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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.
Teaching mindfulness skills as part of psychological rehabilitation for PTSD patients can be highly beneficial. However, certain factors must be considered such as determining at what stage of therapy to introduce mindfulness training, the length of the practices, and the focal point of the training (e.g., attention, open focus, loving kindness). This article will address these considerations and outline ways in which psychophysiological monitoring and biofeedback can assist therapists in guiding their clients through the process. Specifically, it will highlight how the elevated arousal levels typical of PTSD and the lack of physiological habituation result in rigid and negatively biased attention, which in turn propels the elevated arousal levels into a vicious cycle. Mindfulness practices and approach may help achieve increased flexibility; however, the process must be tailored for each client in accordance with the severity of his or her PTSD symptoms.
We tested whether reduced thought suppression and reactivity to thought content (i.e., cognitive defusion) mediate the effects of a four-session mindfulness training intervention on clinical outcomes important to recovery in a general community-sample of adults (N = 38) recently exposed to potentially traumatic event (PTE). Thought suppression mediated the effects of mindfulness training on all studied distal risk factors and symptom outcomes—anxiety sensitivity, rumination, and negative affect, as well as posttraumatic stress and depression symptoms. Cognitive defusion mediated the effects of mindfulness training on anxiety sensitivity, negative affect, and posttraumatic stress symptoms, but not rumination or depression symptoms. Thus, we found that reduced reactivity to and reduced suppression of thoughts mediated the effects of mindfulness training on recovery outcomes following exposure to PTE. Findings are discussed with respect to their theoretical and clinical implications for the potential role and mediating mechanisms of mindfulness in recovery following trauma.