Alanis Morissette Takes To The Stage To Help Brain Scientists -- Isn't It Iconic?
WESTWOOD (CBSLA.com) — Alanis Morissette met with doctors Friday, but not to discuss a jagged little pill.
You oughta know, she's best known for concerts and multi-platinum selling records, including the iconic "Isn't it Ironic?"
But in Westwood on Friday, the seven-time Grammy winner met with brain scientists to help them better understand how some patients recover from trauma.
"Heaven forbid rock stars have brains," Morissette said.
Morissette spoke in front of hundreds of scientists and psychologists as part of a three-day conference.
"I'm a not-so-closeted academic obsessed with understanding the brain and the soul and the heart," she said, "and how we work and frankly how we don't work."
The singer/songwriter says she has a lot of experience in how we don't work.
"I've struggled with depression," she said. "I've struggled with hormonal imbalance, and I've struggled with fear and fill in the blank. But I feel like as an artist, my job is to illustrate and mark different stages on my own path."
She believe creativity can help heal if it comes from the right place.
"The begged question, every time I walk into a studio or I'm about to create something is what's happening now, what's happening here, what's happening?"
Morissette candidly admits a lot of her life is in her music.
"When I was a little younger, the stories were a little more fictionalized," she says. "I would say maybe 10 percent was autobiographical."
But as she has grown older and bolder, she finds a lot of her healing is in revealing her own truth.
"I think the only regret I have is when I don't reveal enough," she says.
"I almost feel like my whole life is one giant case study for other people to use if they were to want to or ignore and not use at all."
The organizers of the UCLA conference on "interpersonal neuriobiology" said they are now working on ways to safely incorporate hugs and hand holding into the mainstream of treatment.
Story produced for TV by Gerri Shaftel Constant, CBS2 Medical Producer
RELATED LINKS:
Morissette is working on a book and package to commemorate the 20th anniversary of "Jagged Little Pill." For more about Morissette, click here.
For more information about UCLA's interpersonal neurobiology study click here.
