PSYC/NSCI/RELI Mindfulness Lecture: Dr. Catherine Kerr

Brain, body, and mindfulness: New understandings of the “self”
Lecturer: Catherine Kerr, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Director of Translational Neuroscience Contemplative Studies Initiative, Brown University

This talk will describe recent studies drawn from the neuroscience of embodiment in order to lay out a novel understanding of the “self”. In particular, the presentation will describe recent studies of the “bodily self”—including studies using the “rubber hand illusion”—in order to argue for a view of the self that is rooted in multi-sensory integration and embodied feelings. This novel understanding of the self has important implications for humanistic scholarship, interdisciplinary inquiry and understandings of the sense of well-being. The talk will also describe efforts to experimentally investigate the experience of “presence,” which is the qualitative experience of being present to another person, and will also describe efforts by our team to develop brief mindfulness practices for medical settings that are designed to help healthcare practitioners be “present” in their encounters with patients.

Sponsored by the Department of Psychology, the Program in Neuroscience, the Department of Religion, Academic Affairs, and the Mindfulness at Middlebury initiative. All are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be provided.