Overcoming a Dysfunctional Litter
One of the biggest lessons I learned about personas happened about ten years ago. “Tim” was a brilliant guy, and we quickly bonded around shared intellectual interests. He was a therapist, and he loved his work, so he was always willing to talk with me about my issues and help me sort things out. He [...]
The great Woody Allen movie Zelig (1983) is about a man whose desire for approval is so strong that he can change form to fit into whatever social groups he finds himself in. People are fascinated by him, and he has gained international fame as the “human chameleon.” The story is told as a “mockumentary,” [...]
…often have a lot of self-awareness. This is kind of a weird thing to explain, but worth sorting out. I say it because people who talk honestly about their strengths and weaknesses are sometimes perceived oddly by others. If people are uncomfortable with such frankness—and a surprising number are—then they may see you as rude. [...]
All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation. — Sheldon Kopp “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” — Carl Jung We all have a shadow–that unconscious junkyard where we dump all the thoughts and feelings we don’t, or don’t [...]
All pressure is at bottom a person’s own displaced drive. — Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness In 12 Step meetings and other self-help gathering places, you often hear the phrase don’t should on yourself. That is to say, don’t listen to that hyperjudgmental inner voice that’s telling you you’re doing something wrong or bad [...]
The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. –Wikipedia Years ago a therapist told me, “Pay attention to people’s behavior, not their words.” As obvious as this sounds—and even then, it [...]
All evil is potentially vitality in need of transformation. –Sheldon Kopp Sometimes I wonder how different my childhood might have been if my father had had a son. Maybe a son would have stood up to him; a son might have stepped in and tried to protect his mother and sisters from my father’s tyranny. [...]
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.-Andre Gide (1869 – 1951) Have you heard the old parable about the blind men and the elephant? Each man feels a different part of the elephant and gets a different impression of the animal. The man who takes hold of the trunk thinks [...]
Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about feeling disconnected from yourself, but I haven’t actually defined what I mean by “disconnected.” I’d been assuming—and we all know what that does—that the symptoms I list such as depression, resentment, addiction, numbness, etc. are definition enough. But one of the primary symptoms of being disconnected from yourself [...]
I think most who enter therapy do so with the illusion, at least initially, that a therapist can, or is supposed to, “fix” us. This is not the case, for the simple reason that nobody can fix anybody else. The value of therapy lies not in the advice of a wiser or more capable person [...]