Hey there and Welcome!
I’m Dr. Kernan Manion, a physician retired from the quasi-scientific, artsy-craftsy world of clinical psychiatry and now doing a diversity of engaging things - coaching, consulting, speaking, leading retreats, writing, doing podcasts, leading a physician rights advocacy program ….
While I write and podcast on some serious physician rights and related clinician-focused issues on my other newsletter on Substack - Physician Interrupted - this blog and podcast are intended to be a place for a wider range of topics under the broad rubric of “interesting things having to do with the human brain, its mostly attached mind, and people.”
Yes, a large canvas, and lots of paint.
I decided to start this separate ShrinkRap newsletter and podcast for diverse reasons:
There are some things I think about and write on that don’t quite fit in that Physician Interrupted space. Topics like what factors might be driving a country to self-implosion - and what might help abort that; living in ‘da Nile,’ that internal place in our heads where we completely deny the reality of looming threats to our - and our planet’s - existence; the nature of psychological work, of “knowing yourself” … well, ad infinitum.
It’s a creative excursion for me, actually a writer’s / podcaster’s playground. It’s a place where I can experiment with ways to share observations, insights (well, I think they are), life coping strategies…. An opportunity to delve into human drama, lighten things up with wry humor, share inspirational pieces like the lovely poetry of the Middle Eastern mystic Rumi (especially as meta-translated or interpreted by Coleman Barks), philosophize, and occasionally be a snide commentator. I absolutely love reading some of the more acerbic commentary from talented writers, pieces that mince another’s positional stance to mush. Not even that I agree with the mincer, just that their swift slices are so deft. It’s especially relishing when the mincee rises to the occasion and ju jitsu’s the mincer.
And truth be told, it’s a unique opportunity for me to incrementally publish my long-overdue book / e-course MindSense, a practical approach to emotional intelligence. I’m excited about sharing MindSense because it’s a whole new take on EQ (the accepted abbreviation for emotional intelligence, a cute play on IQ which stood for Intelligence Quotient. I guess EIQ didn’t have the same umph). I keep getting derailed by one life urgency after another but, given that that’s the road I’m on, I just as soon drop off these little packets along the way.
Another motivator for me is the great opportunity I get to practice VO - voiceover - work. I’ve been fascinated with the VO world for some time now. My secret aspiration is to do VO for historic documentaries. I’m an absolute groupie when it comes to listening to the voice of Peter Coyote, the narrator of many of Ken Burns’ documentaries. I’m also practicing doing children’s book VO as a dear friend of mine, a fellow whistleblower who also got his career annihilated for speaking truth to power, is a talented children’s storybook author. I’ll soon share one of my first reads I did, then first learning how to mix in music and sound effects (for me, a steep learning curve).
Right now, the ShrinkRap podcast will be a read-aloud version of the written pieces. But there may come a time where it diversifies, perhaps having some guests, or sharing something that’s best delivered orally, or just responding to the needs of the medium and its audience.
I do hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I am crafting it.
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