The following is a poem that I wrote in 2010 and was published in my (no archived) blog "Lies of Lions" on September 2, 2010. I'm in the process of moving those archived posts, those which I feel are still relevant to this blog and its content, to a republished state in a blog that is still active. This one. This poem was the first post in that blog. Honestly, I had not read it since posting it and did not even remember writing such a poem. However, I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading it and I hope you get the sense of what I was trying to say then and am still saying now.
A Shot of Bourbon
Life's like a shot of bourbon.
It's short and sour
And after long enough
It's sure to kick your ass,
But somehow we find a way to enjoy it.
It burns all the way to the end,
Leaves you with a bitter grimace,
But there's a moment to be held,
To be cherished,
Just before the sigh of relief
When you finish.
Knock back a few too man,
And get knocked down a few too many times.
Just when you're flying high
You feel the gravel in your guts
Because you're empty, like that bottle, inside.
Your head hangs heavy
Atop smoke filled lungs.
Wait for the sun to rise before you hang it up.
Chased below the label,
You'd undo it all if you were able.
Turned upside down to pull the last drop,
Drink it up and dedicate the good stuff.
Like a hollow play, puppets play and glasses clang.
This is Part Three of a three-part segment. Please click the corresponding links to read earlier posts containing Part One - Rollo May and Part Two - Carl Rogers. Part One also contains the background information to this series of posts.
The more I read of Maslow, the more I see some glaring deficiencies in his theories. The concept of self-actualizing is a crucial developmental feat for Humanistic Psychology as a whole field. Initially my problem with Maslow was similar to complaints of Piaget. That is, that the stages described are too rigid and do not allow of individual variance and developmental differences. However, as I read on in “Toward a Psychology of Being”, I become more and more disappointed with Maslow. I do not necessarily disagree with him, but I find that there are a lot of blanks left vague and other parts divulged in too great of detail, making it quite constrictive. My overall impression of “Toward a Psychology of Being” is rather negative. I feel like Maslow is trying to “westernize” Zen Budhism and re-publish ideologies of “zen”, “enlightenment”, and “nirvana” under different titles that have been filtered firstly through American culture and then through Maslow himself. I do not care for this approach. Call a spade a spade. It would be just as relevant to the field of Humanistic Psychology if Maslow would have written a book on applying Buddhist principles to psychotherapy. However, he is seemingly covering up this rather obvious source of reference. In terms of specific points, I asked a question in class that did not get answered by the discussion among my colleagues. Maslow clearly points out that Self-Actualization is not permanent. It is not achieved and then passively sustained. Up to this point I agree with him. However, the question I presented was; “what if one of the foundational ‘lower’ tiers in the hierarchy disappears completely?” More specifically, when something breaks at the foundation that has built up to self-actualizing, does the person crash down to the bottom and begin rebuilding from ground-zero (albeit with more experience and awareness of the self)? Perhaps my biggest concern for Maslow is his avoidance of the temporal or physical realms. The book discusses in great detail the cognitive and spiritual aspects of phenomenology, but ignores what is happening in the physical realm of our being. Our experiences (the phenomena to which we are exposed) extricate themselves not only from mental apparitions and perceptions but also rely (at least in part) on physical responses and representations to give density, sustenance, and temporal validation to the claims of authenticity hosted by the mind. Part One - Rollo May - "The Discovery of Being" Part Two - Carl Rogers - "On Becoming a Person" Follow me on Twitter @Savaged_Zen (link)
This is Part Two of a three-part segment. Please click (this link) to read Part One to get a general idea regarding the prompt for these posts and read my general thoughts on Rollo May's "The Discovery of Being." Part Three discusses Abraham Maslow's "Toward a Psychology of Being."
The more I read of Rogers, the more uncertain I get about his work. I am very fond of his idea of client-centered therapy and being focused on what is happening in the now. However, I can definitely see that he is on the psychologist side of the therapeutic fence, where Rollo May is on the philosophy/phenomenological side. I don’t think that this is a “balance” but I do think that it is a good to have such influential figures (for Humanistic Psychology) having similar ideas, but very different principles. It was mentioned in class that Education / Counseling programs run with Rogers’ methodology for its procedural standpoints. I actually thought that this was the case with Rogers in general. I am much more into the phenomenological aspects of psychology and still got this feeling from Rogers.
I like that Rogers stays on path with May, emphasizing the self as being in a state of being. He writes on page 118, “He can fully live the experiences of his total organism, rather than shutting them out of his awareness.” I think that this fits best in the context of Jung’s shadow. Our shadow is something we don’t like about ourselves, nevertheless it is part of our being. It must be, not merely acknowledged, but embraced and integrated into how we think about ourselves. While Rogers points out that this is the case for therapeutic clients, I would have liked to seem him apply this principle to counselors, or people in general. I think that this is a dangerous trap for Rogers. What I find in his writing, while I enjoy much of it, it seems too “warm and fuzzy.” The attitude of “always put on a (artificial) smile” is an aspect of Rogerian though that Positive Psychologists have run with, but there are certain points where Rogers expresses a “warm love.” This is in contrast to the colder and grittier phenomenological context of Rollo May. While I am more of a proponent of May, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive. Rather, they complement each other quite well. Being too optimistic runs the risk of living and experiencing as a facade; too realistic and you run the risk of slipping to mechanistic determinism or at least a feverish depression.
I also like that Rogers asserts that “I am the one who chooses... I am the one who determines the value of an experience for me” (122). This is a great way of avoiding the causal conundrum. That being, what is the cause of our experiences or why do we experience them the way we do. Those matters of fact are irrelevant. The quintessential point here is that you are experiencing them and you are interpreting those experiences in a specific manner.
Rollo May largely emphasizes the questions “Who are you?” and “Who do you want to become?” Rogers, on the other hand, asks “What is happening in this moment?” and “Where have you and your experiences been?” My question then is if there can be a fusion between the two. Surely there can be by asking “What does what you've experienced say about you now?”, “Who are you now?”, and “Where will you go?” The real concern, unfortunately, is whether or not something would be lost for each standpoint if they were combined? Summaries do not give detail, they are merely supplemental.
Hello everyone, a couple weeks ago in my Foundations of Humanistic Psychology class we discussed the three figures whom I believe to be the cornerstone of Humanistic Psychology. Prior to this point in the class we read heavily on philosophy ranging all the way from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes to Heidegger and Frankly to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. While I greatly enjoyed those reading, having been a undergraduate philosophy student, it was difficult for some in the class to fill in the blanks and make the correlations applicable. With writers such as Rollo MAY, Carl ROGERS, and Abraham MASLOW a very specific philosophical background can be recognized, yet the specifics of their concentration and discipline is on Psychology and Psychotherapy. Furthermore, I will have three corresponding posts to each of these writer. They will certainly be discussed in more depth as my graduate career continues, but for the time being you find (in this blog) 1 - 2 page rundowns that were submitted as homework assignments responding to the works associated works of these writers.
This reading was a very fundamental piece for me. It gave me a great feeling that I what I am doing here at West Georgia and planning on doing as a career are truly may calling and something I was “made for.” I was bit hesitant of the reading at first. I had read “Love and Will” by Rollo May before and found it to be (while very insightful) dry, very long, and quite a difficult read. I did not think that this was the case with “The Discovery of Being.” But that may have been because this course has primed my brain once again to be able to cognitively digest heavy psychological and philosophical readings. I found myself quite ecstatic and dare say “giddy” in the first two chapters where there were numerous references to Shakespeare and his tragedies. The point May makes of life being an ongoing struggle of being and not being, tragedy and comedy, struggle and recomposure was right to the core of the presentation that I gave. I thought that May’s explanation of what existentialism is was very concise. This is often a difficult question that can’t be easily answered. May writes on pages 48 and 49 that “Existentialism, rather, is an expression of profound dimensions of the modern emotional and spiritual temper and is shown in almost all aspects of our culture” (48), then; “Existentialism, in short, is the endeavor to understand man by cutting below the cleavage between subject and object which has bedeviled Western thought and science since shortly after the Renaissance” (49). The chapter concludes brilliantly with “Existentialism is not a comprehensive philosophy or way of life, but an endeavor to grasp reality” (59). This is a very good summary of how existentialism posits its focus on our existence, our standing forth, and asking what is happening to us here and now as we are at the present moment? In general I liked the connections that May made between Freudian thought and existentialism by asserting that they were two directions of action that came from the same study of psychology; or humans as being, a science that begs who are we and why do we do and think the way we do? Freud, then, taking a psycho-analytic approach and the existentialists a metaphysical one. This can be seen on page 77 where May states; “Despair, will, anxiety, guilt, loneliness - these normally refer to psychological conditions, but for Nietzsche they refer to states of being.” That is a brilliant distinction between what drove the different schools of thought to write and believe what they did/do. It is also a great capstone to differentiate between more mainstream psychotherapies (such as cognitive-behavioral or psychoanalytic) and existential therapy which focuses on the person not as having a set of conditions but as a comprehensive entirety of being. May concludes part two of the book by saying that “...it is possible to have a science of man which does not fragmentize man and destroy his humanity at the same moment”, and later, “...we are here not merely discussing a new method oas over against other methods, to be taken or to be left or to be absorbed into some vague catch-all eclecticism” (88). While the book does not end there, the question begs to be asked; “How, then, is this achieved? Not that humanistic-existential psychology can be applied, but how can it stand alone as a valid school of thought among other disciplines?”
Greetings readers. I have been doing some serious thinking lately and not entirely the gook kind either. I recently had a bit of a nervous breakdown when considering my finances. The short version is that it has been incredibly stressful knowing that literally every cent I spend, every sandwhich, every coffee, every candy bar, is putting me deeper in debt. For this reason I have decided to indefinitely discontinue my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training. The primary reason is that I feel like my gym dues and commuting expenses could be better spent elsewhere.
Now, this may seem like a trivial trade to some, but allow me to elaborate why this was posted here and not in my Diet / Fitness / Training blog. Anyone who is seriously involved in Jiu Jitsu knows that it is not just a sport, it is a way of life. As cliche' as that may sound it is true. When you spend two hours a day, three to six days per week, virtually every week of the year, for years on end doing something it is no longer recreation. It is a part of you. Think in terms of hours. If you were training an average of ten hours per week that means that you are spending 25% as much time doing something fun as you are making your living. On average you probably work 8 hours per day, train for 2 hours a day, and sleep for 6-8 hours per day. What I am getting at here is that there comes a point where you become so deeply ingrained in a recreational activity (sport or otherwise) that is simply part of your way of life, it is what you are.
Hopefully that helps to illustrate why this was such a difficult decision. There were, initially, the financial concerns. Even if I obtain a part time job while in Graduate School, I can not just jump back into training because I need to maintain the maturity and foresight to save funds for future years of schooling and the debt that I am accumulating now. I am perfectly accepting of the need to take out student loans to pay for essential expenses such as tuition, rent, and groceries. However, flexible expenses like recreation and gasoline can be modified. I believe that it is in my best financial interest to discontinue my training even though I (since beginning the draft of this post) have received a part-time job offer. Rest assured that this will not be the end of my Jiu Jitsu career, only an extended break, a temporary leave of absence. The decision was made a little easier after talking to some old training partners from home. We came to the conclusion that A) I have been doing BJJ long enough where I "get it" and while time will rust my timing and technique, the concepts and muscle memory will stick around for a long time; it will not take too long for me to " get back in the swing of things" once I resume training; B) It is not like I will just be sitting on my butt during this intermission; I will still be watching BJJ video and drilling techniques in my head, its is (after all) an integral part of who I am; C) The best remedy is to take the now displaced passion that I have for BJJ and channel it towards my other methods of training, Rock Climbing for example.
One of my trainers once told me, when we were discussing the possibility of me not being able to continue training while I was in school, "There are more important things than fighting, you just happen to be good at it." Ironically, this discussion took place months before I had even started graduate school. Now, this is where such a post gets placed in this blog. One of the most disconcerting aspects of this situation has been the relationships I have with the people I interact with on a regular basis. When we move somewhere new there is a transition period where we will inevitably (for better or worse) be comparing everything in our new world to the correlating aspects of our old one. I have found my relationships here to be lacking. The irony of the classroom in graduate school is that while I have made many friends, "good" or "close" friends are extremely sparse. This is consequence of the situation. I simply just do not see my colleagues outside of the classroom. Thus our relationship is terminal, temporary, and limited. This can also be attributed to my new training partners. They did not do anything wrong, their environment was friendly and comfortable, but due our limited interaction outside of training, the relationship lacked the familial bond that I had had with my previous training partners.
THE FUTURE IS NOW- The best solution I can find to this predicament is two fold. First, make a decision. I feel much better now that I have made the decision to stop training. The reality of the matter was that sitting in my apartment debating the options to myself was only deepening the wound. Do something! I'd like to think I'm pretty in touch with both my body and mind and my gut instinct are usually the best option. The second step involves taking the passion that I had for BJJ, that now void in my life, and fill it with something.... anything. No, it will not be the same as it was before, but the goal is to funnel that displaced passion towards something new, something that is all together different from that which you were previously comparing. All the intangibles and mindset approaches to the new things are still the same, they are coming from you. All that has really changed are the names and faces.
There should be no doubt in any of my readers' minds that I love BJJ. This is where the philosophical and moral thinking comes into play. Is there something that you love so intensely that you muster the courage to say to that thing, "I love you, but I have to leave you... but I'll be back for you. I don't know when, but I will...someday." Just a little food for thought. I have made the decision for myself. Perhaps there is something you are struggling with and need to ask yourself similar questions.
Hello again everyone! I do not have any large projects underway at the moment other than a few midterm exams! However, I have been doing some self-experiments on the side for my own curiosity. It is also that time of the year where I've begun tossing around ideas for final papers / research proposals. Find out about them below. You can also follow me on Twitter for the most recent updates to this blog as well as my other, and daily insightful tidbits from your's truly :-) --> @Savaged_Zen
**I started writing this post while midterms were still a week or two away. However, to reach a good mile marker in the semester I decided to wait until after the exams were completed to publish this post. I apologize for an in congruence or confusion in the below sections. I have tried to make things clear in the wake of the above circumstances.
MIDTERMS!
It is already that time in the semester. Midterm exams are HERE! Admittedly, its a bit of a struggle because its easy to get caught in your weekly grind of busy work and forget that you have a comprehensive exam (or several) to be studying for in addition. To avoid this procrastination induced state of panic I usually "plan" on starting to study for my midterms and finals one week before the actual exam date. This gives me time where I can push back the study times if I need to and still have adequate time to prepare. It also gives me time to analyze my grade standings. By this I mean that I can start studying for all of my courses and as the test dates get closer I will adjust my study schedule to accommodate priority to A) exams that I do not have as much time to study for (eg: three days for Exam 1 and five days for Exam 2), and B) course that I am either not doing so well in or simply the material is more difficult for me to digest.
Psychology of Exception Experiences
At the end of the semester I have a research proposal due for this course. The research proposal does not actually have to be fulfilled, that is, we do not need to actually do the research It is a theoretical project for something we would potentially want to research in the future relating to exceptional and anomalous experiences. Initially I wanted to research why we choose to seek out and/or research these experiences What does this say about us? I have refined the question to be a bit more specific and elicit. My current working topic is a the emotions experienced while people are having the experiences and what they feel were the motivations for the experiences. The research would also include surveying for correlations between feelings of awe and/or angst with the emotions and thoughts that subjects experience in these situations.
Foundations of Humanistic Psychology
Again, I am playing around with different ideas for a final paper. The subject here was actually the foundation for the research project stated above. For this project I'm planning on analyzing Freud's Pleasure Principle (an idea shared by Plato and Locke along the way) which asserts that we live in a pursuit of that which we find pleasurable and in avoidance of that which we find painful. The tentative title for this essay is "Ambivalence of Awe and Angst." Furthermore, the essay will be structured around three premises. Premise 1 - The assumptions of Freud's "Pleasure Principle", that we are motivated either by pursuit of pleasure or avoidance of suffering (pain), is inadequate in its understanding of human emotion. Premise 2 - Human beings are motivated, rather, by an ambivalent tension between sublimity and malevolence. Premise 3 - These tensions, sublimity and malevolence, directly beget awe and angst. Thus, we are motivated not by pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, but by a pursuit of awe in spite of angst.
Lifespan Human Development
The final presentation project that I am working on for this class is structured around Carl Rogers' Seven Stages of Process. The topic of presentation will be cognitive development. There will of course be several implications that relate to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as well; in regards to self-actualization. There are some aspects of Rogers' therapeutic methodology that I greatly enjoy and find highly influential. However, I think that it suffers in some areas. But that is not the point of this particular project. Rogers' Stages of Process do provide great insight into how one develops the way they think about themselves, their feelings, and the world and people they interact with.
I performed a pseudo-Ganzfeld experiment in my apartment. I turned the lights (2 bulbs on the ceiling), laid down on my bed face up, and tied a red shirt around my face. Keeping my eyes open this made a reddish-pink light with the two light bulbs able to barely be seen, somewhat resembling the ping pong balls in the real experiment. I downloaded a 30 minute .mp3 file of pink noise and played it over stereo headphones. Initially while relaxing I was having to focus on not letting myself fall asleep and keep my eyes open. I could feel my body relaxing and became more aware of my general aches and pains. Primarily in my knees, elbows, and hands (being a rock climber and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighter). When I relaxed more, I felt that I had a heightened sense of awareness. I could faintly hear footsteps in the apartment next to mine. This was actually quite startling because I initially thought that someone had entered my apartment. I also could see my eyelashes drag on the shirt tied over my face which I initially mistook for someone waving over my head which also startled me. Eventually I had the sense of a "brain-in-a-jar" feeling with my body extremely relaxed and my mind blank. I did not experience any dream-like imagery, but my "state of consciousness" certainly felt different than my normal waking state. When my alarm clock went off (it was set for 30 minutes prior to the headphone music starting) I arose and did not feel exceptionally relaxed or revitalized afterwords, however, the experience itself, while the experiment was ongoing, was exceptionally relaxing.
Dream Journal
As part of my Psychology of Exception Experiences class I have been keeping a journal of the dreams that I remember. This is not to analyze them from a Freudian or Jungian standpoint, but simply to note if there is a change in my ability to recall dreams if I consistently record them. This has been going on for a couple weeks now and I would say that there is a slight increase in my ability to recall the dreams each morning. Another note is that I have not yet reached a lucid (see below) state of dreaming, but I did find myself the other night speaking (as though narrating) to myself in a dream to "pay attention, this will be a good dream to put in your journal." Cool, huh?
Lucid Dreaming Experiment
This experiment was axed off my to-do list for a couple of reasons. Firstly, time management. I have enough projects, papers, and reading to keep me more than busy. I do not really have time to be conducting recreational experiments that need careful planning and extra effort. Secondly, see the below statement...
Personal Note on Lucid Dreaming
I want to take a little time to make my stance on Lucid Dreaming clear. I am not morally or otherwise opposed to it. I do not think that it is entirely fluffy fanciful make believe either. I think that there is great merit and psychotheraputic application to it. HOWEVEVER, my personal phenomenology demands that I rail against such a practice. My entire personal philosophy and way of life is underpinned by raw conviction in authenticity; not in terms of pain and pleasure, but awe and fear. Allow me to clarify. Camus writes in "The Stranger" of Meursault being imprisoned and thinking to himself; that a man who has been free for only one day would have enough memories to survive a lifetime in prison. Much the same, why dream it when you can live it! Do you posses the constitution to abandon your dreams and bring their fruition to reality? No matter how grandiose a dream is, if you are truly lucid within it (that is, aware that you're dreaming) your foolishness revels in euphoria while your deepest being knows that eventually you will wake up and the dream will be over. I feel as if a single sunset, a deep breath of crisp autumn air, or even a mortifying hysterical emotional breakdown, each lasting only a few small moments, would be more awe-inspiring and captivating than the most vivid, lucid, and beautifully fantastic dream could ever aspire. This writing was largely motivated by the final scene of the movie Vanilla Sky, a link is provided; while it doesn't give context to the movie, it does deliver the punch line. What is happiness to you?
On to the second month of life as a graduate student! I was hoping to get blog updates a little more frequently than once a month, but also to reach certain benchmarks when various projects and papers were completed so that I could condense the publications/updates. It has also occured to me that no where in this blog is there a link to the previous blog which proceeded it. Now is as good a time as ever, so here is the link to my previous Philosophy/Psychology blog "Lies of Lions." At any rate, here is what I have been up to as of late...
Foundations of Humanistic Psychology
This was my first major project and presentation of graduate school. The topic for the course session on the day I was presenting was Romanticism and Early Existentialism. The specfic focus of my presentation was Shakespeare's relationship to Romanticism, Existentialism, and Psychology. In particular I used the play "Hamlet: Prince of Denmark" as a model but also discussed Shakespeare himself. The essay was about six pages long and the presentation lasted about 20 minutes excluding questions asked afterwords. In general the project focused on Shakespeare's expressions of human nature and interaction which inspired the Romanticism Era. The Romanticism then provided a fertile proving group for Existential questions to arise. These questions then were sought to be answered or dealt with by philosophers and psychologist of the coming centuries, in particular Carl Rogers and Rollo May.
The class reception was very positive. I was a little concerned that the material would not have been bridged well enough and the presentation would not make sense to some people. However, I'm relieved and very excited that my colleagues enjoyed the presentation and thought it was useful.
I put a plug in the end of the presentation to promote this blog, promising my classmates downloads of the presentation and paper. So I will follow up and that and provide the download links.
Psychology of Exceptional Experiences
As part of a self-experiment for this course I have started keeping a dream journal not necessarily to log or analyze the content of my dreams, but to see if the record keeping has any impact on my cognitive ability to remember the dreams.
Also as part of this class I have been doing a few other self-experiements including experimenting with binaural beats and a sort of pseudo-ganzfeld experiement. I have provided links to those topics if you are not familiar with them.
I am also working on a research proposal / final paper for this course. I do not have a specific topic yet, but I am looking into a couple different things. I make it no secret that I am a adamant supporter of what Kirk Schneider calls "Awe-based Psychology." I may write the research proposal from a phenomenological standpoint with ties to Schneider. While implementing a notion of awe may not be the strongest connection; another possibility would be to just explore the phenomenology of our exceptional experiences. For those not in the field, these experiences include essentially anything that is not considered "typical" or is different from your "ordinary" consciousness. Some examples include paranormal beliefs, apparitions, ESP, telekinesis, telepathy, altered states of consciousness, out of body experiences, and many other "supernatural" phenomena. Thus my research would specifically entail an inquiry as to why we bother to pursue, research, and are interested in these topics.
Intro to Counseling
I am thouroughly enjoying this class. In recent weeks our practice counseling sessions have inceresed from 2 to 4 to 6 to 8 minutes in hopes of working up to the required 10 minute session to be filmed and reviewd for our midterm. I find that the increasing session length is actually more beneificial for gaining experience as a therapist and therapeutic for the client being counsoled. In the early stages of these practice session the conversations were rather touge-and-cheek, consisting of what I commonly refer to as "elevator speeches." The longer session times give us a chance to get at some more depth and meaningful conversations. This makes the therapist experience more realistic and also provides a greater benefit when you are the acting (or maybe not "acting") as the client. We are starting to deal with real issues that our colleagues are dealing with as well as expressing our own musings; both of which are a good thing.
Part of this course requires us to provide an analysis of the critical feedback given to us from our colleagues and group supervisor. I have taken this opportunity to start a professional journal to log my expereinces as a (to-be) therapist. Its a rather simple yet innovative process that is really just a long text document, but I include dates and tags so that at any point in my career I can easily seach through them by date or subject.
Lifespan and Human Development
I did a short research analysis for this class that was a review of a research experiment done on the relationship between perfectionism and depression. The results were a little mixed, illustrating that there certainly is a correlation between the two but that their causality reverts to a "chicken-or-the-egg" type lineage.
