Regnfang

The present podcast is the third episode in a podcast-series, which we have named ‘The Mind of Skill’. As the name indicates, this series investigates the mental dimensions of skill—more precisely, it does so by interviewing a line of current experts.

Besides being of interest in itself, the nature of skill is related to more general questions of human existence.  For example, many of the ancient Greek philosophers saw a clear link between virtue and skill: according to them, virtuous individuals who were capable of living well could in some sense also be seen as people who acquired the skill to live. In relation, Buddhist teachings often stress the virtuous and awakened person as a skillful person—skillful in ethics, concentration, and wisdom. This is, in many ways, highlighted in Zen Buddhist practice in which activities such as calligraphy, poetry, tea-making, and many other activities require a high level of skill. With this in mind, there seems to be a clear connection between skill and the good life. The hope is that this series can clarify some aspects of this connection and aspire the listener to explore it. 

The focus of this episode is on musical skill and the states of mind that characterise expert musical performance. To introduce and outline this exciting topic, the guest of the episode is philosopher and phenomenologist Simon Høffding. Simon is PhD in philosophy from University of Copenhagen and is today associate professor at the Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics at the University of Southern Denmark. Among his many research interests, Simon has done extensive qualitative research on the experiences that occur during expert musical performance by closely following the Danish String Quartet. Additionally, Simon has published several academic papers on topics like amnesia, flow, and absorption during musical and expert performances in general. 

The interview with Simon will touch upon several topics, such as the role of phenomenology in skill research, the experiential state of musical absorption, how musicians cope with performance disturbing factors, and the kind of ‘we’ or community that arises out of joint musical activity. At last, Simon further provides an insight into his own current and fascinating research on musical experience in different respects. 

We hope you enjoy the interview! 

Host: Victor Lange
Production: Heine Volder
Music: Victor Lange & Heine Volder

The present podcast is the second episode in a podcast-series which we have named ‘The Mind of Skill’. As the name indicates, this series investigates the mental dimensions of skill by interviewing a line of current experts.  

Besides being of interest in itself, the nature of skill is related to more general questions of human existence. To take some examples, many of the ancient Greek philosophers saw a clear link between virtue and skill: according to them, virtuous individuals who were capable of living well could in some sense also be seen as people who acquired the skill to live. Buddhist teachings also often stress the virtuous and awakened person as a skilful person—skilful in conduct, concentration, and wisdom. In Zen Buddhist practice this is highlighted in activities such as calligraphy, poetry, tea-making, and many other activities requiring a high level of skill. These examples stress that there seems to be a clear connection between skill and the good life. The hope is that this series can clarify some aspects of this connection and perhaps even inspire the listener to explore it.

The focus of this particular episode is endurance—and the relations between endurance, skill, and different psychological processes. To introduce us to these exciting relations, the guest of this episode is sports psychologist and lecturer at Ulster University, Dr. Noel Brick. Noel has done research on a great variety of topics concerning the psychological benefits and dynamics involved in both high-level elite and recreational athletes. Among his many interesting publications, a considerable amount of them focus on the cognitive and metacognitive processes that athletes utilise to control their attention and coping mechanisms under performance. 

The first part of the interview with Noel concerns his own background in both sports psychology and long-distance running. In the second part, the interview concerns different elements in self-regulation of elite athletes and the importance of attention and general cognitive control in such regulation. On the background of this, the third part of the interview discusses the importance of metacognition in controlling such cognitive strategies and enabling performance enhancing attention allocation. At last, the fourth part of the interview ends with some broader considerations on how we all can learn from the psychology of elite athletes and their performance. This part also mentions that Noel, together with Scott Douglas, will release a book on this topic in the summer 2021. 

We hope you enjoy the interview! 

Host: Victor Lange

Production: Heine Volder

Music: Victor Lange & Heine Volder

This podcast is the first episode in a series we called ‘The Mind of Skill’. As the name indicates, this series investigates the more mental dimensions of skill training and execution. To do so, the series interviews a line of contemporary researchers and experts on the nature of skill in different contexts.  

Besides being of interest in itself, the nature of skill is related to more general questions of human existence. To take some examples, many of the ancient Greek philosophers saw a clear link between virtue and skill: according to them, virtuous individuals who were capable of living well could in some sense also be seen as people who acquired the skill to live. In relation, Buddhist teachings often stress the virtuous and awakened person as a skilful person—skilful in conduct, concentration, and wisdom. This is, in many ways, highlighted in Zen Buddhist practice in which activities such as calligraphy, poetry, tea-making, and many other activities require a high level of skill. With this in mind, there seems to be clear connection between skill and the good life. The hope is that this series can clarify some aspects of this connection and aspire the listener to explore it.

The focus of this episode is on so-called optimal performance states, more precisely the states of flow and clutch. To clarify and outline these topics for us, the guest of the episode is performance and sports psychologist Christian Swann. Christian has long done research on flow states in athletes and published a long line of really interesting research studies on this matter. Today, he is associate professor at Southern Cross University and part of a team of researchers investigating and developing protocols for optimal performance states in athletic activity. The interview with Christian touches upon multiple interesting topics such as the difference between flow states and clutch performance, the importance of build ups for such optimal performance states, and the general psychological dimensions of high performance. Many of the points in the interview have relevance way beyond the athletic domain and concern human flourishing in general.    

We hope you enjoy the interview!

Host: Victor Lange

Production: Heine Volder

Music: Victor Lange & Heine Volder

Photo: Victor Cornelius 

Within mainstream Western psychiatry, mental health, wellbeing and affliction are often seen as mainly pertaining to imbalances within the individual, why care efforts often address the psychological and physiological dimensions of each person separately. In this podcast, we will explore the limitations of only taking such an overly individual approach to mental health, and seek complementary inspiration in alternative etiological, ontological and epistemological paradigms. To help us find ground in this vast terrain is the guest of this episode, Adam Aronovich. Adam has worked with alternatives to Western psychiatry and treatment in several ways. He is a PhD candidate at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili specialized in medical anthropology and cultural psychiatry. He is a member of the Ayahuasca Community Committee at the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, and a member of the Medical Anthropological Research Center (MARC-URV) in Catalunya. The past four years he has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon on the therapeutic mechanisms of ayahuasca, while also working as Research Coordinator and Workshop Facilitator for the pioneering ayahuasca retreat centre in the Peruvian Amazon, named the Temple of the Way of Light. For those not familiar with psychedelics, ayahuasca is a psychoactive Amazonian plant brew which has long been used by indigenous people for healing purposes and which, alongside with other psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD are now being heavily researched all over the globe because of their profound therapeutic potentials against a variety of ailments and general mental distress.

We begin our conversation talking about the main contributions from cultural psychiatry and medical anthropology to views on and approaches to mental health. Adam tells about the necessity of looking at mental affliction as politically, socially, and historically embedded, and the need for critical engagement with the dominant way of pathologizing parts of the human experience within the Western medical establishment. We then move on to discussing some of the exciting findings from Adam’s current PhD project, which presents mental wellbeing as first and foremost a question of connection and community. Adam introduces some elements of the healing tradition among the indigenous Shipibo people in Peru, and we talk about how we can learn from their different ways of approaching mental health and wellbeing, and what to be aware of in such a pursuit. Finally, we discuss how psychedelics can have both therapeutic and extra-therapeutic applications, and the need for a broad and contextually based engagement with the potentials of these substances for increasing wellbeing.

We need to emphasise that this podcast in no way serves as an encouragement to engage in illegal activities, but serves an educational and informational purpose only. For more information on the current status of psychedelic research, stay tuned for future episodes from Regnfang or go to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (https://maps.org), the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/psychedelic-research-centre), the Centre for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at John Hopkins University (https://hopkinspsychedelic.org) or Center for Psykedelisk Dannelse og Dialog (http://psykedeliskdannelse.dk).

We hope you enjoy the interview!

Host: Sidsel Marie

Production: Heine Volder

Music: Victor Lange & Heine Volder

Denne udsendelse handler om tro; mere præcist om den kristne tro. Selvom jeg ikke selv er troende, så har jeg altid været dybt fascineret af forfattere som Dostojevskij og Tolstoy og deres eksistentielle tænkning om menneskesindet - en tænkning der på mange måder tog udgangspunkt i den kristne tro. 

Nærværende udsendelse belyser forholdet mellem tro, tvivl og tænkning. Udsendelsen kaster hermed et blik på to af de vel nok allerstørste teologiske og filosofiske tænkere fra det nittende og tyvende århundrede: nemlig den velkendte danske tænker Søren Kierkegaard og den tyske teolog og modstandsmand, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. For dem der ikke måtte kende Bonhoeffer, så var han en tysk teolog, der trods sit ellers generelt pacifistiske livssyn deltog i planlægningen af et attentat på Hitler, blev fanget af Gestapo i sammenhæng hermed og henrettet ved hængning kun en måned før 2. Verdenskrigs afslutning i Europa.  

Til at præsentere og indføre os i disse to tænkeres virke er udsendelsens gæst filosof, forfatter og foredragsholder, Peter Tudvad. Peter har udgivet en lang række af bøger, der alle varmt kan anbefales - heriblandt værker om netop Kierkegaard (såsom Forbandelsen og Kierkegaards København) og første bind i en stor biografi om Bonhoeffer (med navnet I krig og kristendom). Foruden en introduktion til Kierkegaards og Bonhoeffers trosforståelse, så omhandler interviewet også Peters egen rejse ind og ud af den kristne tro - en rejse der har været drevet af både dramatiske livsbegivenheder og filosofisk tænkning.

Interviewet med Peter kommer ind på mange interessante tematikker; tematikker der er af eksistentiel interesse lige meget, om man selv er troende, agnostiker eller ateist. Første del af interviewet berører Peters egen biografi og forfattervirksomhed. Herefter omhandler anden del Kierkegaards forfatterskab mere bredt (med særligt henblik på Frygt og Bæven) og hans behandling af trosbegrebet. Tredje del af samtalen fokuserer på Bonhoeffers liv og virke. Til sidst vedrører fjerde del mere direkte Peters egen troshistorie og det generelle forhold mellem tro, tvivl og tænkning. 

God fornøjelse. 

Vært: Victor Lange 

Produktion: Heine Volder 

Musik: Victor Lange og Heine Volder

Ofringsritualer, overgangsritualer, sørgeritualer, soningsritualer, renselsesritualer, hyldest og taksigelses ritualer – ritualet har i varierende former været en central del af menneskelivet i årtusinder. Men hvorfor udfører mennesker ritualer? Hvad er det ritualet kan og gør? Og kan man tale om ritualet som en metode til både verdslig, relationel og sindslig-indgriben, eksistentiel transformation og selv-refleksion?

Det er nogle af de spørgsmål, som dagens gæst, Inger Sjørslev, vil hjælpe os på vej med at besvare. Inger er antropolog og lektor emeritus ved Institut for Antropologi, Københavns Universitet og har gennem flere årtier beskæftiget sig med ritualer. Hun har lavet dybdegående og mangeårigt feltarbejde i Brasilien blandt praktiserende af den afroamerikanske religion candomblé og har på baggrund heraf forfattet den anbefalelsesværdige og medrivende bog Gudernes Rum: En beretning om ritualer og tro i Brasilien (1995). Inger er desuden forfatter bag bogen Ting i nære og fjerne verdener (2013) der behandler materialitetens betydning for vores verdensopfattelse og identitet, samt den prisbelønnede lærebog Sandhed og Genre – Videnskabsteori i antropologi og kulturanalyse (2015).

Vi taler både med Inger om generelle fællestræk ved ritualet på tværs af kulturer og tid, samt om konkrete ritualer fra candomblé, hvor healing er indvævet i sociale processer, performativitet, æstetik, materialitet og lyd. Inger fortæller blandt andet om åndebesættelse som feministisk magt-forhandling og den kollektive, terapeutiske kraft, ritualet kan besidde, via gennemspilning og performance af relationelle og eksistentielle transformationer. Samtalen berører desuden forskellen mellem ritualet og vanen, indre-orienteret og handlingsbaseret tro samt ritualet som en måde at bearbejde og udtrykke følelser, og som en eksistens-indgriben, der kan balancere livets og verdens opponerende kræfter; kaos og orden, uvished og kontrol. Afslutningsvist beskriver Inger ritualet som et refleksivt rum, hvorfra vi kan stifte bedre bekendtskab med os selv og vores placering i det kollektive.

God fornøjelse.

Vært: Sidsel Marie
Produktion: Heine Volder
Musik: Victor Lange & Heine Volder

Denne udsendelses emne er på mange måder en smule abstrakt - emnet er nemlig bevidsthed. Det betyder, at udsendelsen omhandler spørgsmål som ’hvad er bevidsthed?’, ’hvordan opstår bevidsthed?’ og ‘hvilken rolle, hvis nogen, spiller bevidsthed i vores liv?’. Til at indføre os i disse abstrakte og forunderlige spørgsmål er udsendelsens gæst Thor Grünbaum.  Thor er lektor i filosofi på Københavns Universitet. Her forsker og underviser han blandt andet i bevidsthedsstudier og leder desuden den interdisciplinære forskningsgruppe CoInAct. I sammenhæng hermed har han publiceret både fagfilosofiske og videnskabelige forskningsartikler om bevidstheden og dens rolle i den menneskelige psykologi og adfærd. 

Udsendelsen kommer ind på en række forholdsvis tekniske emner og giver hermed en grundig introduktion til nutidig bevidsthedsforskning. Det betyder, at interviewet berører aspekter omkring forholdet mellem fysiske processer og bevidsthed, bevidsthedens rolle i menneskelige handlinger, samt om det er rimeligt at forestille sig, at kunstig intelligens-systemer på et tidspunkt bliver bevidste selv.  Til slut i interviewet bliver der foruden også plads til at tale om, hvordan velkendte film som the Matrix, Blade Runner og Ex Machina behandler grundlæggende spørgsmål om bevidsthedens natur.  

Vi håber, at udsendelse kan tjene som en slags grundinspiration til at beskæftige sig med sin egen bevidsthed, også selvom den er lidt teknisk flere steder.  Som Thor gentagende gange betoner, så er bevidstheden, og den filosofiske og videnskabelige undersøgelse af den, et helt utroligt fascinerende område. 

God fornøjelse. 

Vært: Victor Lange

Produktion: Heine Volder

”Fortællingens vej” er en podcastserie i 4 afsnit, der undersøger læsning og kreativ skrivning som eksistentielle værktøjer. Nærmere bestemt, hvordan dét at beskæftige sig med fortællinger kan styrke vores mentale sundhed samt være et redskab til at skabe retning i livet.

I denne episode er dagens gæst Mette Steenberg, Postdoc ved Interacting Minds Centre på institut for Kultur og Samfund ved Aarhus Universitet, samt stifter og daglig leder af Læseforeningen. Læseforeningen er en organisation der arbejder i krydsfeltet mellem litteratur, mental sundhed og socialt udviklingsarbejde, gennem facilitering af læsegrupper i hele landet. Det er med udgangspunkt i læseforeningens arbejde, at vi taler med Mette. 

Samtalen med Mette kommer ind på flere interessante emner. Blandt andet diskuteres læsningens rolle som en mental teknologi, effekten af at læse skønlitteratur sammen i grupper ift. stress, angst, depression og ensomhed, om læsning af skønlitteratur som opmærksomhedstræning, og om læsningen som en måde at udvide sin forståelse af sig selv og sin omverden. 

God fornøjelse!

Vært: Magnus Harding 

Produktion: Heine Volder

I denne tredje udsendelse af Fortællingens vej skal vi tale med Trine Vendelboe Juul om fortællingen som livsstrategi. Trine har en baggrund i litteraturvidenskab, samt æstetik og kulturstudier. Hun har i en årrække arbejdet med strategisk kommunikation og storytelling, og er opfinder af storywalk-konceptet. Det er netop i denne idé, at samtalen med Trine tager sit udgangspunkt.

Helt overordnet består story-walk konceptet i at vandre i naturen og her blive guided af Trine i at formulere sin egen fortælling. Denne formulering forekommer ud fra 5 grundnarrative spørgsmål, nemlig: ’Hvor kommer vi fra?’, ’hvor er vi nu?’, ’hvor skal vi hen?’, ’hvordan kommer vi derhen?’ og ’hvorfor skal vi derhen?’… Vi taler med Trine om hvorfor disse spørgsmål er vigtige, hvad effekten af aktivt at fortælle sit liv kan være, hvordan vi kan bruge fortællegrebet til at arbejde med vores egen karakteropbygning, og om hvordan begreberne retning og mening hænger sammen i en fortællende kontekst.

God fornøjelse!

Host: Magnus Harding 

Production: Heine Volder

How can we understand and create our lives through storytelling? How can we use reading and creative writing as existential tools? How can literature strengthen our mental health? This series examines these questions.

The guest of this episode is poet, performer, and educator Dan Simpson. Dan has authored two works of poetry and has worked as poet-in-residence at Imperial College London, Glastonbury Festival, and St Albans Cathedral. Furthermore, Dan is the facilitator of creative writing groups. It is in relation to Dan’s role as facilitator on the course “writing the journey,”—a course he is facilitating for the Psychedelic Society UK—that this interview takes its point of departure.

More precisely, we speak with Dan about the existential potential of creative writing; its relation to healing and wellbeing, its fruitful consequences on social life, and its role in self-knowledge. We talk about how words can act as the refinement of thoughts, the catharsis-like effect one can experience through creative writing, the power of journaling, the practical outcomes one can gain from creative writing, the potential in creative writing for posttraumatic growth, and more generally about the metacognitive awareness that creative writing can foster.

We hope you enjoy the interview!

Host: Magnus Harding 

Production: Heine Volder