Clinical Neuropsychologist Justin Feinstein: Diving into Float Therapy

Dr. Justin Fein­stein is a Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of the Float Clin­ic & Research Cen­ter at the Lau­re­ate Insti­tute for Brain Research. His lab­o­ra­to­ry inves­ti­gates the effects of Floata­tion-REST (Reduced Envi­ron­men­tal Stim­u­la­tion Ther­a­py) on both the body and the brain, while also explor­ing its poten­tial as a ther­a­peu­tic treat­ment for pro­mot­ing men­tal health and heal­ing in patients who suf­fer from anx­i­ety and stress-relat­ed dis­or­ders. Dr. Fein­stein joined the fac­ul­ty of the Lau­re­ate Insti­tute for Brain Research and the Oxley Col­lege of Health Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tul­sa in 2013, after com­plet­ing his Ph.D. at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa, and his post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ship at the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy. He earned his under­grad­u­ate degree in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, and com­plet­ed his clin­i­cal intern­ship at the San Diego VA hos­pi­tal with a focus on the treat­ment of vet­er­ans with
PTSD.

What was your first TED expe­ri­ence? Prob­a­bly towards the begin­ning of this decade when I watched my for­mer men­tors, Ralph Adolphs and Anto­nio Dama­sio, give TED talks.

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? How has it impact­ed your life or per­spec­tive? One of my favorite TED talks is Kel­ly McGonigal’s “How to make stress your friend.” She does a bril­liant job high­light­ing the adap­tive aspects of stress and how our per­cep­tion of stress can fun­da­men­tal­ly alter the bal­ance between life and death. This per­spec­tive has been use­ful in the con­text of my own research into inte­ro­cep­tion, and how the brain per­ceives when the body is in Home­osta­sis.

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? The sur­vival of our species depends on our abil­i­ty to fore­see the future and adapt to the oncom­ing chal­lenges that face soci­ety. With­out vision, we are the blind lead­ing the blind, reac­tive­ly address­ing issues once the fire has already start­ed rather than proac­tive­ly try­ing to elim­i­nate such issues before they even begin.

What is the most impor­tant les­son you’ve learned in life? How did you learn it? In life, dreams do not always come true, but some­times the mere act of hav­ing the dream is more impor­tant than achiev­ing it. This is some­thing my father taught me in the first book he ever wrote, Catch Us If You Can.

What is the scari­est thing you have ever done for fun? I have spent the past 15 years close­ly study­ing a rare group of humans who are miss­ing their amyg­dala, a brain region the­o­rized to be crit­i­cal for fear. My attempt to scare these patients was not exact­ly for fun, but rather for research, and through it we have now learned that the amyg­dala is not the epi­cen­ter of fear in the brain.

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Immunol­o­gy, as virus­es and bac­te­ria are the great­est threat (oth­er than our­selves) to human­i­ty.

Would you rather have a rewind but­ton or a pause but­ton on your life? Def­i­nite­ly a pause button…in fact, I’ll be dis­cussing an actu­al pause but­ton in this year’s talk!

Catch that talk in per­son at TEDxSalem on Jan­u­ary 4 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

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TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com