'A Science of Man' to transcend 'The Man of Science'

[Ophiolite]

I often encounter such statements on these forums and I discount them as being the bluff and bluster of a sophomore. Perhaps you can substantiate your opinion with some authorities’ source and convince me that yours is not just additional sophomoric bluff and bluster.

Coberst you have tried the 'sophomoric bluff' line on me before, on another forum, then retracted your attack when you realised I knew what the **** I was talking about.
Ego, Id, Super ego!!!:shrug:
No evidence for them; no connect with reality; no creditable psychologist in the last three decades who would support the concept. And just about every other concept of Freud has been discredited. You are the one pedalling obsolete thinking. You are the one who needs to produce some recent peer-reviewed material to validate such fantasies.

And as for Jung and his collective unconscious and his mystical take on things......All very poetical, but as devoid of science as a trollop's flatulence.

While Adler...well I much preferred Larry to Alfred. At least he could play a mean harmonica.

 

[coberst]

Ophiolite

After further consideration I take back my disclaimer; you have all the characteristics of a sophomore attitude and knowledge.

 

[Ophiolite]

I'll not quibble over the attitude, but I take your failure to offer a defense of outdated psychological thinking as a tacit admission that I am wholly correct on those points.

 

[sniffy]

Wholly correct or holier than thou?

 

[Grantywanty]

Ego, Id, Super ego!!!:shrug:
No evidence for them; no connect with reality; no creditable psychologist in the last three decades who would support the concept. And just about every other concept of Freud has been discredited.

There are many psychologists who support Freuds ideas, though, of course they have developed. Much as I would love to agree with someone disagreeing with coberst you are not correct. You might want to say these psychologists are, by definition, not creditable, but the fact is they are publishing, running departments both in universities and hospitals AND participating in very anal scientific tracking of the effectiveness of techniques based on really quite Freudian ideas about ego and defense mechanisms, conscious and unconscious urges, emotions, etc. Davanloo, Malan, Foishe, Vaillant are a few I have read about recently and I assume you would be surprised to find out how scientific they go about determining treatments and how much respect they get from corporate, private and government organizations and individuals. You may not credit such psychologists, but many do. DESPITE the brain is an often broken machine trends in psychiatric circles.

 

[Grantywanty]

Grantywanty


[edit] Works
This is a partial, chronological list of Progoff's books

1956. The Death and Rebirth of Psychology: An integrative evaluation of Freud, Adler, Jung and Rank and the impact of their culminating insights on modern man.
1959. Depth psychology and modern man: A new view of the magnitude of human personality, its dimensions & resources
1971. The Star/Cross: A Cycle of Process Meditation
1972. The White Robed Monk;: A cycle of process meditation
1973. Jung, synchronicity, & human destiny;: Noncausal dimensions of human experience1974 Death and Rebirth of Psychology
1975. At a Journal Workshop: The Basic Text and Guide for Using the Intensive Journal Process
1977. The Well and the Cathedral: With an Introduction on Its Use in the Practice of Meditation
1979. The White Robed Monk: As an Entrance to Process Meditation
1980. The Practice of Process Meditation: The Intensive Journal Way to Spiritual Experience
1985. The Dynamics of Hope: Perspectives of Process in Anxiety and Creativity, Imagery and Dreams
1985. Jung's Psychology and Its Social Meaning: An Integrative Statement of C. G. Jung's Psychological Theories and an Interpretation of Their Significance.
The Symbolic and the Real
Jung, Synchronicity, and Human Destiny : C.G. Jung's Theory of Meaningful Coincidence

Now whose opinion should I accept yours or Ira's?

You really should be aware of how weak the above arguement is. There are authors, for example Cognitive Psychologists, who have published as many or more books on psychology. They, in general, would think Progoff was a sloppy thinker with old mystical ideas. I happen to disagree with them. But here's the point, you can't go by a list of merits and publications to determine the knowledge of a person. There are people from different parts of the psychology spectrum who totally disagree with each other who have received awards, have published many books, have doctorates, are well respected by their peers and so on. Still, you, even you Coberst, must take responsibility for the ones you decide to agree with and the ones you don't.

IT CANNOT COME DOWN TO A LIST OF PUBLICATIONS.

Appeals to authority are weak. And I know this has been mentioned to you over and over to no avail.

That's why I think you have not resolved your issues with your father. (I notice, for example, very few or no women ever quoted by you, so I assume this is a daddy thing. Why don't you try getting analyzed yourself. If the analyst - following Freud and all the other biggies you love BECAUSE PROGOFF TOLD YOU TO - doesn't make you look very hard at your relationship with your father and your fear of contradicting him, I'll eat my hat.

 

[Grantywanty]

I'll not quibble over the attitude, but I take your failure to offer a defense of outdated psychological thinking as a tacit admission that I am wholly correct on those points.

And such a debate would be potentially interesting. The strange thing is that coberst does not realize that promoting ideas is very different from understanding them or being able to apply them or see their implications. 'Knowledge' for him is just a bunch of introjects sargassoed in his mind. Undigested matter.

But Ophiolite, you should agree with him, he is quoting someone with a lot of publications.

Ah, well.

 

[coberst]

I'll not quibble over the attitude, but I take your failure to offer a defense of outdated psychological thinking as a tacit admission that I am wholly correct on those points.

I always supply the source of my information unlike those who use bluff and bluster.

 

[Grantywanty]

I always supply the source of my information unlike those who use bluff and bluster.

As you quoted him, he said 'defense'.
Ophiolite probably has a couple of university degrees under his belt. What he means is that you can back up the ideas using deductive and inductive reasoning and showing how these ideas relate to concrete experience - yours, other people's. I would think you would know this is what is meant by 'defense'. Relaying ideas can be useful, but generally people on discussion forums assume that people have integrated the ideas they are promoting. They are in a sense fluent with them. At the very least they can explain why the ideas seem valid to them FROM THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES.

Ophiolite could go out and find sources that think Progoff and depth psychology is a bunch of BS. Then where would we all be. Would we have to flip a coin. Ophiolite lists 10 authors who have published 39 books so I will agree with him, that's one more book than Coberst's list and Ophiolite has more recent pubs.

 

[Ophiolite]

Wholly correct or holier than thou?

Both, naturally.

 

[Ophiolite]

There are many psychologists who support Freuds ideas, though, of course they have developed. Much as I would love to agree with someone disagreeing with coberst you are not correct. You might want to say these psychologists are, by definition, not creditable, but the fact is they are publishing, running departments both in universities and hospitals AND participating in very anal scientific tracking of the effectiveness of techniques based on really quite Freudian ideas about ego and defense mechanisms, conscious and unconscious urges, emotions, etc. Davanloo, Malan, Foishe, Vaillant are a few I have read about recently and I assume you would be surprised to find out how scientific they go about determining treatments and how much respect they get from corporate, private and government organizations and individuals. You may not credit such psychologists, but many do. DESPITE the brain is an often broken machine trends in psychiatric circles.

It's interesting that you have ben able to provide what Coberst has not, and I doubt ever could: a potentially substantive refutation of my thesis. I am aware in a general sense of the continuing support for developments of Freud's ideas. I am not familiar with any of the names you have referenced.
I recall reading Freud's Interpretation of Dreams when I was fourteen or fiteen and reaching a simple conclusion: the man thinks we are all sex obsessed because he is dealing with sexually repressed Austrian ladies - and he doesn't understand the impact of that self selction of his sample set. That wiped out my potential hero worship for the man and his ideas, and nothing I have read since has led me to revise my opinion. I view Freud as important for the questions he asked, but not the answers he gave.

[You kindly suggested in another reply to Coberst that I probably had a couple of degrees. Regretably I have only the one and that in geology. My brusque dismissal of Freud and the whol psycho-babble industry is because it does not gel with what I have studied in ethology, primate behaviour, cognitive psychology, or for that matter, a meticulous and relatively objective analysis of the personal survival process within industry.]

 

[Grantywanty]

... a meticulous and relatively objective analysis of the personal survival process within industry.]

(Gotta run, but I have to take one friendly ironic jab)

aren't you forgetting the impact of the self-selection of your sample set?

anyway. The issue is very complex and it would be interesting to go into. I have finally gotten around to studying the cognitive psychologists and their therapeutic approaches having always felt they did not go deep enough - unfortunately that metaphor seems to fit for me despite some of its history and use here. I think they tend to overestimate the power of logic when it is used without allowing a great deal of emotional flexibility (ie. experience and expression) related to the imprinting (another metaphor, but I am skipping back in my use to meanings prior to the ones biologists use) of problematic patterns in the clients.

But I have also found much to respect. Right now I am mulling a lot on Schemas. Oops, gotta go.

 

[sniffy]

One of the problems particualrly when trying to discuss something outside one's area of expertise (that's all areas in my case!) is that theories/research move on so quickly. I've been trying to find out the latest thinking on the origins of the universe as my last resource was written in 2001 by dear old Professor Hawking. I just (about) get my head around big bangs and I have to start considering big bounces.

Surely the questions that puzzle the headologists have more to do with brain (mal) functions than sex, myths and rock & roll. More research into brain functions please and leave the metaphysics to the poets.

 

[Grantywanty]

My brusque dismissal of Freud and the whol psycho-babble industry is because it does not gel with what I have studied in ethology, primate behaviour, cognitive psychology, or for that matter, a meticulous and relatively objective analysis of the personal survival process within industry.]

The interesting thing is that many cognitive psychologists have incorporated some of Freud's ideas and many depth or analytical psychologists have incorporated cognitive techniques and theories into their practices. One wonderful example of this latter is that some psychodynamic therapists are treating a wide variety of problems AS IF their clients have affect phobias learned during childhood. In other words their clients (and really all of us) have irrational fears of OUR OWN EMOTIONS and this can be treated much like cognitive psychologists treat phobias. But here, since we are dealing with an internal phenomenon rather than an external thing (f.ex.a snake) it is very useful to process early experiences when the pattern was set in place. When the child was punished for getting angry, or when overwhelming feelings needed to be denied. These contexts can function are successive exposures to the phobic 'object' (anger, sadness, self-respect, etc.).

The therapists must be very deft with dealing with defense mechanisms (again Freud) and often encounter early traumas, repressed violent or sexual urges and so on (Freud), though the focus is very practical and less mythical and interpretation is relegated to a way to deal with anxiety and other phobic symptoms. In distinction from Freud the process is very active and interpersonal.

I might add that they test subjects hysterically thoroughly, video tape sessions, track their clients for years, test symptom reduction through a variety of methods and are having significant success all across the spectrum of 'disorders'.

 

[Grantywanty]

Surely the questions that puzzle the headologists have more to do with brain (mal) functions than sex, myths and rock & roll. More research into brain functions please and leave the metaphysics to the poets.

This is reductionism at its finest.
If some guy gets killed for sleeping with someone else's girlfriend, sure, the CAUSE of death was a bullet disrupting blood flow to the hypothalamus or whatever. But the CAUSE of death would also have been the boyfriends fears about sexual inadequacy, perhaps something that was set in motion by certain childhood experiences. Why did he kill this guy? He was planning to break up with her anyway? Why did he flip to rage and not sadness?

The map is not the thing.

 

[Ophiolite]

aren't you forgetting the impact of the self-selection of your sample set?.

No. Because the particular item was preceeded by the words.[implicit and]for that matter. This was an additional, gratuitous, incidental data source.

 

[sniffy]

Grantywanty
If you can't read the map how the hell do you know where you're going or how long it will take?

Maybe he flipped to rage because a little piece of his brain wasn't developed properly or was damaged which therefore impacted on his ability to handle his anger.

Maybe he flipped because he's from a long evolutionary line of flippers. Either way the map's the thing that will lead you to where you want to be.

The brain's the thing that controls all others.

 

[Grantywanty]

Grantywanty
If you can't read the map how the hell do you know where you're going or how long it will take?

That does not make the map the thing or limit the thing, as I meant in this case, to being what a map that works in some contexts is mapping.

Maybe he flipped to rage because a little piece of his brain wasn't developed properly or was damaged which therefore impacted on his ability to handle his anger.

This way of looking at it does not eliminate the usefulness of other ways of looking at it. And, in fact, this has been scientifically proven. Many psychologists today are hysterically anal about the way they document the therapeutic process and discussions of patient sexual feelings, fantasies, etc, can reduce violence where jealousy or sexual violence is an issue. This does not mean that some changes in the clients' brains did not take place. This does not mean that THE ONLY MAP YOU CONSIDER VALID is wrong. But it is clearly wrong to say, as you did above, that sex has nothing to do with it.

Maybe he flipped because he's from a long evolutionary line of flippers. Either way the map's the thing that will lead you to where you want to be.

Hello. There are many ways to map human behavior and the causes of it.

The brain's the thing that controls all others.

Mapping the situation in terms of the mind, emotions, intentions, etc. works. This is scientifically backed up.
You want there to be only this one map, and a rather impovrished one at that.

 

[Grantywanty]

No. Because the particular item was preceeded by the words.[implicit and]for that matter. This was an additional, gratuitous, incidental data source.

See for me lived experience counts heavier than the books I read about human behavior. These latter certainly send me back with new eyes and new ways of seeing that lived experience, but....

 

[sniffy]

But your 'lived' experience cannot account for all lived experience.

If you don't like the map analogy:
If a car has crashed and is broken you do not need to know when and how the car crashed or who was involved. All you need to do is look at the car, find what is broken and fix it (if possible). for that you WILL need to know how the car works in order to put it back together.

My point is, as has been proven with genes and their relationship to disease (thanks to mapping!), the more we know about the working of the brain the easier it will become to work out what's wrong with people who appear to have 'emotional' abnormalities. A lot of psychology appears to be based on flawed assumptions. If the brain has been damage by sexual abuse at a young age no amount of talking about it is going to help indeed it may do more damage. Cognitive work on the other hand may. As could drug therapy or some sort of brain surgery.