When it comes to making metaphors, our conscious minds are dullards when compared to our brilliant, creative, unconscious selves.
from Garrett, M. (2019). Psychotherapy for psychosis: Integrating cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic treatment (1st ed.). Guilford Publications.
“In ‘How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,’ [visual artist Jenny] Odell suggests that any theory of media must first start with a theory of attention. ‘One thing I have learned about attention is that certain forms of it are contagious,’ she writes.
When you spend enough time with someone who pays close attention to something (if you were hanging out with me, it would be birds), you inevitably start to pay attention to some of the same things. I’ve also learned that patterns of attention — what we choose to notice and what we do not — are how we render reality for ourselves, and thus have a direct bearing on what we feel is possible at any given time. These aspects, taken together, suggest to me the revolutionary potential of taking back our attention.
“I think Odell frames both the question and the stakes correctly. Attention is contagious. What forms of it, as individuals and as a society, do we want to cultivate? What kinds of mediums would that cultivation require?
“This is anything but an argument against technology, were such a thing even coherent. It’s an argument for taking technology as seriously as it deserves to be taken, for recognizing, as [media theorist Marshall] McLuhan’s friend and colleague John M. Culkin put it, ‘we shape our tools, and thereafter, they shape us.’”
— excerpted from Klein, E. (2022, August 7). I didn’t want it to be true, but the medium really is the message. The New York Times.
Selected excerpts:
“There is no convincing evidence that low serotonin levels are the primary cause of depression. This is the conclusion of an ‘exhaustive’ review by UK investigators, published online July 20 in Molecular Psychiatry, which upends the widely held belief that depression is the result of lower levels, or reduced activity, of the chemical. Researchers say the results call antidepressant use into question.”
—
“‘The serotonin hypothesis of depression still remains to be fully understood, [but that] does not negate the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of serotonin-based antidepressants,’ said Roger McIntyre, MD, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology, University of Toronto, Canada and head of the Mood Disorders Psychopharmacology Unit.
“‘We need better knowledge of the disease, and it is also the case that serotonergic modulation can help depression. We certainly need better treatment, and we should be careful that we do not become constrained by the paradigm of serotonin,’ McIntyre concluded.”
— from Yasgur, B. S. (2022, July 22). No Evidence Low Serotonin Causes Depression? Medscape Medical News.
Matthew M. Sholler, Psy.D. 
