Thought Leader

Recently Ahed Tamimi was released from prison, after eight months. Apparently Israeli soldiers are cry-babies. Shame, a little Palestinian girl slapped an Israeli soldier, and was imprisoned for doing so. That doesn’t say much about Israeli soldiers. Cowards! Unfortunately Ahed Tamimi was unable to participate in this interview …she is under probation right now so…

A thought for the day: When the First World War ground to a halt exactly 100 years ago, Germany was heavily penalised financially. Financial reparations to the Allies were set at 369-billion gold marks, equivalent to about 96 000 tons of gold, but after complaints that the payments were bankrupting a struggling nation the amount…

By Garret Barnwell The taps will run dry, fires will rage, new diseases will emerge and the weather will run an increasingly unpredictable gambit. This is what you likely have heard of the future in the era of climate change. But did you know the climate change and environmental destruction has a profound impact on…

Everyone knows the story, or myth, of Pandora (etymologically meaning ‘all-gifted’ or perhaps ‘all-giving’), who was ancient Greek mythology’s counterpart to Eve of the Old Testament — that is, the first woman created by the gods (out of earth, or clay), all of whom gave her a gift of some kind. Her notoriety derives from…

We are in the beautiful and ancient city of Wroclaw, Poland (the former Breslau, in German), at the 10th International ‘Beyond Humanism’ conference, where theorists of post- and transhumanism come together (in a different country) every year. It is the third of these inter- and multidisciplinary conferences that we have attended, and as before, the…

From promised land to pariah It was many years in the making In colony and forged capital And many lives for the taking Thirty years of progress Thirty years of peace Mountains and molehills And never-ending grief This one, not that one The quota game we play To balance the diversity To realign the pain…

We are in Porto, Portugal, for an interdisciplinary international conference, and already we are impressed by the beauty of this old city. As usual, because I find seats on a passenger jet too uncomfortable to sleep, I used the time to catch up on some movies, including I, Tonya, with Margot Robbie’s Oscar-quality performance in…

Recently, I had the privilege of delivering the opening address at the launch of Louisa Punt-Fouché’s volume of poetry, ‘Ek skryf met Bloed en Bene’ (read it here), at the newly established art gallery on her and her husband, Ian Punt’s Kredouw Olive Estate, in the Swartberg. Surrounding myself and all the guests gathered there…

  By Suntosh R. Pillay When I read The Gift of Therapy after my internship, I felt liberated. I started my first year of independent practice with a newfound confidence and ease born directly from my first foray into the masterful, soulful, instructive storytelling of Dr. Irvin D. Yalom. I have, over the years, internalized…

In 2014 I wrote a piece for this site on the work of psychoanalyst, Paul Verhaeghe, specifically the book in which he writes about the link between inequality in a market-based society and health problems across a wide spectrum. In addition to stress and anxiety symptoms, Verhaeghe pointed to something confirmed by other researchers too,…