• "The Importance of Being Inauthentic" by Mark Bowden

• Leslie Morgan Steiner's "why domestic violence victims don't leave"

• Happiness, health and transformation, according to Dean Ornish, M.D.

Please check out the library of available blog articles and podcast recordings.

• Tasha Eurich on Self-Awareness



• Terry Real on "Toxic Individualism"

The Men's Group Seminar: Revisiting the Placebo Effect: New Science on Mindset, Health, and Healing

For decades, the scientific and popular attitude toward the so-called “placebo effect” has largely been negative, e.g., according to Wikipedia a placebo “is a sham (my italics) substance or treatment which is designed to have no known therapeutic value.” Yet, there is burgeoning scientific evidence indicating the substantial power of placebo and its involvement in our beliefs and expectations (what is referred to as “mindset”). Erik Vance, a science journalist and author of Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal, documents the positive impact of placebo intervention in the treatment of diverse medical problems including pain, depression, anxiety, addiction, autoimmune diseases, and even Parkinson’s disease. He explains how the brain is a “prediction-making machine” that “creates expectations;” through both “conscious” and “unconscious” mechanisms, Vance argues, placebos trigger the brain and nervous system to release endogenous opioids that result in a relief of physical symptoms (not just the perception of relief). Alia Crum, a researcher and director of Stanford’s Mind and Body Lab, has conducted a series of fascinating studies on the relationship between mindset (expectations/beliefs) and physiological outcomes. In a study of housekeepers (one group: told that housekeeping was valuable exercise; control group: not told this), Crum found that the former group lost more weight, experienced lower blood pressure levels, and dropped more body fat than the control group. Another study by Crum centered on the consumption of milkshakes: one group was told the milkshake they drank was “indulgent” and high in calories and fat vs. another group who was told they drank a low calorie/healthy milkshake. Even though both groups drank a milkshake of identical calorie and fat content, the second group (who apparently drank the low-calorie milkshake) showed a three-fold drop in a gut peptide marker of satiety. Thus, if you “believed” you drank a high-fat milkshake, you felt (and your body signaled as much) fuller and more satiated.

In the next virtual meeting of the Men’s Group Seminar on Saturday, November 5, 2022 (10:15 to 11:30 AM), we will explore the implications of this research on how we approach and may attempt to manipulate our mindsets to achieve desirable psychological and physiological effects. The Choiceology podcast episode “Mindful of Mindsets” featuring Erik Vance and Alia Crum will be our central focus. Additional material we will consider includes Vance’s “Suggestible You – You Can’t Believe Everything You Think” and Crum’s TEDx Talk “Change Your Mindset, Change the Game.” We will also discuss current neurobiological models of mindset influences. 

To register for this upcoming virtual seminar, please see the directions below.

The Relationship Group Seminar: Needs



A significant component of mental health is the capacity to access one’s needs and satisfy those needs in social relationships. Needs have been the subject of considerable scientific investigation, but Maslow’s contributions are perhaps the most well-known. Today, needs are approached from a variety of different perspectives, often categorized into domains including physical/emotional safety, desire/satisfaction, and social connection; there are broad-based needs related to dreams and goals, day-to-day preferences concerning how one lives, and interpersonal longings to be viewed positively and/or loved. Unfortunately, our needs often go unmet and, at times, even unidentified. Psychologist and author Rick Hanson, Ph.D., among other experts, contends that “accessing the interior” is not easy for many adults who are simply “out of touch” with themselves. This disconnect from our own internal life is often rooted in the cultural and family systems predicaments of our childhoods. For example, as children we may have been socialized to suppress or compartmentalize our needs, view our needs shamefully or with guilt, and/or feel that getting our needs met by others is unfair or burdensome. 

In the next virtual meeting of the Relationship Group Seminar on Saturday, November 5, 2022 (11:45 AM to 1:00 PM), we will explore the psychology of needs and how identifying and advocating for our needs, especially in the context of relationships, may be hindered. The “Discovering Your Wants and Needs” episode of the Being Well podcast featuring Rick Hanson will be our central focus. Our discussion will also consider new understandings of “mindful awareness” including the role of interoception, i.e., the capacity to access internal physiological states and self-regulatory levels (beginning in early childhood) that is linked to insight into one’s feeling states and, ultimately, “a coherent relationship with the self … (consisting of) effective communication between body, mind, and feelings.” Also examined will be “Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD),” an emerging psychiatric condition that involves being subjected to repetitive “small” interpersonal traumas (often during childhood) in which one’s needs were directly or indirectly rejected. In the aftermath of these experiences, grief, guilt, shame, and distrust of others may abound and may compromise future attempts to be intimately connected to others. Finally, the delicate balance between needing and not needing others will be discussed.     

To register for this upcoming virtual seminar, please see the directions below.

The Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Group

A new psychodynamic psychotherapy group (for women and men) is currently forming in my practice. Referrals are welcomed (please contact me at 949-338-4388 or at jt@jamestobinphd.com). This therapy group will utilize the emerging dynamics among group members as a basis from which to examine characteristic ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to others. This group will be a therapeutic experience and entry occurs only after a pre-group screening interview and preparation phase. As of now, the time and location of this new group are TBD.