By Siegfried Othmer, PhD Integrating the Field: The Panel Discussion The integration of our field was the topic of the opening panel discussion at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Western Association for Biofeedback and Neuroscience (WABN). The event was an auspicious beginning for the meeting. It reflected the very spirit of mutual acceptance that […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD Surely among the most intractable of conditions encountered in mental health practice are victims of torture. A number of these were among the war refugees being cared for in Sweden, and they have not responded to conventional therapies over a period of years in most cases. After good experience with trauma […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD The rapid rise in overdose deaths due to heroin is of frightening dimensions, showing an increase by a factor of six just since 2000. This is shown in Figure 1. Even so, this death rate is eclipsed by the overdose death rate for prescription opioids by nearly a factor of two […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD “Do you believe in acupuncture?” “Why yes. I’ve actually seen it done.” The August issue of Scientific American not only featured a diatribe against facilitated communication, but also one against acupuncture. Really? Acupuncture? The article starts off by reminding us of how acupuncture first came to the attentions of the wider […]
By Siegfried Othmer, PhD In the August edition of Scientific American, professional skeptic Michael Schermer took on facilitated communication (FC) for autistic children, a tactic that had been thoroughly discredited in a Frontline piece on PBS back in 1993 entitled “Prisoners of Silence.” Sue Othmer and I had watched that episode at the time, and […]