Over the past weeks, we have experienced repeated events that are painful to watch, and that cannot be condoned with silence. It is all too obvious that people who look like me hurt people who do not look like me with the tacit assumption that there is no retribution. These events make me feel ashamed and guilty, feelings that are painful to be with and that my brain would prefer to suppress. These events have made me aware that there are many people who are struggling on a daily basis and are facing bodily harm, oppression, injustice, and disrespect. Violence against Black people has brought this struggle in focus, but these events are not limited to Blacks alone. There is an unfortunate history of violence and injustice against American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic American, and other minorities. Moreover, this struggle extends to one’s sexual orientations or one’s belief systems in contrast with the mainstream. One common element is the intolerance of what is different and the anger, aggression, and hate that emerges from this intolerance.
In science, we aim to observe, experiment, and draw conclusions from the facts. However, science does not happen in a vacuum. It is done by people and – when it involves the human condition – it focuses on people. We have to ask ourselves, have the events that occurred on our streets also occurred in more subtle ways in our laboratories? Have people that look like me hurt people that do not look like me? The answer is yes, and this admission demands further evaluation. First, given certain circumstances, we are all capable of biased or racist thoughts, feelings, and actions. This is the source of pain experienced by those who see people of their group hurting those that are not part of their group. Second, we have to make an ongoing effort to openly work with these sentiments and to arrive at choices that will reduce the chance that we will hurt people who are different from us in the future. Third, we have to provide an opportunity for those who are the target of these injustices. However, that also means we have to learn about their struggle, understand the particulars of the pain they are experiencing, and develop paths that will reduce those painful events within the context of science in the future. Fourth, curiosity and understanding have to win over ignorance and intolerance. We need to learn about our differences, understand how they influence our feelings, thoughts, and actions, and develop better explanations of the human conditions that we are interested in. Outrage and anger over the events on our streets, laboratories, and other public or private places are not enough. It may even be a cage that will not allow us to understand why we are inflicting pain on others and how this increases all human suffering. Instead, open engagement with respect, interest, and love will help to develop the understanding that can be used to build new systems to reduce the pain of those in the minority. The situation is serious and calls for urgent and sustained engagement in finding new solutions. Scientists are problem solvers; we need to be thinking about our contribution to finding solutions to overcoming intolerance, anger, and aggression on the one hand and discover ways of healing the pain of those that have been the target of racism. We must work to build each other up and empower minorities in science rather than tearing people down. To that end, we have started a workgroup that consists of individuals who work at LIBR to enhance the recognition that race and ethnicity play an important role to improve our scientific approach to solving mental health problems: Aim 1: Increase the consideration of race/ethnicity when developing research questions, analysis plans, and assessments (e.g., including biological, sociocultural, economic variables).
Aim 2: Increase the representation of under-represented minorities in the neuroscience and mental health research workforce.
Aim 3: Enhance outreach efforts to and partnership with communities and organizations with diverse race/ethnicity representation.
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Our 2019 annual report publication provides an overview of last year's happenings at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research. In the report below, you will find a letter from the president, Dr. Martin Paulus, information on our mission, history and specific aims, current areas of research, funding sources, events and lectures, awards, individual laboratories, selected publications and opportunities to participate in research. We hope you enjoy the publication and look forward to continuing our goal to improve mental health through neuroscience in 2020 and beyond.
Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D. - March 3, 2020
"One Simple Ingredient for Habit Change: Awareness" William K. Warren, Jr. Frontiers in Neuroscience Lecture Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital Conference Center 11:00 am - 11:45 am Registration and Lunch, lunch stops being served at 11:45 - no exceptions 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Program Jud Brewer MD PhD is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and associate professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the Medical School at Brown University. He also is a research affiliate at MIT. A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for addictions, Brewer has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for behavior change, including both in-person and app-based treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. He has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI, and source-estimated EEG, and is currently translating these findings into clinical use (see www.drjud.com for more information). He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, presented to the US President’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, foreign Parliaments, trained US Olympic athletes and coaches, and foreign government ministers and has been featured on 60 minutes, at TED (4th most viewed talk of 2016 with over 14 Million views), in Time magazine (top 100 new health discoveries of 2013), Forbes, Businessweek, NPR, National Geographic, and the BBC among others. He is the author of The Craving Mind: from cigarettes to smartphones to love, why we get hooked and how we can break bad habits (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). Follow him on twitter @judbrewer. Learning objectives:
Drs. Sahib Khalsa and Robin Aupperle appeared on Good Day Tulsa this morning to discuss a mobile health application developed during the 4-year Tulsa 1000 study at LIBR. The Tulsa Life Chart (TLC), uses information provided during a survey to create a web-based graphic representation of an individual's life history to make it easier for clinicians to effectively diagnose and provide treatment for medical and mental health conditions.
Full publication: Web-Based Graphic Representation of the Life Course of Mental Health: Cross-Sectional Study Across the Spectrum of Mood, Anxiety, Eating, and Substance Use Disorders |
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