Jeffrey Noethe, Ph.D. – Page 4 – Jeffrey Noethe, Ph.D.

March 8, 2010October 10, 2010Expectations, Perception and Reality, Trust and Control

Believing is Seeing

The idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy is that sometimes, for better or worse, we can make something true simply by believing in it. This basic concept goes by a wide variety of names such as the expectancy effect, the Pygmalion or Rosenthal effect, the placebo effect, the law of attraction, and the secret. Some people would like to believe that this phenomenon is an absolute […]

February 28, 2010October 10, 2010Self-Care

Be Good to Your Horse

People who experience the effects of chronic pain, disease, injury, weight issues, aging, or other physical conditions sometimes feel as if their bodies have betrayed them. They begin to resent their bodies, and resentment can lead to mistreatment or neglect. When a client is feeling this way, I sometimes talk about being good to your horse. Imagine the life of a cowboy and his horse. […]

February 21, 2010October 10, 2010Mindfulness, Trust and Control

Dammed Emotions

Emotions are not static. From moment to moment, they intensify, shift, move, recede, and transform. I’m not talking about the thoughts and labels we associate with our emotions, which can be deceptive, but rather the underlying sensations or feelings themselves. At this level, our emotions are very much like a body of water (e.g. a stream, river, or ocean), always in motion, seemingly alive, unpredictable, […]

February 12, 2010October 10, 2010Perception and Reality

The Life of Trees

We tend to think of trees as largely inanimate, but maybe this is merely because our human lives move so fast. If we could observe the world at a tree’s pace, we might see something entirely different. Imagine speeding up time so that months pass before us like seconds. What do we see? First, there is no darkness. Daylight merely flickers as the sun passes […]

February 9, 2010October 10, 2010Expectations, Perception and Reality

Stepping Through Illusions

In a world of “virtual reality,” if I punch a brick wall, my hand does not shatter, because my hand is actually resting comfortably in a chair back in the “real world.” The brick wall is merely an illusion, an imaginary barrier presented to me by the computer program that creates the virtual world. If, for some reason, I am unaware that I am in […]