Current students: access the course here

Core psi skills

the embodied self in the Cartesian Theatre

Human Development
Human Development
Sensorium Novellum
Sensorium Novellum
Structure of Consciousness
Structure of Consciousness
Alex De Foe - Cognitive Scientist

I’m a writer and a scholar interested in altered states of consciousness. My current work centres on biological models of social cognition with a Jungian bent. I'm also interested in pharmacopeia and how it can inform our understanding of the structure of consciousness. My PhD research was based on Cartesian models of embodiment and I have had over 10 years of experience in the fields of developmental and cognitive psychology.

Research groups

Co-founder

Current projects:

  • Moral Emergence: Modelling free energy within the moral developmental lens
  • Parapsychology as perception: Modeling psi phenomena in an entropic brain
  • Emergence and Entheogen: Are time/space distortions in DMT 'contagious' with social cognition cross-cuing effects?

We are a team of early career researchers based around Australia – Canberra @ ANU / Melbourne @ Monash/MelbUni and Brisbane @ UQ

Co-director – More detail forthcoming

Member – Predominantly involved in the psychedelic phenomenology mapping project

April '22: Is there a biological basis for ASMR? A proposed mechanism of action and psychobiological model forthcoming based on theoretical work done with our honours student last year
#ASMR
#ASMR@defoepsych
November '21: Research with one of our honours students from 2019 finally published in the journal Heliyon "Can Self-report in a Virtual Environment Enhance our Understanding of Hoarding Deficits? A Pilot Investigation" -- Using novel VR environments developed in Sketch Up we propose that the perceptual information processing model of hoarding disorder might hold more explanative power than prior psychoanalytic theories
#VRcognition
#VRcognition@defoepsych
May '21: Landmark study "Addressing virtual reality misclassification: A hardware-based qualification matrix for virtual reality technology" now available in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy -- in this paper our lead PhD student proposes a unified hardware framework for all VR technologies
#VRcognition
#VRcognition@defoepsych
May '21: Congratulations to our lead PhD student on his publication of "A cognitive model for emotional regulation in virtual reality exposure" in the journal Virtual Reality
#VRcognition
#VRcognition@defoepsych
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Insta: @defoepsych

About me

My psychological training was at Monash University from 2011-2016 which included an honours dissertation and PhD thesis on Cartesian explanations for the embodied self. I conducted four different experiments that culminated in about four outputs at reputable publications. My postdoctoral work centred on VR-mediated perceptions at RMIT University's mental health and VR laboratory – which I co-founded in 2017. My broad interest is in the application of social neuroscience to strive towards a better understanding of the embodied mind in everyday life.

Practice Credentials: MACA Counsellor / NLP Coach / Narrative Practice Practitioner

  • Postdoctoral programme completed in Psychology at RMIT University – industry fellowship in 2019
  • PhD in Psychology at Monash University in 2016
  • Master's in Counselling at Monash University in 2010