Dr Alexander De Foe PhD MCouns

Building Affective Competency

Social Neuroscience e-Lab

A practical application of consciousness science to better understand mind / emotion / spirit in modern life

Online Magazine - Peak Flow Life

Download the online magazine, “Peak Flow Life” which combines concepts from psychology across the lifespan to better understand consciousness, flow states, and embodied emotional experiences.

Why not say hello?

Collaboration and Connection

Embodied Cognition Clinic

Practical Gestalt-like body-movement experiments to engage the mind-heart neural link

Social Neuroscience e-Lab

Easy-to-adapt mirroring, resonance, and entrainment exercises for day-to-day emotional and psycho-spiritual well-being

Transformational Learning Stage

'Docendo discimus' or the alchemical art of learning through teaching re-considered in the virtual stage

Stuff I'm Presently Working On ...

Bio

Dr Alexander De Foe, PhD, MCouns, MACA, is a lecturer in social neuroscience. His focus is on Developmental Neuroanthropology, or in other words, mind-through-time-and-place. Presently, he is tackling what he sees as the three biggest questions in cognitive science: (1) the Cartesian axis between immanence and materialism, (2) the archetypal structure of consciousness, and (3) the diagnostical appraisal of Narcassitic Personality Disorder (NPD) and its consequent multigenerational fallout. He is adjunct supervisor of three PhD students who are examining specific facets of each of these topics, and he has written numerous theoretical works on each.

You will find on this web sight a path through mind-in-time-and-place, with a short selection of brief articles, essays, and ideas. I hope that you discover a modicum of personal enrichment in working with these concepts and sharing your application of them with others. Thanks for being here(: - A

Psychological VR Intervention: 2017-2022

During my postdoctoral work at RMIT University our team created a burgeoning virtual reality laboratory at the city campus. My PhD student, Marcel Takac, has developed internationally-valid tools for research around the construct of presence, hardware qualification, and meta analyses: Please reach out to him for opportunities in 4th year honors, 5/6th year master’s thesis, and PhD project supervision. Other research projects that have featured at the laboratory include therapeutic pathways (e.g., public speaking confidencehoarding disorder, emotional regulation) as well as application from cognitive-adjacent fields like mindfulness-VR training and sport psychology skills acquisition.

You can download some of the undergraduate and postgraduate lectures I have given on the topic of embodiment (social neuroscience behind Cartesian dualism) as well as Bayesian approaches to model breakdown in reports of phantom/supernumerary limb, and body dysmorphic syndromes (Oliver Sacks and modern illusions).

Spiritual Development: 2014-Present

My main area of interest is in transpersonal psychology, especially the ego/self axis, as best articulated by Jung, Assagioli, and Washburn. I’m very curious on psychedelic pathways, especially their long-term impacts on neurogenesis and cross-hemispheric harmonization – in the sense of a trans-rational ‘return’ to the Bicameral self. As of late, my colleagues and I have examined the state of the evidence for psychedelics in the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). My hope is to further develop theory in this field by grounding it in principles of the entropic mind – recently our international team across UQ, ANU, Melbourne, Monash, and Yale has published on how the entropic brain can be understood via the lens of anxiety avoidance and habituation (i.e., physical organism avoidance of dissolution!).

All of my research/teaching in this topic has been situated in an evolutionary and developmental scope. The lifespan synthesis model I benchmark all curricula against can be downloaded here (a popular student exam preparation request in coursework of lifespan and developmental psychology) – please feel free to print/re-share.

Veridical Mind: 2011-2022

Since completing my honors in psychology in 2011, I have maintained a dataset of over 1,500 people who report out-of-body experiences, including approximately 1,000 case reports collected during my studies as well as another 500 or so informal reports from individuals who have emailed me. The Veridical Mind project, which situates itself in a Spinoza/Deleuze model of ‘pluralism == monism’ is something I hope to develop as an explanation for vivid, verifiable, and transformative OBEs.

Alex's neuro-philosophy: Self-Becoming-Soul

aka people who have shaped most how I think about the world…

Heraclitus
circa 5th Century BC
"The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way."
Plato
born 'round 425bce
"Life must be lived as play."
Plotinus
born 205ad
"Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty, and Beauty is loved because it is Being. We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going over to another order; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly."
Baruch Spinoza
1632-1677
"The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is."
Gilles Deleuze
1925-1995
"Beware of the other’s dream, because if you are caught in the other’s dream you're screwed."
Iain McGilchrist
born 1953
"Meaning emerges from engagement with the world, not from abstract contemplation of it."

mind-through-time-and-place

What is Developmental Neuroanthropology?

Consciousness

Not a function -in-mind but arising-through-time

Language

Pre-symbolic representation as interconnected tree roots rather than isolated "deep structures"

Memory

A statistically valid model of history is a group effort, much like sanity and meaning-making

Embeddedness

Human quality of experience as understood across particle, neuron, and cultural artefact at respective time lapses

Rumors' (the good kind)

What others say about Alex

Frederick Aardema Ph.D.
    Frederick Aardema Ph.D.

    Department of Psychiatry at University of Montreal

    From theory to practice and controversies, ‘Consciousness Beyond the Body’ provides a rich and up-to-date account of out-of-body states. Anyone with an interest in these mystifying, yet universal experiences, will find this book of great value. I highly recommend it!

    Steve G Jones Ed.D.
      Steve G Jones Ed.D.

      internationally renowned clinical hypnotherapist

      Alexander has created a superbly well-written book on transcendental consciousness states. I highly suggest this book to anyone who seeks to uncover their highest potential and experience self-transcendence.

      Jana Dixon
        Jana Dixon

        author of the book series 'Biology of Kundalini'

        like engaging in a fireside chat with a kind, loving friend, delving into deeper self and our most intimate existential queries and angst. I especially appreciate Alexander’s warm, welcoming tone that encourages the tight and broken parts within to let go in the compassionate recognition of the trials of human suffering.

        Twitter: @defoepsych