Friday, August 3, 2007

Wise Counsel on borderline

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) when described on the show initially had me thinking that it could cover nearly everybody who is feeling unhappy. Fortunately the interview clears all that up, step by step, bit by bit. All in all I think this is a great issue of Wise Counsel for psycho therapy practitioners. As a layman, I had a bit of trouble keeping up with the jargon.

The interviewee, John Clarkin, is nevertheless going to great lengths opening up the field. He lays out the definition of BPD and summarizes the symptoms. The major part of the conversation is about the treatment. Clarkin has come up with a standardized and tested treatment that has promising results. In spite of insufficient funding results are had, not just in his local New York, but also in Canada and various places in Europe.

CFR.org podcast

The council of foreign relations carries two podcasts. One is the events podcast, about which I have written in the past, that gives out recordings of CFR conferences and panel discussions. This time I will comment on the generic CFR.org podcast.

On a weekly basis one of the CFR representatives has a short conversation with an expert in one field or another and interviews him about his specialty. I find the issues a bit too short. For a weekly interview podcast I could do with a little more information. The latest I hear was about terrorist threats in Europe and what the various European countries are doing about that. The conversation with the specialist, Michael Jacobson (photo), takes less than five minutes.

A weekly podcast that is more than a monologue can easily last twenty minutes. I am sure it wouldn't hurt for mr. Jacobson to stay a little longer on the phone. I am sure the CFR can cook up some more questions and I think it goes without saying that the interested listener is intent on hearing much more than just a superficial outline of how Europe is prepared to deal with terrorism.