She is from South Africa and recently is trying to make a name for herself in the states. I'm curious because she is trying to change the school curiculum at a local private school where a friend of mine works.
Initially when looking at [www.drleaf.net] it seems to be mostly about the power of positive thinking but in her book and in person she states odd unscientific ideas regarding the brain.
For example, from a transcript at
[www.lifetoday.org]
she states that if a negative event happens around a pecan tree then your body makes a cellular memory of the event "...the cellular memory landed up in your respiratory tract, if I can use that as an example. So every time if you smell that smell or that pollen is secreted and it is flowing around in the air it stimulates that memory, that memory then releases the toxins and then that whole reaction is set off again because it goes in your minds, the cellular memory to actually react." That idea makes no sense to me.
I don't know if she is part of a cult or not yet her mix of pseudo science / education / religion seems odd.
Her company ran "originally under the name of Mind Dynamics and currently runs under the name of The Switch on your Brain Organisation (PTY) Ltd in South Africa and Switch on your Brain USA in the United States Of America."
[www.drleaf.net]
I thought she may have ties to Mind Dynamics founded by Alexander Everett, perhaps it's simply a coincedence being in anoher country. Any info would be most helpful, at any rate I think her science is skewed. Some of her ideas seem very similar to Tony Buzan, her Metacogs are identical to his mind maps.

Colm13, first let me welcome you to the forum. I used the "Search" feature at the top LEFT of the page and searched Rick Ross' archives on "Mind Dynamics". I include one link here:

[forum.culteducation.com]

Scroll down to the third post by "calgari" in 2005. The member here makes reference to "Mind Dynamics" being the springboard for Lifespring and Landmark.

Searching at the TOP right "Search" feature searching every forum here. I ran a search for Dr. Caroline Leaf with no date restrictions (i.e., every post on every forum for all dates since the start of this site) and the only two posts with that name on this site were yours and mine.

Perhaps someone knows her here, we have more lurkers than active posters.

Good luck with your quest.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2010 05:01AM by Sparky.

"she states that if a negative event happens around a pecan tree then your body makes a cellular memory of the event "...the cellular memory landed up in your respiratory tract, if I can use that as an example. So every time if you smell that smell or that pollen is secreted and it is flowing around in the air it stimulates that memory, that memory then releases the toxins and then that whole reaction is set off again because it goes in your minds, the cellular memory to actually react." That idea makes no sense to me."

If you have ever worked with people suffering PTSD, such as war vets or abuse victims, you would see that 'state bound memory' theory is not farfetched. The term cellular memory is a new one however, widely used but not fully fleshed out (no pun intended). In other words, memories do get stored somewhere, and seem to often have a particular state attached to them, and that state can be triggered by associations of various kinds (think trance formations). Sometimes there appears to be a lot of biology involved.

I don't know about Dr. Leaf but there are a lot of people around who claim they can seperate the trigger from the state, in order to deal with trauma or eliminate allergies for instance, but most of these things seem to be pretty hit and miss, i.e. lots of claims, less results. Serious individuals working in this area do get results some of the time however, in my opinion.

If you are seriusly interested I would suggest you research the concepts (minus the idea of cellular memories but plus the conceot of memories being held in the body). Dr. Peter Levine might be a place to start.