Verbal Level
October, 2002
Current approaches to the drug problem are not working and almost everyone agrees that more effective solutions are needed. Tonight Dr. Martin Levinson will present such solution by discussing ideas contained in his new book, The Drug Problem: A New View Using the General Semantics Approach (Praeger 2002).
Dr. Martin Levinson is the director of Project Share, a New York City School-based drug prevention program, as well as a New York State certified Alcoholism and Substance Abuse counselor. He is Vice-President of the New York Society of General Semantics, and a Board Member of the International Society for General Semantics.
Institute of
General Semantics
2002 Korzybski Memorial Lecture
Friday, November 8
The reality of the brain-mind as revealed by Dr. J. allan Hobson's probing neurological research brings new insights to the study of sleep dreaming and consciousness.
Dr. Hobson is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at Harvard Medical School. Recipient of the 1998 Distinguished Scientist Award of the sleep Research Society, he lectures throughout the world on consciousness and sleep.
His book The Chemistry of Conscious States was named a New York Times Notable Book. He is the author or co-author of many other books, including Consciousness Sleep, The Dreaming Brain, Dreaming as Delirium, and Out of its Mind: Psychiatry in Crisis: A Call for Reform.
This book, his latest, was the subject of an extended interview with Dr. Hobson in the Health & Fitness section of the Sience Times of August 27, 2002. In the interview he was characterized as a "convention-defying psychiatry rebel" who is urging a reorganization of the profession he has practiced more than 40 years. The tremendous breakthroughs ib the brain sciences, he believes, now give medical educators the chance to make a psychology based on brain science.
This is an opportunity to hear a scientist at the "cutting edge" of his field.
One-Day Colloquium co-sponsored by
INSTITUTE OF GENERAL SEMANTICS &
New York Society for General Semantics
From Counseling Theory to practice
Martin Levinson, PhD Coordinator
10:00AM - Workshop 1
The Scientific Basis of Rational-Emotive-Behavior Therapy (REBT)*
Albert Ellis, PhD
Dr. Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, will discuss the basic tenets behibnd its practice, a humanistic, action-oriented approach to emotional health. He emphadsizes individuals' capacity for creating their emotions, their ability to change and overcome the past by focusing on the present, and their power to choose satisfying alternatives to current dysfunctional patterns. Dr. Ellis is president and staff psychologist at the Albert Ellis Institute and the author of over 70 books, including Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy and A Guide to Rational Living.
11:00AM -
Workshop 2
Applying Research in Practice Settings:
Lessons Learned in the Addictions Field
Kevin Wadalavage
The past decade has seen major advances in understanding the underlying mechanisms of addiction, as well as promising treatments for people with alcohol and other drug problems. Yet much of this research has not been applied in treatment and prevention settings. This presentation will provide an overview of some of these advances, and then focus on some of the issues and challenges which impede the transfer of addiction research to practice. Kevin Wadalavage has worked in the substance abuse field since 1981. He currently oversees program evaluation and quality assurance activities, as well as a trilingual out-patient clinic at Outreach Project.
1:00PM - Workshop 3
A General Semantics Approach to Reducing Student Alienation
Martin Levinson, PhD & Katherine Liepe-Levnison, PhD
This presentation will examine and discuss a study that showed students exhibiting symptoms of alienation (a well-recognized drug abuse risk factor) could be helped to reduce those symptoms through a general semantics approach. The findings of this study have been published in ETC. A review of General semantics (Fall 2001). Dr. Martin Levinson has worked in the field of drug prevention for over twenty-nine years as a counselor, teacher, and administrator. he is the vice-president of the New York Society for General Semantics, and the author of The Drug Problem: A New View Using the General Semantics Approach. Dr. Katherine Liepe-Levinson has worked as a professional actor, dancer, director, and teacher in both Europe and the United States. She is currently working as an educational consultant with the new York City Department of Education using acting techniques to improve teacher and student performance in a variety of areas.
2:00PM - Workshop 4
Non-Aristotelian Epistemology
Applied to Lucid Dreaming and Lucid Waking
Allen Flagg
Alfred Korzybski urges us to become more conscious of our abstracting, more mindful of our leaving out characteristics, and refrain from confusing orders of abstraction. He offers the Structural Differential as a teaching device toward lucid waking. J. Allan Hobson in his activation synthesis hypothesis of dreams proposes that we can program dreams to change attitudes and feelings. This suggests educating one's dreams toward lucid dreaming. Allen Flagg is president of the New York Society for General Semantics, vice-president of FIONS, Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and president of the Dream Education Institute. He has studied the dream methods of the Senoi Temiar of Malaysia for 36 years.
Reservations Required
By October 25th for the Korzybski Memorial lecture and
the One-day Colloquium:
Institure of
General Semantics
86 85th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11209-43208
The connection between "mental" and "bodily" health is made explicit in Dr. John Sarno's ground-breaking books. In this important and practical presentation Dr. Sarno will emphasize the public health problem that exists today because of medicine's failure to recognize the effect of psychosomatic disorders that he has so clearly delineated. It is an opportunity for us as individuals to learn to work with our doctor or practitioner, and apply Dr. Sarno's insights to our own mindbody healing. Knowledge is the prescription: knowing how the "mind" and the "body" work, how the mindbody works as a unified whole.
Dr. Sarno has helped thousands through his treatment of patients as professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine, new York university School of Medicine, and as well those helped by his books Mind Over Back Pain, Healing Back Pain: The mind-body Prescription, and Healing the Body, Healing the Pain.
Almost all painful conditions, Dr. Sarno reveals, including migraines, repetitive stress injuries, osteoarthritis, whiplash, tendonitis, and tennis elbow, are rooted in our unexpressed emotions. Pain disorders have reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with most doctors failing to recognize the underlying psychosomatic causes of these illnesses, and the need to reprogram the mindbody.
IN MEMORIAM
Charlotte Schuchardt Read
Colleagues, friends and family of Charlotte Schuchardt Read attended a memorial gathering, a "celebration of life," on September 15th at Columbia University. Charlotte died July 25th at the age of 92. She attended a seminar with Alfred Korzybski in 1936 and worked with him as executive secretary at the Institute of General Semantics from 1939. She became the Director of the institute, and was editor and frequent contributor to the G.S. Bulletin. She was also a director and president of the Sensory Awareness Foundation.
In 1953 she married Allen Walker Read, now professor emeritus of English at Columbia University, who survives her.
Steve Austin
On August 26th Steve Austin, our Board member, died at the age of 60, from the effects of a brain tumor. He was dynamic and enthusiastic in his work on the Society’s legal and financial committees and was instrumental in the development of the NYSGS website.
Steve was senior counsel for the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski, L. L. P. where he was not only highly respected for his extraordinary mind, but also played the role of mentor to many of the younger attorneys. As one partner said, “He was my lawyer.” Early in his career, he served as a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Because he was such a kind and gentle man, people often asked him, “How did you ever become a lawyer?” His response was always the same, “Two words: Full Scholarship!”
All of us who knew and loved Steve knew that his first love, pride and joy, and top priority were his daughters: Amy 13, Chloe 11 and Olivia 9. We share in their grief.
His many friends and colleagues will miss his incredible humor and charm, as well as his enthusiasm for and wide-ranging knowledge of GS.
You are cordially invited to a memorial gathering to honor Steve's life,
to be held at
TRS Suites
44 East 32nd Street
11th Floor
Saturday,
November 2, 1-4 PM.
Refreshments will be provided. Kindly RSVP if planning to attend.
ADVANCE ANNOUNCEMENT
2003 iNTERNATIONAL gENERAL
sEMANTICS CONFERENCE
October 31 - November 2, 2003
Las Vegas, Nevada
Co-Sponsored by
IGS, ISGS, and NYSGS
Join NYSGS
Now and attend our lectures and Saturdays free!
Members receive discounts on books and are invited to join our study groups and
socials.
Member $35
Joint Members $45
Students and Seniors $15
Additional contribution —
Join by sending your check to:
N Y S G S
144 East 36th St, #6C
NYC 100016