My favorite tv show when ia was a child was The ThunderCats. It was  an American/Japanese animation based on a group of cat-like humanoid aliens.I satrted watching it at 7 years old in 1989, but the tv show started before in 1985 and actually finished in 1989. The history was about this group of alien cats who escaped from their planet of birth (Thundera) after its explosion. They traveled to the Third Planet to build a new life there, but in this planet lives the mutants, a group of enemies who depend of their boss, Mun Ra. The enemies makes efforts to  steal the "sword of augury" who had the capacity to see the future, and contains the spiritual power of thundercats. Obviously thundercats won every battle. I enjoyed every season because i was identified with the hero, Leon- O, the leader of the thundercats. I have the memroy about one specific chapter: In the begining, the thundercats should choose to their leader, and  they made a competition between them self. Every one had differents habilities and disabilities, and everyones had the option to be the leader. Was very interesting to me as a child, see this kind of competition. Even Leon-O won the challenge, the others respect him and enjoyed his triumph. Now i think that is the idea of colaborative work what i loved of this tv show.

Thirteen years ago i went to Machu Picchu with my best friend in this moment of my life. There were almost fifteen days in the zone, visiting all the touristic places. Even more than remember the name of the places, the history of Machu Picchu etc., i have two exceptional memories of my travel. The first one, a kid of eight or nine years old who was in the Cuzco square. He knew diferent  topics about many differents countries in the world, and he used to tell you : "Hey, where are you from- Chile- Ok, the money of Chile is El Peso, Santiago is the capital, etc", and after this speech, he asked one dollar, and the same ritual with other tourist from Brazil, Spain, Italy. Was very amazing. The second one, a history of white humor. When we returned of Machu Picchu by train, the rail had a problem, so we had to finish the travel to Cuzco by taxi. The horror started when we saw that our driver don´t knew how to drive...we had to develop our courage and endure three large hours of fear in the way. In 2014 i want to visit Cuzco again. I hope enjoy new adventures like these.

6 years ago, talk about September 18th was synonym of boringness for me. Since 2007 i started to enjoy this date meeting with my closer friends, making travels to the beach in groups, going to the fondas and making a lot of barbecues. Obviously drinking diferent kinds of alcohols, specially wines, chicha and piscolas.

Despite this, this year my September 18th was very different. I  traveled  to Algarrobo with my girlfriend. We spend very quite and relaxed days, sleeping and eating a lot, watching classic movies like "Unforgiven" by Clint Eastwood.

One day we decide to travel to Olmué. Was my first time there. Its a little village in the field. We visited a two friends who invited to us to a family barbecue. We ate a wonderfull empanada cooked in a mud oven, a very tasty meat of cow, and cold beers. In the afternoon we play with two “volantiines”…after one hour  we lost our best valantin... We overcome this lost with more wine and beers.



Today i will talk to you about Martin Seligman´s speech in TED (2004). He is a psychologist, he founded the field of positive psychology in 2000. This is an approach to discover how make the people´s life happier. The title of his talk was : "The new era of positive psychology". He talked about the three aims of his field: developing the strengths of humans, building the best things in life, and making the  life of normal people fulfilling.

 

The main cuestión of this approach is: Can psychology actually make the people happier?. He answered "Yes". For this reason he makes scientific researchs to measurement human strengths, looking the causes of happiness and developing positive interventions to make people feel better.

 

He showed three positive interventions proven by his researchs: Design a "beautiful day", to write a testimony to a loved people and read it to him in a "gratitud visit", and make one altruistic act and one funny act, comparing its effect. This three interventions has an impact in the satisfaction with life.

 

Well, i selected this talk because i am interested to know the Seligman´s ideas. Of course i agree with him in his critic to the disease model in psychology (focused in illness and weakness), but i don´t share his point of view about therapy. In his concept, the therapist teach to others how to be happier, how to have a better life. It represent a high risk to transform all your patients in a "Mini Me", in other words, the patient finally has to imitate his therapist, and learn of him what happyness it´s about, and how to found her.

 

I prefer others points of view about human satisfactions and emotions, especially because they respect the particularity of everyone to decide how to be happy.

(If you are interested to view the video, clik here: http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html)

First of all i have to recognize that im not a tech lover. While my friends used to play with the last electronic device like "Super nintendo" or after "play station", i prefered expend my time watching tv, even the chilean tv if the cable system was to expensive to have it in home.

But with time, the tecnology became more atractive, expanding its potencial more far than videogames. In that poinit of the history, I started to be interest in new devices who meet many functions in its own function. This the case of my favorite piece of technology: The Ipod Touch. Even i detest all the "mac atmosphere" (regarding style, fashion, hipsters expectatives), this device became in a close friend to me.

The iPod Touch is a portable music and video player, handheld game console, and email-capable personal digital assistant, designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is not a smartphone, though its design and operating system closely resemble Apple's iPhone.

I have it since 2009, and its really change my way to hear music and capture my experiences in pictures and video.  I use it almost everyday to hear music when i take the bus or subway, the weekends in a party or meetings with friends, and specially when i do workout at gym.

The other function that i love it, is the potencial to be used as a camera. Its portability and its easy way to function, facilitates the record of all this funny moments that life gives to you day a day.

For all this reasons, its imposible to think a life without it. God Bless the Ipods!!!!

Who is the dreamer who dreams the dream?

For a psychologist like me, the word "dreams" means a lot o f things at the same time. First of all, dreams are an expressión of our unconscious. They are an unconscious thinking who was desfigurated by our conscious. By its desfiguration we can "see" it in our dreams, but we have to do a work to interpretate them, and discover the real message down this obligatory desfiguration.

In other way, "dreams" also means aspirations, expectatives, or wishes we want to get. All of us needs a dream to follow. This dream is like a goal we want, but sometimes our dreams are so irrealist that we never will get them.

For that reason i like to have dreams, but i prefered this kind of dreams you can get in some point of your life, dreams you can work to find them. For example, get the Phd. is a dream to me. If i work every day, i know i will meet this goal in the future.

Finaly, "dreams" talks about a social utopy, about what kind of society we want to build in the future. I make a bet for our country, y think we will have a better future, with less poberty, injustice, and violence. This dream depends of us.

Books of my life

 

Books are really important in my life. Since i was a kid, i read a lot of books. In school we used to read story books by Barco de Vapor publishers like "Terror in Winipeg" and "Murder on the Canadian Express". Obviously, like every chilean kid, i read Papelucho and i enjoyed whith this beautifull stories by Marcela Paz.

In the secondary, i remebered many books who introduce me into the big world literature like "Madame Bovary", "Cien años de Soledad", and "Niebla" by Miguel de Unamuno.

After, in the university i was forced to leave the literature by books of my field of studies: Freud s completes editions, Lacan s seminaries, Philosophy and Sociology authors etc, are my favorites since this moment.  Actually, i read three or four books at the same time. I choose one or another depending of my mood, time to read, or by the simply wish to read something special.

 

Sometimes i become to read a literature book, especially of poetry. If i have to think in one book to recomended you, i have no doubts: You must read any book by our national poet Jorge Teillier. You shouldn t lose it in your life!