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Miscellaneous book notes file 7)

Table of Contents

Women Who Run With the Wolves - Estes

Aristotle for Everybody - Adler, Mortimer

The Making of A Country Lawyer - Gerry Spence

Contemporary Psych & Effective Behavior- Charles Morris

The Ultimate Secret of Total Self Confidence - Robert Anthony

When Opposites Attract

The Recovery of Family Life Elton- Pauline Trueblood

Counseling: Theory and Process

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins

Women Who Run With the Wolves- Estes */

Story about wolf lady (la loba) who makes wolf come to life by piecing the bones together. Then the wolf becomes a lady.

story about wife who opens door where all the skeletons of kings ex-wives are. She says women are caged. Appear to have everything, but they are caged. They go from being caged at home (told to be pretty, obedient, etc) to caged in marriage.

Missing zygote theory (twyla, vtl)

Story about vasalisa who touches her doll. (like french girl & her bear in cheap magazine romance story) instinct, intuition and mother figure guiding her.

Wrong programming (unnatural) is like virus which destroys you! [And it is communicable to lovers, children, etc]

Suggestions:

1. No unquestioned conformity.

2. Ask what you want, rather than taking what is beckoning to you. (Good example is Latin Quarter restaurants)

3. Don't let others invalidate you/snuff out your passions; avoid them

4. Make a list of musts (Parental, religious, & social values) Parents say I must, Religion says I must--- these are the viruses

Aristotle for Everybody - Adler, Mortimer (read August 96) Amazon Link

Begin any effort to understand with our own experience.

We all have experiences just because we are awake and conscious.

Practical thinking- as maker. Productive thinking as doer, Speculative/theoretical as knower

Truth, goodness, and beauty.

Working with nature. Aristotle wanted to understand nature, thinks we should work with nature. Not against it.

When trying to understand something difficult, start with something easier. Helps to understand nature when humans are not in nature (not sure if these were aristotle's ideas or authors)

Potentiality (entelechy): each seed had in it a potentiality that it destined to reach, through growth and development, a different final form or end result. -- Now we say that the genetic code gives the seed a unique program, set of instructions, for growth and development. See \sq\misc for my thoughts on DNA etc.

coming to be and passing away is a special form of change. Not like change in quality, size, form etc.

Beauty gives pleasure. Things that are well made are beautiful. Well made things give us more pleasure, they are more enjoyable. Different people have different tastes. We don't all like the same things (another reason we are not all equal)

Asking why, why, why leads to ultimate end.. (p 68) short term whys and long term whys ie st & lt goals/ends. We don't have to think about or question why we want something in order to figure out how to get it! Good point. (Let's have more production. No one asks why. They just go along with commonly accepted beliefs, values. )

stp p 70 The younger we are the more things we do aimlessly. (shorter our outlook) (or at least playfully)

Serious activity means it has a goal.

As we get older we get more purposeful.

Aristotle says we should have a plan for living well, that as we get older more of our activities should be geared towards this plan.

Socrates was Plato and Aristotle's teacher. Aristotle said unplanned life is not worth examining. But I disagree.

He says one plan is not as good as another. You must have the "right" plan! There is only one right plan! (but what if things change, A?-What if your feelings change?)

Aristotle said living well was the end, not the means to anything else. (ie no dumb notion of heaven) (This is similar to saying living healthily or simply, survival)

He says we all want this. He calls this happiness. He says that no one would say they do not want happiness.

[How sad we have lived so many generations and still are so far from happiness-obviously we have followed the wrong plan]

No one can give a reason for wanting it, except for the end itself. Hmm. Interesting. But now we know for sure that happiness is healthy.

But each person has different needs and desires so how can there be one right plan??

Next chapter p 76.

Good and desirable are connected.

More desirable = better

each of us has 1) different genetic structures/ temperaments, 2) different life experiences. These are the two basic reasons we each have unique desires, tastes, preferences.

But we share a common humanity. Most differences are just in degree (exactly what I have been saying about same needs, but to different extents- like with big guys needing more food & me having a big ego)

Some have more ability to see, to hear and others have more ability to reason.

needs vs desires/wants (needs are innate desires) Some needs/desires are more critical to survival. Food, then emotional nourishment.

"Hunger is feeling a need" The need to eat has a word: hunger.

The need for acceptance is: ??

A. says man by nature desires to know. I say the more we need to know the more human we are.

But we may not know when we have the need for knowledge. There are no ignorance pangs, like hunger pangs.

"We cannot have wrong needs" p 81 (Assuming def. of need is natural need, not addiction/desire/craving

A. says the one right life is pursuit of things we need (naturally) Not just to live, but to live well..

thus he says what is good for one should be good for all since we all have same needs---------*****but this doesn't make sense since we just agreed we have needs in different degrees.

Happiness consists of having all needs met. p 82

Right plan includes being able to seek things we want but do not need, so long as the wants don't interfere with our legitimate needs.

p 84 Chap 12

Needs vs rights.

He says we need to have freedom to pursue individual choices. True. Then he says because we need it, we have a right to it! NOT! These are two very different concepts!

"Living well, or happiness is the ultimate or final end.." p 85

We have a duty to be happy! We ought to pursue happiness.

TJ (Thomas Jefferson) apparently was reading A. & decided that because we all have certain needs, we all have rights. Big mistake TJ. p 85

we are by nature questioning, thinking and knowing animals.

A says we need health vitality and vigor

Seek pleasure, avoid pain.

Senses tell us which is which. And emotions.

p 88

1. bodily goods- health, pleasure, vitality 2. above require external goods-- ie wealth (a certain amount) 3. goods of the soul - self-esteem, honor, love, friendship, respect 4. good habits; good habits of choice (come easily, seem normal)

good habits similar to excellence, virtue- habits of choice are moral virtues

A good life is one that has lived by making morally virtuous choices. p 91

A. knew that wealth was not to be desired as an end. But friendship and knowledge were ends.

-- skip next part as it is out of sequence

--------------- ? page Vice <----------------------> Virtue Unhappy<----------------------> Happiness

Blame --- Responsibility Resentment --- Appreciation Hate --- Love

No need for hell, "God" in Aristotle's system of virtues

We feel good when we are virtuous, just like when we have eaten good meal.

Nature rewards happiness. (Greatest amount of happiness for greatest # of people.) -----------------

Intro. psych. textbook (Lost the exact title & authors)

Preface

- technology - alienation, aloneness - shrinking world, more interdependence - higher density, closer physically, but emotionally distant

Role playing. Not expressing true selves.

- unique individual potential

- How do we solve problems/ resolve conflicts - what we value & why - how we perceive world & why - what motivates us & why

- see people in different roles - child, student, employee, manager, parent, citizen

- positive attitude - study healthy people

- students asked for meaningful book. - tried to emphasize human studies vs animals!

Prologue

depersonalization, dehumanization

we forget (or never realize) our need to express our inner emotions & feelings

concerned because students are "half alive, responding to only a small fraction of the beauty and excitement in the world, and using only a fraction of their potential" p 2

Underlying assumptions:

1. Man is not doomed to alienation 2. We have more potential than we realize 3. Can learn how to use it 4. Psychology can help with theories, concepts, understanding, etc 5. College students can "get it" & even get excited about learning

(paraphrased)

Who am I. What is my potential. Where am I going. Where do I want to go. What do I need to learn. How can I be happier. How can I solve problems more effectively.

Happy person:

alive, optimistic, loving life, good natured, alert, enthusiastic, aware, open minded, intelligent, witty, willing to learn, secure, empathetic

Enjoys helping others making their dreams come true/

Healthy people:

Enjoy life more. Respond to more dimensions of life. Have deep lasting relationships. Are happier, self-fulfilling. Have happier children. Perform better. p 12

Continuum from mentally ill to self-actualizing/healthy

Maslow studied healthy people. (informally - for himself)

my continuum

acknowledge accept understand respect approve appreciate admire like love

... people who accept themselves as they accept nature - who don't complain about water because it is wet or rocks because they are hard.

Seven things authors say describe happy people

1. able to accept/like/love selves, others 2. deeper personal relationships- kind and patient 3. "more efficient perception of reality" & more comfortable with it don't spin their wheels, or fight reality - "the universe"; get more done, make better decisions.

4. Continued freshness of appreciation

Self-actualized people have the wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life--with awe, wonder and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others. Thus, for such people every sunset is as beautiful as the first one, any flower may be of breathtaking loveliness even after he has seen a million flowers. The thousandth baby he sees is just as miraculous a product as the first one he saw. He remains as convinced of his luck in marriage thirty years after his marriage and is as surprised by his wife's beauty when she is sixty as he was forty years before. For such people even the casual workaday, moment-to-moment business of living can be thrilling, exciting, and ecstatic. Maslow in "The self: explorations in personal growth. Edited by Moustakas. 1956 p. 177

5. Autonomy, Independence of culture and environment (& morality)

Feeling good about self leads to trusting self, relying own insights about what is right, wrong & what should be done. Rely on own standards of behavior & values.

Maslow (same p. 176) says:

One characteristic of self-actualizing people which to a certain extent crosscuts much of what we have already described is their relative independence to the physical and social environment... This independence of environment means a relative serenity in the face of hard knocks, blows, deprivations, frustrations and the like. These people can maintain a relative serenity and happiness in the midst of circumstances that would drive other people to suicide. They have also been described as self-contained.

6. Creativeness - novel approaches, flexibility,

7. A democratic character -

Consistent way of behaving; Appreciation of needs of others, a willingness to listen and learn, a reverence for the uniqueness of others.

Maslow again p 182

... learn from anyone who has something to teach them--no matter what other characteristics he may have. In such a learning relationship they do not try to maintain any outward dignity or to maintain status or age prestige or the like; ... humility; quite aware of their own worth, so there is no humbleness of the cringing or of the designing and calculating type. They are equally aware of how little they no in comparison with what could be known and what is known by others. ... thus they can be respectful and even honestly humble before people who can teach them something or who have a skill they do not posses.

Life Skills 101 for Parents Norma Spurlock -read December 21, 1996

sph: happy or obedient kids?

The Making of A Country Lawyer - Gerry Spence

This page has been moved to www.eqi.org/spence.htm

How to Argue and Win Every Time - Gerry Spence

52 The polygraph attempts to analyze our physiological responses when we lie, but each of us is many times more sophisticated than that primitive device. Our senses record hundreds of signals over the course of a brief encounter, and, faster than any computer, we assimilate the information, and pronounce our judgments.

53 There is valid biological explanation why all cultures past and present hoist honesty to the top of the moral totem pole. Those who lie to us put us in jeopardy.

55 Openly revealing our feelings establishes credibility. We are what we feel (so if we pretend to be someone who feels another way, we are committing fraud)

Our child's conduct may make us angry, but we are afraid our child will get into serious trouble. (secondary emotion) 55

p. 65 The problem of credibility, of course, arises when what we say is not what we mean, when we speak of caring but do not care, when we feign deep beliefs but our soul is empty. The problem of credibility arises when we fail to tell the truth--when we fail to tell the both the factual truth and the emotional truth, when we fail to tell how we feel.

Contemporary Psych & Effective Behavior _ Charles Morris

A tale of two cities - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...

Paradoxes- Technology, Communication, Affluence, Power,

Adjustment - 1) adjusting to the environment 2) adjusting the environment.

Adaptive - meets our needs & the demands of the situation and is and doesn't hurt others.

Maladaptive - the opposite. Hurts us or others.

Humans: self-aware; endless ability to learn, reason, imagine; conceptual; can make value judgments; we can choose our goals; ability to modify environment (almost endless)

self-direction..

we must have knowledge of self and of environment to adapt.

Who am I? Where am I going? How do I get there? (Who will go with me?) What are my competencies s/w

"If we chose value which are inconsistent with either the needs of our own nature, or the realities of the world, they will work against us" We are free to act against reality, but not free to escape the consequences.

We worry about the wrong things (p 17)

Psychology - describe, explain, predict & control behavior

preconscious - can be brought up

If you fail to find yourself, it doesn't matter what else you find. (paraphrase Michener from The Fires of Spring)

Humanists - Rogers, Maslow.

the self-fulfilling being who freely expresses his inner nature. Develops his potential.

Behaviors that contribute to self-actualization are satisfying.

Humans are basically good. Anti-social behaviors are learned - result of society's attempt to control and distort the normal, healthy growth/actualization process.

Rogers - self-concept. we act in ways that our consistent with our self-concept. We try to maintain it.

Congruence v incongruence. self-concept v inborn nature.

Maslow- Physiological, safety, Love & belonging, Esteem, Self- actualization - first four levels are deficiency motivated.

Rogers - way to get congruence is thru unconditional positive regard. (upr) Not conditional on behaving as others wish.

Fully function people:

1. Open to experience, not defensive, aware 2. Trust selves & feelings- self-correcting/guiding 3. upr for selves & others 4. creative responses, live fully each moment 5. Feel free, in control of own lives & resp. for actions/choices 6. Live with others in harmony.

Maslow's growth motivated people: - see reality more realistically - tolerant of uncertainty - more spontaneous & creative - more accepting of selves & others - more problem centered & less ego-centered - have a philosophical, unhostile sense of humor - feel kinship and concern with all humanity

But M found some are vain, temperamental, ruthless, boring, stubborn or irritating

Behaviorists - most behavior is learned. Watson, Skinner

Operant conditioning +- reinforcement

Healthy adjustment includes= self-regulating (little need for external control) p 57 +"appropriate changes"

Freud thought people were selfish, uncivilized, impulsive, demanding, cruel and destructive!

Irrational things:

to preserve group unity a group will kill many thousands; sickness after being "infected" by virus. p61; people will report things which don't exist when influenced by others; will compromise integrity for someone in authority; think they are in a real prison when in mock prison.

Stress- threat or tension which requires a change. "the american disease"

Four types of stress - frustration, conflict, pressure, change

Frustration - achievement of goal is blocked or there is an absence of an appropriate goal

Most frustrated, resentful when feel entitled to something, see others have it, thought it was once possible to have it, feel responsible for not having it?, see little chance of getting it. p 76

Loss of something deprives of a resource for meeting our needs.

Discrimination is form of frustration - they are qualified but their dreams and desires or needs are denied.

Conflict - two or more incompatible motives.

Some people hold themselves back so they won't surpass their parents.

Pressure - forces us to speed up, intensify or change behavior. Competition is form of Pressure

Albert Ellis: (self-imposed stress)

I need approval for everything I do I must be good at everything I do (successful) People doing badly deserve to be punished & blamed If things don't go as I want it will be a disaster We can't control our unpleasant emotions I must worry about things It is better to avoid facing problems The past can't be overcome

Stress causers - #, duration, predictability, imminence (proximity) prior experience, sense of control,s of competence,

Relationships help lower stress. Self-destructive people say I'm okay - p 98 Study: girls with poor relationships with mothers also had poor relationships with others.

Too little stress 'hypostress' + stress is eustress

Stress suppresses body's immune system p 109 so can't resist infections/diseases

50% of deaths - stress & maladaptive lifestyles 1980 p 112

People condemned to death by medicine man will die. Guy who ate sacred hen dies learning he ate it.

Migraines - most common cause is psych. stress. 116 Later p145 says chocolate, red wind & cheese! There he suggest relaxing muscles in neck.

Anxiety with out taking action is unhealthy. Anxiety - narrows our perception, we think less logically, more rigid, less inventive, try to protect self with defense mechanisms.

Fear in abused kids leads to quick and intense responses to any kind of rejection real or imagined.

Defense mechanisms: self-deceptive responses to stress to protect feeling of worth or adequacy or avoid unpleasant feelings.

Repression- kept out of conscious. Suppression- consciously excluded thoughts Denial, fantasy, Rationalization, Projection, Displacement (on something else - like dog - less dangerous) Regression- back to childhood Compensation -emphasizing another trait, Acting out (madonna-expressing a taboo), undoing-atonement,[bringing flowers] Emotional insulation -detaching/passivity, Intellectualization

Taking drugs prolongs necessary work.

Guilt - acknowledge, reparation & willingness to be forgiven + look to the future, not past.

Depression - realize there are always choices. Helps to prepare ourselves.

Loneliness- Accept it as part of life. Get to know selves better, draw on untapped resources, p152

"Deeply lived loneliness can not only lead to greater self- acceptance but to increased compassion for and relatedness to others."

+ learn to build truly meaningful, loving and enduring relationships - and developing a concern for individuals and all humans...

Social support- a) support/reassure us b) validate us c) helps us set realistic goals d) consider & review our options

Social isolation is as unhealthy as cigarettes, high blood pressure, and obesity

p 222 little evidence proving success of psychotherapy!

p 495 Rewards of groups mutual help, companionship, identity & se, fulfillment, Costs: limitations/restrictions on you, demands, threats to integrity -- compliance, conformity, obedience.

Milgram experiment. + lines of different lengths - people would change their opinions to go along with group.

Group think - 1)Illusion of invulnerability 2) Rationalization 3) Unquestioned belief 4) Stereotyped views 5) Intolerance to dissent 6)Self-censoring [individuals minimize themselves to conform] 7) Unanimity 8) Self-appointed mind-guards

p 509

Ways to maintain your own individuality and resist influence from others & from society

1) Reduce attractiveness of others

2) Emphasize differences

3) Find alternative rewards (from outside group)

4) re-assess costs of membership

5) Deal with individuals

6) Identify allies

7) Seek privacy

8) Make public commitment of your principles

9) Take time out (let me think about it)

Also: (How to resist more task oriented/information oriented pressure to conform)

1) Re-assess expertise of members as well as your own expertise

2) Re-evaluate familiarity with task

3) Define your role conservatively

5) Be persistent, coherent, forceful, but reasonable, not overly emotional

The Ultimate Secret of Total Self Confidence - Robert Anthony

Intro:

William James said the greatest discovery of our age has been that we can change our outer circumstances by our inner thinking.

One of the prerequisites for change, and for a self-confident personality is that you must satisfy your own needs first.

Many people use the philosophy of service to others as an escape from changing their own lives.

The only way the human situation will change is for each person to take charge of his or her own life in a positive, constructive way.

Like the airlines say: Put the mask on yourself first.

When Opposites Attract

Came to conclusion - Not just one crazy person in the marriage but two!

Not just men v. women. More like Right brain/left brain.

Certain patterns in problem solving, looking at world and even love-making.

Classification of people is dangerous, and is root of social ills such as racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.

She wants to connect, so she asks a question that she already knows the answer to. Then she is impatient while he thinks up a detailed answer. She shrugs him off and he gets offended. Then she apologizes & he gives longer answer than she wanted with more information than she was seeking.

Left brain processes information serially. Right is center of creativity, images, relationships, integration, parallel processing.

The Recovery of Family Life Elton/Pauline Trueblood -- read January 1997

Harper Brothers - 1953

Since time of Socrates we realize that we must know what is right before we can say what is wrong. "The intelligent way to begin is to consider first the end." (From preface) Just like Covey's begin with end in mind.

We must know that there is a target before we can aim towards it or speak of missing it.

So I say look at nature.

He said the family was an "antidote to some of our most distressing ills." p10 preface

Counseling: Theory and Process, James Hansen, Richard Stevic, Richard Warner. 1977 Allyn & Bacon, Boston.

Criticisms: Neglects emotions; focusses on behavior and thoughts.

Misuses verb to feel - p. 2 we feel it is most appropriate.. p 37 Freud felt that the development of the personality this is actually a combination of "Freud believed... and "Freud hypothesized... was largely dependent on the course of psychosexual development of the individual.

[I find it shocking, or rather, I feel shocked, that authors of a counseling book would misuse the verb "to feel" so blatantly. But actually in my experience most professionals and academics in the field of psychology commit this violation of my basic principle of using the verb "to feel" with feelings only rather than thoughts, beliefs, hunches, perceptions, etc.]

"Counseling is an applied field in which the counselor uses behavioral knowledge to help the client." Preface p vii

"The therapist establishes a situation that is threat-free, and the individual learns that he can express is thoughts without the danger of being condemned."

p 24 the task of counselors and counseling theory is to define how behavior change is brought about.

also see page 44, 45

A lot of talk about "adaptive" and "maladaptive", and appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

On rights: p 62 In the discussion of one of the counseling techniques the authors say "...they are a set of preferred attitudes and strategies to be used flexibly by the counselor while he respects the client's right to be himself.

------------

Freud: (psychoanalytic method)

p 2 it is difficult to find any approach to counseling or therapy that has not been influenced in some way by freudian psychoanalytic theory.

p 24 - a good counseling theory includes some notions about what the 'good life' is.

in essence it creates a hierarchy of values toward which the counseling process is aimed.

Freud said there are many feelings we are not aware of- he called this the unconscious.

The real importance of these feelings in analysis is that they constantly strive to become conscious and the individual must expend energy to keep them in the unconscious. Thus Freud sees people in constant state of internal conflict of which they are not aware.

[so the goal of eq therapy is to bring those unconscious feelings into conscious awareness by naming them and next by deciding what to do about them.

the id is basically our natural instincts vs the ego which is not present at birth. p 35

but it sounds to me like what freud calls the id refers to our physical needs, while the ego is more of our emotional/psychological needs which are indeed present at birth.

identification, is one of the most important concept in psychoanalytic theory. p 35. The child learns to find something in the outer world that fits with his minds image and will satisfy his need

this identification process separates the id from the ego - confusing.

I think the ego is something like the rational mind that considers what will feel good and what won't.

"the ego is the organized part of the personality and is often referred to as the executive of the individual's personality.

Freud seems to think that the super ego is primarily the result of parents' and society's values and customs. He said the superego was made of two subsystems - the conscience and the ego-ideal. The conscience tells us what we should not do and the ego ideal represents what the individual would like to be.

either one of these subsystems often finds itself in conflict with the id impulses.

[i would say the reason it is in conflict is because it is based on society's and parental influences rather than on innate needs.]

Freud seems to call the fulfillment of needs the pleasure principle and gratification. He seems to imply that there is something unhealthy about seeking pleasure and gratification.

In fact on page 37 he says one of the functions of the ego and superego are to "hold in check" some of the impulses of the id.

"an individual dominated by his id will tend to be impulsive by his behavior. whereas a person dominated by his superego will be overly moralistic. and the function of the ego is to keep the individual from these two extremes.

in a sense this is similar to seeking a balance between emotions and reason.

in other words our emotional needs and feelings which are very short term, and our thoughts, which involve planning and decision making.

Freud believed the basic personality is formed in the first five years of life.

he saw personality development as resulting from the individual's attempts to learn new ways of reducing tension coming from four basic sources: physiological growth, frustration, conflicts, and threats.

[this is all stated in the negative. he does not say the child is seeking to fulfill his curiosity or his need to feel creative or his need to feel accepted. In other words, he takes a very negative view of humanity and human development.

Freud thought that a child of under two could become overly dependent on the mother and become fixated in this stage for life. (by enjoying breast feeding too much!) Freud says the child sucks on the nipple not only for food but for the pleasure it gives him.

[Does he mean that a one year old is sexually stimulated by breast feeding? I doubt this. I believe children are pre-sexual until puberty.]

[But I disagree- I think you create a dependent child, or can prevent such dependency, much later- easily through the teenage years.

In other words dependency is not primarily a function of what happens in the first two years of life. At the same time, I might say that it is possible that security or insecurity might largely be largely established in the first two years. It is certainly possible that one, as an adult, can be both insecure and independent.

In the second year he says the child moves to the anal stage. If he is harshly toilet trained he may turn out to be a very "retentive" person who might also become cruel, obstinate or stingy. ie fixated at the anal stage.

[I believe Freud had the right general idea in that children become stuck at certain levels of development, as Branden said, but he had the wrong cause and effect relationships.

The phallic stage- about 3-6. Freud says in this stage the child receives pleasure mainly through "self-manipulation." Freud throws in at this stage: castration anxiety, penis envy, Oedipus complex, Electra complex.

Freud says serious development problems may occur if the parents scare the child by telling him his penis will fall off if he masturbates or if they tell the girl that she has lost hers because of something bad she did.

When Freud talks about the Oedipus complex he says the boy has the desire to "posses" his mother, which I take it includes sleeping with her.

[I disagree- what the boy wants is freedom from the mother and her control and/or win the mother's approval. So I would say a man's emotional problems are largely based on an unhealthy separation process between the child and the parents. If a boy has won his mother's approval he may then leave her or she may leave him through her death and he may feel secure for the rest of his life. His source of approval has successfully made the transition from his mother to himself.

He says people's later attitude members of the opposite sex and toward those in authority are largely determined by the person's success in working out the Oedipal complex.

Next is the latency stage. when child spends non-sexual time.

then in the genital stage when an individual receives his greatest pleasure from a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. [but a little boy and girl might be best friends before this]

in other words he is no longer getting pleasure from oral, anal or auto-erotic activities and is not bothered by castration anxiety, penis envy, or the Oedipus or Electra complex.

Freud said that in each of these stages we have much frustration, conflict and threat. We learn to deal with all of this tension with our defense mechanisms.

[my theory is that we have emotional needs- these needs are frustrated by society and this is the source of the tension which leads to both violence, obsessiveness, inability to delay gratification, substitute seeking, and the defense mechanisms- so my theory is more all encompassing. I haven't noted yet where F. thinks violence comes from.

p. 40 - In the early stages of development the threats to the self come from outside the individual (people who are physically larger and who have complete control over the individual- such as parents) As the super-ego develops, the threats to the self can also occur from within.

Freud says these defense mechanisms take place at the subconscious level.

Defense mechanisms:

Identification- Identifying with abuser, then becoming abuser

Displacement - taking energy from one object and putting it on another, but the new object is "not likely to satisfy the need for tension reduction, so the individual is constantly seeking new and better methods for reducing tension."

Author also calls this object substitution- so we can say again that we can never get enough of a substitute.

Distraction - if your house is on fire, no amount of distraction will stop it from burning.

Author says a particular form of displacement was most significant in the development of civilization was sublimation.

Sublimation is the process whereby the individual modifies the expression of a primitive impulse to conform with behavior that is socially acceptable.

Sublimations usually take the form of channeling aggressive or sexual energy into intellectual, humanitarian, cultural, and artistic pursuits. Hence, as an individual matures he sublimates or displaces his energy to objects which not only give him satisfaction, but aid the society in its development.

Repression - forcing something out of our consciousness because it causes us anxiety. But when we repress something we lose our ability to clear it up, so it continues to affect us and have power over us, for example the fear of disapproval.

p 41 In order to deal with a repressed impulse, one must believe that the impulse is no longer a danger to him. ie when we are adults we can go back and deal with childhood fears to lift the repression, but "in many cases the individual never learns that his repression is no longer necessary. This explains why it is said that most people exist with a lot of childish fear which no longer have a basis in reality."

Projection- instead of I hate my sister, my sister hates me. Projection is a favorite defense of those who try to enhance their self-esteem. The individual not only attempts to make himself look good, but at the same time tries to downgrade others. He lifts himself up at the expense of others.

Reaction formation

Fixation - what Branden was talking about... when he said "my needs weren't met when I was six so I am not moving on till they are." Although the author says we don't want to give up behavior patterns that have been satisfying. Or they might not have satisfied us, but they might have helped us survive. (Temper tantrums to get basic needs met, for example)

p 43 A good mental health is a product of a good balance among the id, ego and superego.

p 44 regression- when one has tried to cope with something and fails- they resort to childhood behavior to try to satisfy their needs. "This behavior brings forth earlier anxieties and tensions that have been repressed. Neurotic behavior develops in an attempt to deal with this tension. This behavior requires increasing amounts of energy from the organism in order to deal with the anxiety, hence, the individual has less and less energy left over to deal with the realities of the world. A vicious cycle is established."

Under "Goals of Therapy Section" (Still freud's section)

"The major goal of the psychoanalytic method is to bring into the consciousness those repressed impulses that are causing anxiety." p 44

"The therapist establishes a situation that is threat-free, and the individual learns that he can express is thoughts without the danger of being condemned. This freedom allows the individual to explore the appropriateness or inappropriateness of his present behavior and to consider new behaviors."

p 52 Erik Erikson's model: (From around 1950)

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p 55 socialization process: provides the individual with a pattern of behaviors that will allow him to operate within the society.

under summary:

p 45 .. classic psychoanalytic theory is in need of more concrete formulations about the manner in which behaviors are acquired and modified."

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins

Spiritual devotion to a popular teacher with ambigous dogma is merely method of making experience more tolerable, not a method of understanding experience or even of accuately describing it. p 259

In order to tolerate experience, a disciple embraces a master. This sort of reaction is understandable, but it is neither very courageous nor very liberarting. The brave and liberating thing to do is embrace experience and tolerate the master. That way we might at least learn what it is we are experiencing..... p 259

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