Doodles on loose sheets of scrap paper-
Leaves falling from the skies,
Like tears drift from your eyes
Action potential to reach out and connect
Resurrect humanity
From the depths of tragedy
Contained in monetary obsessions
When it comes to love we remain taciturn,
Afraid to return,
To that which we've yet to become
The song goes unsung
I sit back and wait
My fatal flaw
Staring into the maw of self-induced fear
of getting too near.
I'm sick of sitting still but uncertain on how to stand
Feeling rather ill in this strange and foreign land...
The pathos of the world brings me to rise in the morning
Growth, progress, peace, pull me through the day.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Humanistic and Existential Psychology
Were it not for theories that resonate with Rollo May, Cushman, and Maslow, I would consider giving up on psychology entirely. The idea that we would fix somebody so the could re-enter the pathological realm of the conformist functioning individual disgusts me. I would rather let a person be sick than provoke them to adapt to something so inherently unhealthy and contradictory to the things I personally and inherently value: creativity, spontaneity, humor, freedom, anxiety, awareness, authenticity).
Today in class I picked up a few thoughts I found significant and generated a few ideas of my own. I don't know if I intend to keep them for fear of losing ideas (which I associate with the self) or whether I sincerely think I will ever use them. But here I leave them in case I need to return to them:
1. It is not the job of the therapist to know what is right or wrong for the client, but to help them discover this for themselves.
2. Our ethical values are removed from the experience and reality of the client.
3. A shitty job can be recontextualized/reconceptualized as a way of supporting self and being in pursuit of something great. You may not find your job to be perfect, but so long as you are on the path of growth, there is no regret.
4. Challenge yourself. Every moment. Every decision. Let it be a battle
in the war for growth, a war waged against self, that ends up being just a game in the roda of life.
5. Absolute safety detracts from the ability to actualize.
6. The fear of freedom is not just the burden of responsibility, but borne in the fact that at any moment, I can annihilate myself physiologically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and socially. Having walked that line and nearly falling off but to be saved by the mercy of this universe and the love of others, I realize how easy it is to kill ones' aspects of self.
Axiom to 6 - In reflection of these aspects, I recognize the ways I have nearly killed myself.
7. In accepting the freedom to make a choice, the freedom to commit one of these suicides becomes a possibility
8. There is no "not being" but we must be aware of our being, of our potentials. We must be aware of this act of being that is our "patterns of potentialities." This authenticity reminds us of our humanity.
9. Existentialism denies the inherent nature. But the internal capacity to grow is an inherent aspect of our nature. In this sense, there is an absolute to each individual that cannot be clearly defined, but is more real than any abstract concept.
Today in class I picked up a few thoughts I found significant and generated a few ideas of my own. I don't know if I intend to keep them for fear of losing ideas (which I associate with the self) or whether I sincerely think I will ever use them. But here I leave them in case I need to return to them:
1. It is not the job of the therapist to know what is right or wrong for the client, but to help them discover this for themselves.
2. Our ethical values are removed from the experience and reality of the client.
3. A shitty job can be recontextualized/reconceptualized as a way of supporting self and being in pursuit of something great. You may not find your job to be perfect, but so long as you are on the path of growth, there is no regret.
4. Challenge yourself. Every moment. Every decision. Let it be a battle
in the war for growth, a war waged against self, that ends up being just a game in the roda of life.
5. Absolute safety detracts from the ability to actualize.
6. The fear of freedom is not just the burden of responsibility, but borne in the fact that at any moment, I can annihilate myself physiologically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and socially. Having walked that line and nearly falling off but to be saved by the mercy of this universe and the love of others, I realize how easy it is to kill ones' aspects of self.
Axiom to 6 - In reflection of these aspects, I recognize the ways I have nearly killed myself.
7. In accepting the freedom to make a choice, the freedom to commit one of these suicides becomes a possibility
8. There is no "not being" but we must be aware of our being, of our potentials. We must be aware of this act of being that is our "patterns of potentialities." This authenticity reminds us of our humanity.
9. Existentialism denies the inherent nature. But the internal capacity to grow is an inherent aspect of our nature. In this sense, there is an absolute to each individual that cannot be clearly defined, but is more real than any abstract concept.
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