Jack Presbury

Neuroscience, Magic, and Counseling

Recent findings in neuroscience have identified principles, such as attention management and change blindness, which stage magicians exploit to create illusions. Neuroscientists have also revealed how mirror neurons and oxytocin enhance the impact of magic. In other words, magicians are just as much practitioners of sleight of mind as they are of sleight of hand. We explore how magicians take advantage of these neurological processes to trick audiences and how counselors can use the same processes to enhance neuroplasticity. Magicians use techniques to narrow or misdirect attention, but counselors help expand awareness and illuminate what a client previously has dissociated, denied, or inhibited. Consequently, although a magic performance can leave a spectator mystified, counseling can leave a client transformed.

The Elements: A Model of Mindful Supervision.

Mindfulness, based on an ancient spiritual practice, is a core quality and way of being that can deepen and enrich the supervision of counselors. This model of mindful supervision incorporates Buddhist and Hindu conceptualizations of the roles of the five elements—space, earth, water, fire, air—as they relate to adhikara or studentship, the ongoing experience of a beginners mind. By extending the invitation to studentship and outlining a flow through the elements, this model cultivates a stance of “not knowing,” wonder, curiosity, and openness. We explore the contributions and dynamic interplay of each of these elements in promoting mindful supervision.