Weekly Reading

I read the following books this week. I noticed these books were related to psychoanalysis or neuroscience (brain science).

The Difference between the Autobiographical Self and Middle Unconscious?

The most famous psychosynthesist, Robert Assagioli articulated that our unconscious realm was comprised of three parts: higher, middle, and lower unconscious. I suppose that the function of the middle unconscious is the same as that of the autobiographical self which is proposed by Damasio Antonio. So, what’s the difference is there between both of them? Regarding the middle unconscious, Assagioli (1965) explained: “This is formed of psychological elements similar to those of our waking consciousness and easily accessible to it. In this inner region our various experiences are assimilated” (p. 17). In other words, we can easily access the realm and retrieve our memory stored in it. 

On the other hand, Damasio (1999) explains about the autobiographical self that we can accumulate new knowledge or experiences as a “something-to-be-known” in this consciousness, and he defines such memory in the following way: “Sets of memories which describe identity and person can be reactivated as a neural pattern and made explicit as images whenever needed” (p. 174). For me, the function of both the autobiographical self and middle unconscious seems the same.

Reference
1The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
2Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings

The Residue of Music in Our Brain

When I read T.S. Eliot’s words “you are the music while the music lasts.”, I recalled mysterious phenomenon happened in my brain. The peculiar phenomenon is here; why can we recall the sound of music perfectly? For example, please imagine the voice of Celine Dion or a certain track of her. What can you hear? I believe that you can recall and hear exactly the same sound of voice or music of her in your mind. But how do we do that? What’s happening in our brain while we are recollecting it? I can’t help but believe that the Plato’s concept “eidos” exists in our reality or in our brain. So, I can enjoy my favorite music in my brain without an iPod.

Reference

The Wisdom and Limitation of The Psychoanalytical Force

             From my perspective as an Integral practitioner, the most important gift of the 2^nd force is to cultivate my understanding of the dark side in human psyche. Now, I engage in a coaching activity, and in fact, I met some clients who have psychological problems in their ego structure. (To be exact, all of us including me may have a certain psychological problem in our ego structure.) Hence, psychoanalytical theory and practice are beneficial for my coaching activity to address clients’ deep psychological issues.

              However, likewise any other psychological forces, the 2^nd force includes an inherent limitation. The main limitation is that the 2^nd force only sheds light on the dark side in human psyche and is apt to neglect or ignore the brilliant side in human psyche which is focused by humanistic and transpersonal psychology.

             As I mentioned above, the 2^nd force has estimable wisdom in that it elucidates a human shadow realm. By virtue of the theory and practice, we are able to integrate our dark side and transform it into positive one. Generally speaking, some spiritual people tend to ignore our dark side but only focus on bright side in human psyche. As a result, they seem to fail to attain a true transformation or self-actualization. I suppose that practicing in an effort to accomplish a self-transformation or self-actualization is preposterous, but both spiritual practice and shadow work would be helpful to enhance the quality of my life. 

Our Sub-Personalities???

Each of us has a lot of different selves within us according to the relationships with others for example a manager who works in a company, a mother who cherishes her children, and a student who study in a university; the list goes on. Put simply, we live our life playing a multiple roles every day. Regarding the characteristic of our sub-personalities, they are not unusual but normal. Also, Firman & Gila (2002) illustrate our sub-personalities in the following way: “Clearly, subpersonality formation seems a natural and healthy structuralization process of the human personality, a gift of the middle unconscious, the subsystems that make up the larger system of the personality as a whole” (p. 73). 

However, our sub-personalities sometimes become dysfunctional, and our wounded sub-personalities show up. When they come up within us, recognition-acceptance-inclusion-synthesis process (Firman & Gila, 2002) would be helpful to make our dysfunctional or wounded sub-personalities healthy and synthesize them in an appropriate way. (See the reference book in detail.)

Reference

Psychosynthesis: A Psychology of the Spirit (Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology)

Integral Life Practice: Dream Journaling

Just after I wake up every morning, I keep a dream journaling. So, I’d like to introduce the effect of the dreamwork. Firstly, our dream has a not only biological effect but also psychological one. In other words, a dream functions as an indispensable role to maintain our biological conditions at a healthy level and an alternative pathway to meet the needs of our id (Frager & Fadiman, 2002). Furthermore, if we keep a dream journaling, we may notice a certain dream pattern to represent our unsatisfied desires repressed under unconsciousness. In that sense, keeping a dream journaling is helpful for both biological and psychological health.

                 Though just writing a dream on a notebook is effective, dialogue and interpretations based on the dream would be more effective. In fact, I sometimes practice “3-2-1 shadow process” based on my dream. (For details, see in Wilber, Patten, Leonard, & Morelli, 2008.)  

Reference:

1 Personality and Personal Growth (6th Edition)
2Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening

Countertransference in a Therapy or Coaching

              As mentioned before, transference is the emotional involvement from a client to a therapist, on the contrary, countertransference is the emotional involvement from a therapist to a client. Regarding countertransference, Freud explained that countertransference “would break through the therapist’s professionalism and produce an inappropriate response” (Kahn, 2002, p.198). In other words, Freud regarded countertransference as a hindrance factor to be removed in a therapy session. However, it is not easy for a therapist to notice and exclude countertransference. In fact, after Freud proposed this concept, countertransference had been considered as an inevitable and ceaseless phenomenon. Nowadays, countertransference has been seen as inevitable and even useful because all empathy which has a positive impact on a therapy begins with it (Kahn, 2002), although Freud recognized that countertransference distorted the therapist’s perspective or a client relationship.

This phenomenon can occur in not only a therapy session but also in a coaching session. Therapeutic theories and practices are often helpful for a coaching because a therapy usually overlaps coaching through both of them are fundamentally different. That's why I read many books about a psychotherapy.

Reference

Basic Freud: Psychoanalytic Thought for the 21st Century