Sensory Awareness

Understanding sensory needs is fundamental for social work and care management practice. Social workers are trained to reflect on their own practice, make useful application of theory and promote anti-discriminatory practice at all times. This book will assist students in identifying people who have a sensory need and enable them to have the knowledge, skills and values to address this. Designed specifically to encourage students to build confidence and develop skills essential to best practice, this book is specifically structured to address all aspects of sensory need.

Sensory perception: mind and matter aims at a deeper understanding of the many facets of sensory perception and their relations to brain function and cognition. It is an attempt to promote the interdisciplinary discourse between the neurosciences and psychology, which speaks the language of cognitive experiences, and philosophy, which has been thinking about the meaning and origin of consciousness since its beginning. Leading experts contribute to such a discourse by informing the reader about exciting modern developments, both technical and conceptual, and by pointing to the big gaps still to be bridged. The various chapters provide access to scientific research on sensory perception and the mind from a broad perspective, covering a large spectrum of topics which range from the molecular mechanisms at work in sensory cells to the study of the unconscious and to neurophilosophy.

You live your entire waking life immersed in your inner experiences (thoughts, feelings, sensations and so on) – private phenomena created by you, just for you, your own way. Despite their intimacy and ubiquity, you probably do not know the characteristics of your own inner phenomena; neither does psychology or consciousness science. Investigating Pristine Inner Experience explores how to apprehend inner experience in high fidelity. This book will transform your view of your own inner experience, awaken you to experiential differences between people and thereby reframe your thinking about psychology and consciousness science, which banned the study of inner experience for most of a century and yet continued to recognize its fundamental importance. The author, a pioneer in using beepers to explore inner experience, draws on his 35 years of studies to provide fascinating and provocative views of everyday inner experience and experience in bulimia, adolescence, the elderly, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, virtuosity and more.

Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years: A Critical Appraisal of the Research in Extra-Sensory Perception, which was first published in 1940, represented the follow-up to parapsychologist Joseph Banks Rhine’s 1934 book, Extrasensory Perception. In Extrasensory Perception After Sixty Years: A Critical Appraisal of the Research in Extra-Sensory Perception, Rhine and his colleagues endeavor to present a complete review of the recent research in ESP and to include in their survey “everything that is of importance to know in deciding whether ESP occurs. and what it is like if it does occur.” Using three experiments that they believed demonstrated ESP, namely the Pearce-Pratt experiment, the Pratt-Woodruff experiment, and the Ownbey-Zirkle series, the book’s first two parts deal with the question of whether ESP does occur. The formulation of the problem is presented, the mathematical and experimental methods used in attempting its solution, a survey of results obtained, and a consideration of the adequacy of some 35 hypotheses proposed as explanations alternative to ESP. Part II presents a survey of published criticisms and critical comments invited for this volume, whilst Part III considers the nature of ESP; the incidence of ESP ability; conditions that affect ESP performance; physical relations of ESP; ESP as a psychological process. The final part sketches “the outstanding problems that still remain unsolved, the methods under contemplation by which they may possibly be solved, and the further needs and prospects which confront investigators.” The present volume includes 21 appendices, a detailed glossary, as well as a list of 361 references.

This book captures the essence of Charlotte Selver’s practice of Sensory Awareness like no other publication. It is an invitation to experience life firsthand again, as we did when we were children. In a culture where we have grown accustomed to accumulating knowledge from teachers and experts, it is rare to find a book that actually invites us to trust our own senses again. It is the authors’ intent to give back to the reader authority over his or her own experience and learning processes. Much of the book focuses on reviving the senses in order to open the mind and body to direct learning. The book imitates an actual Sensory Awareness class, involving the reader as a student, guiding him or her along a journey with and through the senses to a way of living that is in accordance with the natural functioning of the human organism in its environment. The range of explorations include a renewed connection to the support of the earth as a foundation for trust; the central role of gravity for our health and for finding orientation in life; a study of breathing that promotes health and vitality; and connecting and interacting with other people. A handbook to a more genuine and connected way of living, the work is also a beautifully crafted account of Sensory Awareness, showing these profound teachers at work with their students and with the reader.