Dr.Dana Suskind

Kathryn interviews Author Dana Suskind MD. As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc on families, and the Build Back Better plan is stalled in Congress, many parents feel alone, resourceless, and forgotten. But as Dr. Dana Suskind recently wrote in The Hill, parents have the power to become our nation’s strongest special interest group. She proposes we must make healthy brain development our North Star, the organizing principle around which our society is oriented. And we must do so by elevating our expectations for how society supports parents, the first and most important architects of children’s brains. Suskind is a world-class pediatric surgeon, social scientist, and bestselling author who has been featured in the NY Times, The Economist, Forbes, NPR, and Freakonomics.Kathryn also interviews Author Thomas R. Verny MD. So, we understand the workings of the human body well enough, right? Muscles interact with bones to move us, as the heart responds to hormones secreted by the brain, all the way down to the inner workings of every cell. No one component can work alone. In light of this, why is it the accepted understanding that the physical phenomenon of the mind is attributed only to the brain? Internationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas R. Verny sets out to redefine our concept of the mind and consciousness. He brilliantly compiles new research that points to the mind’s ties to every part of the body. He collects disparate findings from many fields of science in order to illustrate the mounting evidence that somatic cells, not just neural cells, store memory, inform genetic coding, and adapt to environmental changes—all behaviors that contribute to the conscious mind. He previously taught at Harvard and is presently Associate Editor of the Journal of the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health.