The Reptilian Mind For the infant, disruption of its biological homeostatic balance needed to sustain life is “felt” at a physiological level as life-threatening, which it is. Similarly, for the infantile reptilian-minded “adult,” anything experienced as a threat to the status quo can also be “felt” as life-threatening, as much as asphyxiation would be for […]
Author: Tom F Shadid PhD
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Fences, Neighbors, and Zoos
My friend and colleague, Dr. Paul Lehman, writes an informative and incisive blog, America’s Race Problem. In his most recent post, “Paul R. Lehman, Our history tells us why the mob stormed the Capitol,” Paul describes the attitudes of America’s earliest “white” settlers toward the indigenous people—an attitude he links to the violent assault upon the U.S. […]
(Good but Weak, Strong but Bad, or Good and Strong) Background During the 1960s a popular and accessible model of psychotherapy, Transactional Analysis (TA), was developed by Eric Berne. Berne described his approach in his famous book, Games People Play. Everyone will recognize the players in TA’s examples of transactional “games.” TA continues to be a […]
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Thinking about God
At times, it seems as though I’ve spent my whole life thinking about God. And although God may be unchanging, my thoughts about God have changed significantly over the years. This essay provides a review of my religious and spiritual background. It is not presented to persuade anyone to agree with my spiritual beliefs, found […]
(Understanding What Is Good, Great, Evil, and Human) Introduction Most of us believe that people possess one mind. Sometimes that mind has the wisdom and courage to declare in the face of widespread civil violence: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies”—a thought that surely comes to us from “the better angels of our nature.” Other […]
Creationism is a dramatic story. The Supreme God commands the universe into existence, touching the earth to make humanity. But I think a more powerful story is the extraordinary evolutionary force that brings a universe into existence and gives rise to stars, life, and human consciousness. Every atom in our bodies was once stardust. Biblically, angels […]
The quadrune mind model of consciousness states that the human brain can support not one, but four distinctly different minds. Three of these minds are associated with parts of our brain that we share with our evolutionary ancestors: reptiles, herd mammals, and primate mammals. The fourth mind in this model, associated with the newest part […]
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Why Are We on Earth?
(Or, Why On Earth Are We?) Why are we on earth? I believe we are here to help extend an ancient trend from instinctive personal survival, to self-sacrifice for group survival, to seeking methods of universal survival and even well-being. The quadrune mind model is melioristic, meaning it believes the world naturally tends to get better […]
Introduction. Quadrune mind is a brain-based model of spiritual consciousness that says the human brain can produce four different kinds of minds, or levels of consciousness. Each mind is identified by our behaviors. The three types of minds we have received from our evolutionary/developmental past are a behavioral reptilian-like infantile mind, an emotional old mammalian-like childish mind, and an intellectual […]
Quadrune mind is a brain-based model of spiritual consciousness that describes three types of minds we have inherited from our evolutionary past: a behavioral reptilian-like mind, an emotional old mammalian-like mind, an intellectual new mammalian-like (primate) mind, as well as a mind only seen in human beings, our Human mind, which is capable of awe […]