The distinction between the conscious and the unconscious has become a cultural commonplace. We recognize when our co-workers, friends, and family act unconsciously, repeatedly manifesting meaningful patterns of action they claim to be purely accidental. Wider society also capitalizes on the unconscious by designing its propaganda (marketing) to appeal to our deep longings that rarely …
Note: I’m a philosopher, not a mental health professional. These reflections are my personal opinions and none of them should be construed as professional advice regarding the diagnosis or treatment of mental illness. Problems for Therapy as it is Traditionally Construed Despite branding efforts to the contrary, psychotherapy remains a human endeavor (and more an …
I have been reading several books on the practice of psychotherapy this week, and have been struck by how the changes in that field parallel those in the university. In both, there is a good deal of cheerleading about increasing ‘diversity’ and access by the ‘marginalized’ which masks the ever greater encroachment of external corporate …
“Higher Virtue isn’t virtuous/ thus it possesses virtue/ Lower Virtue isn’t without virtue/ thus it possesses no virtue/ Higher Virtue involves no effort or the thought of effort/ Higher Kindness involves effort/ but not the thought of effort/ Higher Justice involves effort/ and the thought of effort/ Higher Ritual involves effort/ and should it meet …
The term ‘synchronicity’ was coined by the psychologist Carl Jung to designate a relation between events that is both (i) explanatory and (ii) non-causal.[1] Consider the events x, in which a is F, and y, in which b is G. According to Jung’s terminology x and y would be synchronous, if a’s being F explained …
I recently read Philip Goff’s delightful little manifesto for panpsychism, Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. Goff wrote this work for the non-specialist and admirably condenses the key debates in the analytic philosophy of mind to their essentials. He does this to explain and motivate an emerging position which would have been …
“Falling Towers/ Jerusalem Athens Alexandria/ Vienna London/ Unreal”—T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland. The Tower has the reputation of being one of the most ominous cards in the tarot. In Rider-Waite-Smith iconography, the card depicts a stone tower ablaze, its crown struck down and two of its inhabitants plummeting from its desolate heights. The card’s black background …
As noted in my previous post, the Buddha is said to have articulated a middle path between the extremes of sensual indulgence and extreme asceticism. Rather than abandoning oneself to lower pleasures or mortifying one’s body by starving the flesh, Buddhists practice tranquil meditation. Advocates of the Buddha’s middle way claim that “It gives vision, …
To many, Buddhism appears to be more a philosophy than a religion. For, unlike other religions that articulate doctrines of God and how to properly worship him, Buddhism is relatively unconcerned with deities.[1] Likewise, whereas other religions deify their founders or treat them as prophets uniquely connected to the divine, Buddhists claim that their message, …
Viktor Frankl is known both for surviving the horrors of the concentration camps of World War II and for developing a psychotherapeutic framework he dubbed logotherapy. Often referred to as the Third Viennese School, this framework departs from previous approaches to psychoanalysis by appealing to the centrality of the search for meaning in human life. …