisa's catalogue of Dharma Talks can be found on the Groundless Ground and those done prior to 2020 are available on my clinical website.