Dr. Arthur Cassidy is a well-known TV personality expert who comes from Northern Ireland, a former university academic with a major psychological interest in Celebrities both here in the UK and in the USA. As a mental health expert and celebrity psychologist, Dr Arthur has made a dynamic and energetic impact to contemporary television programmes by bringing a fresh insight into evidence based psychological aspects of a wide range of topics on human behaviour seen in today’s terrestrial channels. His psychological expertise and warm personality are constantly sought after by television executives, researchers and producers for high profile reality shows and serious documentaries.
One of the most intriguing issues in our world today is how natural science makes sense out of what we understand by the human Mind. Is it related in some way to the soul or is soul a qualitatively different entity we cannot observe? How do we understand our thought processes sensations and perceptions and how does the Amygdala store and process or emotions? Highly complex questions that brain scientists, neuro psychiatrists and neuropsychologists are still researching in universities around the world. How does three pounds mass of grey matter that is my brain give rise to the felt experiences of our sensations and thoughts? This gives rise to the mind-brain problem. The world of global research into brain science have still a plethora of salient questions that we must endeavour to find a consensus on.
So, what does the layperson understand by the concept of mind? I’m not sure to what they are referring to and why. In our woke society we are imbued with the latest craze and distortions of the English language, but Wernicke’s area of the brain has to process it in all its disarray. Our visual perception is processed at the rear of the brain in the occipital cortex and our emotions and feelings are continually processed within the association cortex and hippocampus which also deals with memory long and short term. We speak of mindfulness, and mindful eating, also mindful exercise, yet we know very little of what it really means. We speak of something we take for granted. something we can’t see or hear it working, but its only by faith we know it exists. Have you seen your brain? Perhaps if in some sort of previous brain trauma, perhaps in a CAT scan. Rarely do we hear the brain being discussed at a dinner party or on holiday or at the office desk.
When I was a doctoral candidate at Queens University in Belfast many years ago, my research proposal had to be worked at for almost a whole year to impress the academic selectors if I had the scientific aptitude to carry out a four-year study of identity processes and personality in the teenage brain. Today we frequently refer to one’s personality as to their mindset, inferring that we are about to make inferences about their state of mind or personality attributes. In fact, we evaluate people without any shred of scientific evidence as to the facts of the matter in relation to their personality or self-concept.
We ask about the relationship between Mind and consciousness. What is it? It’s only the cognitive revolution in psychological science can adequately answer that, utilizing artificial intelligence, cybernetics and information theory. The computational theory of mind I taught in British universities as an academic posits the fact that the nervous system is an information processing system. It works by translating changes in the body and the environment into a language of neural impulses that represent the animal- environment relationship.
At the philosophic level, Renee Descarte (1641) in his famous theory of dualism argued that matter and mind are two wholly separate substances. The main property of matter is that it has a spatial extension which the mind does not. The main property and function of the mind is the capacity to think …its substance defined by its function.
In the context of contemporary scholarship in psychological science, we have as scholars in psychology science, a deeper awareness of how our human cognitions really function and work in various circumstances of our daily lives. Here’s a few contemporary examples of how the human mind or better all, brain functions and processes all our thoughts feelings sensations emotions and much more daily.
In my mental health work, I often deal with emotional pain after a divorce, or some other tragedy perhaps a tragic road accident or untimely loss by suicide. Most therapists and both Clinical or Health psychologists or even Psychotherapists will ask you what do you wish to get out of the process? Nearly all my clients mention emotions in their answers. They have deep rooted emotional experiences they wish to get rid off. Far from making these all go away; in our work we have to help the individual make sense out of them and change their perceptions of them in relation to their own psychological functioning. We show them how to pay attention to them, seeing them for just what they are, emotions, nothing more. Emotions are your brain’s attempt to explain and attach meaning to what’s going on in your body and in your domestic situation and life in general. This works at the biological level in your brain’s hippocampus and amygdala, but also how these interact with your environment. Let me show you what you must never do with emotions. Remember they are not facts, but emotions which are felt, experienced and usually associated in your life with a range of negative emotional responses like anger, frustration, joy, aggression and so on. Emotions vary widely in their content, some minor, others devastating and very intense. It’s your brain trying to make sense out of your intimate world. Never push away any emotion but ride the storm by building up your emotional resilience. Pushing them away only creates more complex emotional problems. You can take control of your emotions by engaging in some form of mindfulness with the body scan and deep muscle relaxation. It’s about “living in the moment”, so let your mind wander, feel the autumn leaves being crushed under your feet as your dog walks along sniffing and using his or her scent trail absorbing all sensations. Allow any feelings of stress or health anxiety to go along with you and be aware how they leave your consciousness bringing you back to the leaves and sounds of crushing, the squirrels darting up a tree and the sound of the water dribbling over the river stones and moss. We tend to fear emotions as if they will stop us from breathing. But remember they are like the clouds above us. When you rise and see clouds, then expect rain and showers, but later in the day the sun comes out and we concentrate on outdoor activity or retail therapy. In mindfulness, we learn to come off the daily “autopilot” and focus just on the moment. Try it.
Time does not permit me to write copiously about other psychological topics, but as an ex British academic psychologist, scholar, and health practitioner, the joy I experience is in serving humanity in charitable work since I left academia some fifteen years ago. In my hometown of Portadown, in the outstanding natural beauty of Co Armagh in Northern Ireland, I have been serving voluntarily the general public who come as GP referrals seeking help through their brokenness and trauma, to my Psychological Health & Wellbeing centre at Yellow Ribbon. There is immense joy in seeing brokenness restored and self-harmers or suicidal individuals being completely restored.
In parallel with my mental health work, I trained in London as a TV presenter with ITV’s Moscow Correspondent Mark Webster who was my mentor. In addition, I was mentored for my new career in television by Birmingham’s own Marverine Cole, now a seasonal newsreader on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, besides more intense training with Pete Walter. To my credit I have been a psychological personality expert analyzing celebrity personalities on Love Island, Strictly Come Dancing, I’m A Celebrity, and also bringing my psychological expertise in analyzing the personality motives and traits of world leaders like Vlad Putin, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and many others. Over the past twelve and more years I have appeared on a host of interviews with BBC, ITV, BBC World Service, RTE, The Trisha Goddard show, GB news and many more. See www. doctorarthurcassidy.com. I’m available as a corporate speaker internationally for discussing narcissistic personalities in the business world, the boardroom, together with dangerous personalities and how they can destroy a business. Outside my charitable work, I spend a large part of my time working on Celebrities Mental health and relationship difficulties. Someone asked me what I desire the most… Time to keep on serving humanity and those in a fallen broken world.