Health and the Mind
Welcome from Mitchell Ginsberg (Jinavamsa).
..... comments invited: see email, below .....
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This page will introduce some ideas and some links about mental health and some
related issues (including something on my work and theoretical orientation in the
domain of psychotherapy) that may be of interest. Links are provided with further discussion and information about web sites that provide related reading for those wishing to investigate particular topics further. For a more general introduction, go to
my Home Page.
For more information on my orientation, inspiration, and focus of work, along with more general discussions about the field of psychotherapy, see
Health and the Mind and
Professional Links,
and the many further links given at those two web pages.
As a preview to this fuller information: I have been strongly influenced by the perspectives of
Hellmuth Kaiser, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ronnie (R.D.) Laing, Louis B. Fierman, and Loren Mosher, in the Western psychotherapeutic tradition, and by V.R. Dhiravamsa, formerly Chao Khun (Abbot) Sobhana Dhammasudhi, in the Thai Theravada Buddhist Vipassana Meditation tradition.
On the power of a systematically cultivated awareness and mindfulness practice, see
mindfulness practice or insight (vipassana) meditation. (There is more, with further links, on Mindfulness-based Psychotherapies, below.)
For more on
The Far Shore, including some selections and reviews, go to
The Far Shore directory.
And, similarly, for more on
The Inner Palace, go to
The Inner Palace directory.
TOPICS (introduced below, with links to further web pages):
My Background (overview)
My Background (overview of experience in psychotherapy)
My orientation in the world of psychotherapy
My orientation (Western focus)
My orientation (Eastern focus)
Early work with focus on schizophrenia
Early work with Drs. Loren Mosher, R.D. Laing, and Louis B. Fierman
Work in attachment issues and trauma
HIV, AIDS, SIDA
Putting the therapy focus below into a larger context, much of my background is indeed in the realm of psychotherapy (individual, marital, and family therapy); part is in academic (university-level) teaching, and another relevant part concerns my published texts and other writings. For a number of professional organizations and therapy listings about my practice that are available on the web, as well as providing links dealing with these other two areas, see professional and other links.
I have worked for over three decades with individuals, couples, siblings, and families, providing psychological therapy in the United States and in Europe, mostly in either English or French; in particular, with individuals seeking to live a life more filled with understanding, compassion, groundedness, and a sense of the value of life, and with couples seeking greater intimacy, less mutual frustration, and more of a sense of connectedness. One solution to mention here for frustrations in sensual intimacy sometimes identified as sexual dysfunction is the emphasis in tantra and its pujas on mutual intimate consciousness using the body. (These links and a sketch of a tantra day will make this less cryptic.)
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For my own orientation in the world of psychotherapy, this is basically an integration of approaches from within Western psychotherapy with an Eastern (Indic, primarily Buddhist) understanding of the mind and its processes. I will say a little about each of these just below, with a number of links to satisfy the interest of those who would like to read further in these various areas.
In terms of the Western focus, the main influences of Western perspectives on my work in psychotherapy have been Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychotherapy and Systemic Family Therapy, together with the specific perspectives of wonderfully inspiring teachers (Maurizio Andolfi and Israel Charney, as well as the early theoreticians Hellmuth Kaiser and Friedrich Nietzsche) whose various understandings do not fit comfortably into generally recognized categories of "schools of therapy." My further psychotherapeutic work with people who have experienced traumas in childhood or adulthood has involved me in the psychotherapy of traumas and Attachment Theory research with its understanding of the importance of the development of a solid emotional grounding of the child in security, a sense of being loved, and the freedom and encouragement to develop independence, as in the powerful work of John Bowlby at the Tavistock Institute in London.
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In terms of the Eastern focus, central here is Buddhist introspective psychology (sometimes referred to as Abhidhamma or Abhidharma) with its practical grounding in the systematic cultivation of mindfulness and insight. This practice, derived from early texts of Theravada Buddhism defining the Vipassana Meditation Tradition, encourages a number of basic and pivotal shifts in our consciousness -- one imagistic description sums these up as the marriage of wisdom and lovingkindness --, some of which are discussed in greater detail in presenting mindfulness practice or insight (vipassana) meditation. More specifically, I have been a teacher or kalyana mitta -- an inspiring (encouraging, helpful) friend -- in the Thai Theravada Vipassana Meditation Tradition, leading workshops and residential retreats in this practice, beginning in 1975, primarily in England, France, Norway, and the United States, in the tradition of V.R. Dhiravamsa (Chao Khun Sobhana Dhammasudhi) and Mahasi Sayadaw.
See also a brief description of my orientation related to Buddhist Mindfulness Practice,
found listed at
San Diego Buddhism (scrolling down to the listings of "Buddhist Therapists").
This introspective approach, dating back some 2600 years, has quite recently given rise in the West to some innovative
mindfulness-based psychotherapies.
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Early work with focus on schizophrenia
My introduction to psychotherapy began with an interest in the psychology of individuals diagnosed by psychiatric theory as schizophrenic. Relatedly, my early work in psychotherapy was focused on families with one member diagnosed and hospitalized as schizophrenic ("Schizophrenic Families") and (later, in an NIMH research project, in the late 1970s) with alternative treatment for adolescent and post-adolescents with this same diagnosis.
This interest was combined with research into theories of psychotherapy (seeking to understand the process of change that could be encouraged or fine-tuned in the context of a psychotherapeutic process).
Most central in my entrance into this work (from the late 1960s through the 1970s) were three psychiatrists, Loren Mosher, Ronald D. Laing, and Louis B. Fierman. More on their perspectives, with links to some discussion of new models -- theoretical understandings -- of humans in distress that may be of interest to the reader (and of value to future clinicians in this general area), in Schizophrenia.
I have done work in the psychotherapy of traumas beginning in the early 1970s -- before there was the term PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) -- with U.S. war veterans. I have also been involved in the treatment of survivors of torture and other forms of trauma for people from around the world (from Haiti, Congo, Togo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China, Vietnam, etc.), as well as local variations on this tragic human theme here in the United States. More discussion on this general form of human interaction and the traumas that this involves, with an eye to the larger context of this political violence, with links, is at Torture and Other Political Traumas.
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If I may touch here on an issue that is of some concern for mental health practitioners and others with a focus on the world health situation, please let me highlight here some issues in particular areas of concern in the present-day world, including such emotionally touching areas (not to speak of other aspects of the difficulties and torments involved) as the phenonenon of the H.I. virus (HIV), with the related core disease of AIDS; known in French, as in some documents of the World Health Organization and elsewhere, as le SIDA.
Of course, disease, debility, senility, fragility, and death are not new to the world. (Nor is personal torment, confusion, frustration, fear and rage, interpersonal fighting, intergroup animosity, war, killing, and such.)
One variation on the theme of human violence to humans is the merging of sexuality with violence (molestation or rape).
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Links to other sites on the Web
National Institute on Alcohol and Drug Information
Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse
A.A.M.F.T.
World Health Organization
UCSF HIV Newsline
AIDS Caregiver Resources
The Society for Laingian Studies
Adrian Laing on R.D. Laing
Honoring the late Mary Barnes (1923-2001)
Soteria Foundation in Budapest
More to be added.... visit when inspired.
email: jinavamsa@yahoo.com
C 2008
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