Michaela Lifshitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 186633 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michaela Lifshitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michaela |
| FAMILY NAME | Lifshitz |
| SIGNATURE | LIFSHITZ M |
| AFFILIATIONS | McGill University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7051-4248 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Holy Spirit or Holy Psyche? Energy-Like Somatic Experiences in Contemporary Abrahamic Meditative Traditions
Meditation practitioners, historically and today, sometimes report experiencing energy-like sensations in their body. While recent empirical studies have explored such experiences in the context of Buddhist and Yogic practice, no comparable research has yet examined energy-like sensations in Jewish, Christian, or Islamic traditions. We interviewed 30 practitioners and 30 teachers from Abrahamic contemplative traditions and found that energy-like …
The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release
Buddhist Jhāna meditation and the Christian practice of speaking in tongues appear wildly distinct. These spiritual techniques differ in their ethical, theological, and historical frames and seem, from the outside, to produce markedly different states of consciousness—one a state of utter calm and the other of high emotional arousal. Yet, our phenomenological interviews with experienced practitioners in the USA found significant points of converg…
From Generative Models to Generative Passages
This paper presents a version of neurophenomenology based on generative modelling techniques developed in computational neuroscience and biology. Our approach can be described as computational phenomenology because it applies methods originally developed in computational modelling to provide a formal model of the descriptions of lived experience in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy (e.g., the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Pon…
Psychedelic medicine at a crossroads
Psychedelics have been already used by human societies for more than 3000 years, mostly in religious and healing context. The renewed interest in the potential application of psychedelic compounds as novel therapeutics has led to promising preliminary evidence of clinical benefit in some psychiatric disorders. Despite these promising results, the potential for large-scale clinical application of these profoundly consciousness-altering substances,…
Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths
Significance The sensory presence of gods and spirits is central to many of the religions that have shaped human history—in fact, many people of faith report having experienced such events. But these experiences are poorly understood by social scientists and rarely studied empirically. We present a multiple-discipline, multiple-methods program of research involving thousands of people from diverse cultures and religions which demonstrates that tw…
Super Placebos
Background: Ample evidence demonstrates that placebo effects are modulated by contextual factors. Few interventions, however, attempt to combine a broad range of these factors. Here, we explore the therapeutic power of placebos by leveraging factors including social proof, positive suggestion, and social learning. This study aimed to test the feasibility of an elaborate "super placebo" intervention to reduce symptoms of various disorders in a ped…
Suggestion overrides automatic audiovisual integration
Converging evidence for de-automatization as a function of suggestion
Varieties of attention in hypnosis and meditation
Can expectation enhance response to suggestion? De-automatization illuminates a conundrum
Girls' Identity Formation as Related to Perception of Parents
Fifty Israeli female college students participated in a study aimed at assessing women's personal aspirations about self-identity as compared with their perception of mother and father. Results lead to the construction of a model of identity development, along Piaget's formulations, in which the mother is perceived as mainly responsible for the concrete stage of her children's development by fulfilling, within the family circle, nurturant and aff…
Long range effects of father's loss
Perceived similarity versus contrast between kibbutz parents and their preadolescent children's adjustment
The Impact of the Social Milieu upon the Nature of Adoptees' Emotional Difficulties
Differences in developmental trends of symptomatology between 30 adopted children (aged 6-13 years) and a matched control group of biological children, all referred to a child guidance clinic and reared within the kibbutz communal educational system, are examined. Results indicate that kibbutz adoptees' symptoms show a specificity different from that reported in other studies for city adopted children; they convey significant feelings of insecuri…
Psychedelic medicine at a crossroads
Psychedelics have been already used by human societies for more than 3000 years, mostly in religious and healing context. The renewed interest in the potential application of psychedelic compounds as novel therapeutics has led to promising preliminary evidence of clinical benefit in some psychiatric disorders. Despite these promising results, the potential for large-scale clinical application of these profoundly consciousness-altering substances,…
Long range effects of father's loss
Perceived similarity versus contrast between kibbutz parents and their preadolescent children's adjustment
The Impact of the Social Milieu upon the Nature of Adoptees' Emotional Difficulties
Differences in developmental trends of symptomatology between 30 adopted children (aged 6-13 years) and a matched control group of biological children, all referred to a child guidance clinic and reared within the kibbutz communal educational system, are examined. Results indicate that kibbutz adoptees' symptoms show a specificity different from that reported in other studies for city adopted children; they convey significant feelings of insecuri…
Long range effects of father's loss
Girls' Identity Formation as Related to Perception of Parents
Fifty Israeli female college students participated in a study aimed at assessing women's personal aspirations about self-identity as compared with their perception of mother and father. Results lead to the construction of a model of identity development, along Piaget's formulations, in which the mother is perceived as mainly responsible for the concrete stage of her children's development by fulfilling, within the family circle, nurturant and aff…
Converging evidence for de-automatization as a function of suggestion
Varieties of attention in hypnosis and meditation
Can expectation enhance response to suggestion? De-automatization illuminates a conundrum
Suggestion overrides automatic audiovisual integration
Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths
Significance The sensory presence of gods and spirits is central to many of the religions that have shaped human history—in fact, many people of faith report having experienced such events. But these experiences are poorly understood by social scientists and rarely studied empirically. We present a multiple-discipline, multiple-methods program of research involving thousands of people from diverse cultures and religions which demonstrates that tw…
Super Placebos
Background: Ample evidence demonstrates that placebo effects are modulated by contextual factors. Few interventions, however, attempt to combine a broad range of these factors. Here, we explore the therapeutic power of placebos by leveraging factors including social proof, positive suggestion, and social learning. This study aimed to test the feasibility of an elaborate "super placebo" intervention to reduce symptoms of various disorders in a ped…
From Generative Models to Generative Passages
This paper presents a version of neurophenomenology based on generative modelling techniques developed in computational neuroscience and biology. Our approach can be described as computational phenomenology because it applies methods originally developed in computational modelling to provide a formal model of the descriptions of lived experience in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy (e.g., the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Pon…
Psychedelic medicine at a crossroads
Psychedelics have been already used by human societies for more than 3000 years, mostly in religious and healing context. The renewed interest in the potential application of psychedelic compounds as novel therapeutics has led to promising preliminary evidence of clinical benefit in some psychiatric disorders. Despite these promising results, the potential for large-scale clinical application of these profoundly consciousness-altering substances,…
The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release
Buddhist Jhāna meditation and the Christian practice of speaking in tongues appear wildly distinct. These spiritual techniques differ in their ethical, theological, and historical frames and seem, from the outside, to produce markedly different states of consciousness—one a state of utter calm and the other of high emotional arousal. Yet, our phenomenological interviews with experienced practitioners in the USA found significant points of converg…
Holy Spirit or Holy Psyche? Energy-Like Somatic Experiences in Contemporary Abrahamic Meditative Traditions
Meditation practitioners, historically and today, sometimes report experiencing energy-like sensations in their body. While recent empirical studies have explored such experiences in the context of Buddhist and Yogic practice, no comparable research has yet examined energy-like sensations in Jewish, Christian, or Islamic traditions. We interviewed 30 practitioners and 30 teachers from Abrahamic contemplative traditions and found that energy-like …
Psychology (13 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (5 works) · Neuroscience (5 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Cognition (3 works) · Cognitive science (3 works) · Consciousness (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works)