Thinking With Somebody Else's Head

I've talked before on this podcast about my personal journey to treading a more Judeo-Christian theology path in my life -- inspired by my almost 25 years in Brazil working with Norberto Keppe's science of Analytical Trilogy. That was a surprise. I full expected a deep psychological dive into my own psyche and a continuous analysis of my actions and motivations and successes and failures. Psychoan...

The N.Y. Time, Dec. 21, 2025 edition, has an opinion piece entitled "Christianity Is a Dangerous Faith." That might stop you in your tracks even if you're not a practicing Christian. Dangerous faith? Really? During Christmas week? My initial thought on seeing the headline was, "Is that really necessary?" The article goes on to make the usual rather pedantic points about fanaticism and religious in...

It's been impressive to see the various attempts to re-write history so it fits into a politically correct vision of reality. The New York Times 1619 Project comes to mind, the removal of statues and monuments to take out those associated with slavery or colonialism, the re-evaluation of historic personalities based on a modern view - these are all in full vigor.  And criticizable -- although...

Working with clients in psychoanalysis, one of the hardest tasks is helping them to see the negative things they do without realizing it. Self-destructive habits, procrastination of important activities, reckless or careless behaviors -- these all have causes from deep inside that we can't get to without help. Freud mistakenly linked these to what he called Thanatos -- a death drive -- proposing t...

Back in the 1950s, the CIA and Kremlin got it into their collective heads that figuring out how to brainwash and modify human behavior was a good idea. Totally illegally, of course. And damaging to any who were submitted to their personality control experiments. Out of this abusive and paranoid climate came such films as The Manchurian Candidate and Wormwood and even Jason Bourne. Some have linked...

Dr. Keppe has said many times over the more than 2 decades I've been here in Brazil studying and working with him that no one is good alone. That means we act from influencers in our lives -- and I don't mean the social media kind. Friends and family, lovers and mentors, teachers and priests and padres -- all have had their positive effect on us. And then, since we're dealing with theology in this...

Growing up in a modern developed, secular society means limited access to theological understanding. There is some spirituality mixed into the stew of science and legislation and jurisprudence, but it's of a modern kind -- meaning a blend of concepts and ideas pulled from Eastern philosophy, New Age imaginings and Quantum physics. And as such, there's lots of talk about influences from numbers and...

Our modern world, often driven more by reason and logic than by faith and revelation, has few answers for the mysteries that more spiritual leanings point to as evidence of God. Where the scientific materialists advocate for blind, pitiless indifference to explain the development process of life and the universe, other scientists are seeing unmistakeable evidence of design. Design means a Designer...

There's a lot of certainty in scientific circles about how science and religion can't go together. In fact, consensus that empirical science has made God unnecessary, and that religion, with its strange elements of faith and ritual, is irrational and harmful. If you've been listening to our series, you'll realize we don't walk down that road. While we certainly agree that superstition and fanatici...

We've been looking at the deep spiritual questions that rise in the human breast in our series. And we've been doing that through the lens of theology, which has been so dismissed, even despised, in our modern science. To our great detriment. As we'll hear in this episode, Dr. Keppe accepted his clients' questions and admissions in his practice right from the beginning, thus liberating them to tal...

Our intention in this podcast series is to bring some consciousness about something that only a few desire knowing about: there are evil spirits organizing and guiding our lives. Already I can hear the howls of protest. I have a young teenage student from Europe who gets very agitated if anything metaphysical gets put forward as the cause of anything. Only the scientific explanations work for him,...

The idea of Creation. The new atheists rail against that. "It's not rational," they insist. The product of a weak mind. Yes, I've heard all that before. In fact, I'm quick to admit that may have been my mind some years ago.  I say "may" because I'm not sure what I thought about the origins of all this we see around us in the natural world. I think I didn't give it so much thought actually. I...

  What we're trying to do in our new series here is offer a scientific analysis of spiritual phenomena, especially looking at mental illness and demonic possession. But not the demonic possession we see in the movies. Rather, we delve into the negative diabolical influence that’s a factor for all of us everywhere in our modern society. And this is totally a new approach, because the official...

Anyone who's been even peripherally involved in the self-help movement will be familiar with the literature promising solutions. The three steps to this, the pathways to that, the enumerated habits that lead to accomplishment or resolution or bliss.  Finally The great Brazilian psychoanalyst and social scientist, Dr. Norberto Keppe , is not of that persuasion. His work is deeply psychological...

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and this is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. The debate between talent and hard work is a dynamic one. Is it raw talent that carries the day or practice and dedication that reigns? I remember deciding when I was 11 or so, on hearing my recorded singing voice played back on my cousin's new cassette recorder, that I couldn't sing. How that marked my life, because I though...

Memories of paradise. That's not just a great dream sequence or catchy movie title. That's something that resonates through almost every culture on Earth.  The Roman poet, Tacitus, wrote in the first century A.D. about how humans lived following the prompting of their own nature, which led to righteous actions. In India, the story has been passed on of how all humans were saintly. The Chinese...

Freud believed we were often influenced by memories, traumas and instincts we had repressed, but they influenced our behaviors anyway. He got there by studying hypnosis, analyzing dreams and paying attention to those slips of the tongue that reveal what we try to keep hidden.  "No mortal can keep a secret," Freud maintained. "If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips. Betrayal o...

There's an old Chinese phrase that goes, "It's better to be a dog in peaceful times than a man in a time of chaos."  Wishful thinking, some may call that, for it's difficult to see peaceful times at any moment in human history. Most of us with a bit of life experience hearken back to when times were easier, and end up moralizing to any who will listen that our times back then were superior. A...

I've been in Brazil going on 24 years, using Norberto Keppe's psychotherapeutic methodology in education and communications, and also as a psychoanalyst at Keppe's school. The positive results available to anyone who studies with us and accepts the consciousness that comes through our classes and therapy sessions are noteworthy. From overcoming learning blocks to resolving long-standing or acute p...

Sometimes, when I have something important to do, I must confess I feel a little resistance. It's an interesting phenomenon because it's like a general lethargy. Like the energy has drained away and there's nothing left for the job at hand. In those moments, all sorts of other activities suddenly appear infinitely more appealing.  YouTube's a quick click away, and the algorithms have numerous...

Being upside down. Every kid loves that. Being hoisted up by the ankles and hanging there in your father's sure hands with your head where your feet should be. It's great as a game, but none of us could imagine going through life that way. But Norberto Keppe 's discovery that humankind is inverted shows us how we are actually living life upside down. Not physically, but philosophically, emotionall...

Maybe, like me when I first moved to Brazil, you have the idea that metaphysics is a kind of woo-woo field of study. That part of the bookstore with titles like Find Your Soulmate through Channelling , or Unlocking Your Invisible Power . True metaphysics, though, is a branch of philosophy that deals with what's beyond the physical. Those elusive subjects like being and knowing, action and potentia...

Today, a conversation with Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco about living in the spiritual world. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. It was the Police back in the early '80s that approached the subject of us being spirits in a material world. A typically spare and rhythm driven track that was catchy and infectious. They were an interesting band. But, while they were observing the bleak political situation we li...

Dr. Norberto Keppe, the developer of the psychoanalytical science used by Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco on this podcast, has written extensively about sociopathology, which is the application of psychological conditions to society at large.  Quite innovative really. So, as we might analyze an individual's neurotic response to an everyday situation, we could also recognize an equally neurotic law...

We are always, in our programs, trying to get to the psychological and spiritual causes behind our physical and emotional problems. It's a journey that Norberto Keppe's Integral Psychoanalysis is well positioned to embark on Keppe has synthesized Freud's psychoanalytical methodology, Melanie Klein's observations on envy and gratitude, classical German psychiatric findings on megalomania and arroga...