Nick Read » Lectures and Talks

The Meaning of Human Obesity

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:38:09 +0000

This talk considers the current epidemic of human obesity from physiological, psychological and social perspectives, integrating ideas about the nature of greed, desire, materialism and entitlement with concepts such as the thrifty gene, early life conditioning, and the abundance and variety of food. Related posts:How to keep your shape when all about are losing theirs; [...] Related posts:

How to keep your shape when all about are losing theirs; is there an answer to the obesity epidemic? For the last twenty years, we have been getting noticeably...
The Meaning (and the Narrative) of Illness Using examples from modern case histories and historical references, I...
The intestinal regulation of eating behaviour Having shown that intestinal infusion of lipid will delay gastric...

Managing your Irritable Bowel

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:36:44 +0000

I have had many years experience of looking after patients who suffer from the Irritable Bowel Syndrome and am currently writing a Self Management Programme for IBS. Drawing on my experience of working both as a physician and a psychotherapist I will explain and run through strategies for self management. This talk can also be delivered as a course for either patients or health professionals.

Diagnostic Criteria for Irritable Bowel Syndrome Irritable Bowel Syndrome is one of the large number of...
Amazon Review of Sick and Tired on Amazon “A must for...
Proforma medico-legal curriculum vitae Medico-legal curriculum vitae Name: Nicholas W. Read Date of Birth:...

Future Medicine: Integrating the New Science with the Art of Medicine

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:33:52 +0000

When illness cannot be explained by an obvious pathological change that can be rectified, then it is necessary to seek to understand and heal the patient rather than treat the disease. Complementary or Alternative therapies are person centered and apply therapies that treat the whole person rather then the illness. They seek an understanding of the patient and create the mental space to think things through and get well. While some of the individual methods may be difficult to validate scientifically, they all provide a focus of healing that instills confidence and the expectation of recovery and well being. This approach is remarkably effective for medically unexplained illness. A future practice of medicine needs to integrate scientific medicine with healing in order to facilitate a return to health.

Amazon Review of Sick and Tired on Amazon “A must for...
Book Sick and Tired: Healing the Diseases that Doctors Cannot Cure...
Reacting to What has Happened: underlying Causes of Unexplained Illness People get ill when something happens to them that they...

Stress, strain and loneliness; How modern Life is Making us Ill

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:31:30 +0000

From binge eating to irritable bowels and chronic fatigue, medically unexplained illness now accounts for over 50% of doctor visits in the UK. So why, at a time, when medical science claims to offer an effective treatment for most if not all serious disease, are so many people feeling ill. In this talk, I argue that the unprecedented pace of social change is creating a whole series novel personal dilemma. Children are growing up into a world that they are ill equipped to cope with. Added to that, we are becoming a much more isolated society, tending to rely more on computers and television than community structures to deal with what happens to us. This combination of fundamental change and personal isolation can create tensions which we find difficult to resolve and can make us ill.

Making sense of coastal erosion The east coast of England is being washed away. Tidal...
All life is yoga ‘All life is Yoga.’ So wrote Sri Aurobindo, sage and...
Book Sick and Tired: Healing the Diseases that Doctors Cannot Cure...

Reacting to What has Happened: underlying Causes of Unexplained Illness

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:26:53 +0000

People get ill when something happens to them that they cannot deal with. Using individual case histories and evidence from the aftermath of disasters, this talk documents the relationship between life events and illness. It explains how when something happens to us, it is usually felt in the body, but if those feelings can be put into context to create and emotion and that emotion can be worked through and resolved then the bodily sensations and reactions disappear. Illness develops when the tension cannot be put into context or worked through and is more likely to occur in situations reminiscent of previous traumas or novel disturbing events where we have no previous experience of resolution to draw on. In this talk, I present a new approach that links, stress and emotional regulation to otherwise unexplained illness.

The Meaning (and the Narrative) of Illness Using examples from modern case histories and historical references, I...
Hype, Spleen, Vapours and Spinal Irritation; the Hystery of Unexplained Illness This talk documents the history of ideas concerning illnesses that...
Book Sick and Tired: Healing the Diseases that Doctors Cannot Cure...

Hype, Spleen, Vapours and Spinal Irritation; the Hystery of Unexplained Illness

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:24:28 +0000

This talk documents the history of ideas concerning illnesses that have no obvious pathological explanation from classical antiquity to the current day, charting a course from the wandering womb, retained menses to hormonal imbalance and from melancholia through irritable weakness to M.E, concluding that we are not suffering from a multiplicity of unexplained illness, but from an ancient concept of disease that can be configured by the culture and manifests itself in different forms.

Reacting to What has Happened: underlying Causes of Unexplained Illness People get ill when something happens to them that they...
The Meaning (and the Narrative) of Illness Using examples from modern case histories and historical references, I...
Diagnostic Criteria for Irritable Bowel Syndrome Irritable Bowel Syndrome is one of the large number of...

The Meaning (and the Narrative) of Illness

admin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:32:03 +0000

Using examples from modern case histories and historical references, I explore with the audience how illness does not so much express the pathological changes in bodily organs but represents the meaning of what has happened in a person’s life. Bodily reactions can be linked to certain life events by an emotional conditioning and evoked by any situation that is reminiscent of the original event. And since our emotional responses to certain situations are configured by the culture in which we live, this can generate the meaning behind so called cultural illness, such as obesity, anorexia nervosa and chronic fatigue.

Reacting to What has Happened: underlying Causes of Unexplained Illness People get ill when something happens to them that they...
Hype, Spleen, Vapours and Spinal Irritation; the Hystery of Unexplained Illness This talk documents the history of ideas concerning illnesses that...
Book Sick and Tired: Healing the Diseases that Doctors Cannot Cure...