Author: Andrew Taggart

• June 23, 2011

  Rules of thumb for starting a way of life business

  This is Part 1 of a 3-part series. Part 1 on ways of life business. Part 2 on why starting a business makes sense. Part 3 on picking out stepping stones. — My prediction is that the Ways of Life business is the next frontier. This is where we’re heading in the 21st C. We’re…
• June 22, 2011

  On the illusions of psychiatry

  In this 2nd piece of a 2-part series on the history and practice of psychiatry, Marcia Angell critically examines the players and forces behind psychiatry’s cozy relationship with big pharma. She argues: After 1950 and especially during the 1980s, psychiatrists made a conscious effort to adopt a biological model. In so doing, psychiatry was able…
• June 21, 2011

  ‘And what makes you qualified?’

  Forget all this nonsense about flashing resumes and writing letters and sending these, as a package, off to the four corners of the universe. Stop fishing: stop seeing what’s out there, casting a wide net, buckling your soul, waiting for daybreak. Instead, turn the question around. Never done this before? Good. Barely heard of it…
• June 20, 2011

  The demise of the lectio divina

  The following is an excerpt from Ivan Illich’s book In the Vineyard of the Text. To give you some context: Hugh of St. Victor is the hero of the book. In this excerpt, Illich is describing the change in reading practice from a fully embodied, transformative experience (the lectio divina up until the 13th C.)…
• June 18, 2011

  Toward an alternative business model for philosophical counseling

  I’m giving a talk this afternoon at the APPA Annual Meeting just up the road at Columbia. The talk’s entitled “Toward an Alternative Business Model for Philosophical Counseling.” (Very catchy!) I’ll be arguing We’re living through a historical transition the result of which is that our old ways of life are inherently unworkable. At the…