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Many people see behavior, or the way we function in life, as an answer to all our problems. In other words, if we change our behaviors, we can change our concerns or problems. Of course, there is some truth to this statement but behavior is only the tip of the iceberg. Even though we walk, talk, join groups, argue, play sports and perform many other behaviors, people often don't consider that these behaviors are associated with other parts of human nature. Another part of human nature is our...
As a follow-up to the previous article describing groups and collectives, I want to describe the differences between social Self and individual Self. A social Self is directly related to groups and collectives. This means that a person's social identity, or Self, is based on group membership. Since groups or collectives have specific values, beliefs, mannerisms, dress styles, languages and more, a member typically adopts most, if not all, of the group's characteristics as her/his social Self....
Groups are collectives. Groups are made up of people, which is true for collectives. As it turns out, we all are members of groups and collectives. If we take a moment, it isn't difficult to list several collectives in our lives. There are families, communities, sports teams, political and religious affiliations and on and on. The question is this: Is there a psychology associated with groups and collectives? Naturally there is. Anytime people are involved in anything, there is psychology involv...
Staying with the theme of changes, I want to introduce some changes that are influenced by the inner Self. Recall, that in previous articles the Self was described as the center of the unconscious (hidden psychology). The Self is the psychological element that influences all parts of a person’s psychology and that assists a person find authentic meaning and direction in life. Changes that originate from the Self can be accepted or rejected. If the changes are rejected, a person’s personal development is blocked. The meaning of a person’s life...
Personality is often considered a fixed characteristic or function within a person's psychology, however, this is far from the case. Personalities can change as much as any other psychological function. In a previous article, I described the four basic types associated with personalities – thinking, sensation, feeling and intuition. Thinking is concerned with details. Sensation stays focused in the moment, helping us know that something simply exists. Feeling evaluates people and situations, a...
In the previous article, a willingness and a resistance to change were introduced in a general way. In this article, I want to be more specific. So, let's look at changes with respect to complexes. Remember that complexes are part of our personal unconscious (hidden) psychologies and are triggered/activated by situations, people or comments in our daily lives. When triggered, the complex overrides our personalities and we express ourselves through the complex until the activated complex moves...
All things change, so we are told. In other words, nature and human nature eventually change. We only need to look at photos of ourselves from years ago, compared to the present, to see evidence of our physical changes. If we look at our car, comparing the original performance and appearance to the present condition, the changes are obvious. So we must ask: Can we see changes in a person's psychology? Most people don't want to change or want any changes in their lives. Other people invite...
At this point, it might be obvious that our psychologies are constantly involved in our lives. Every thought, emotion, creative expression, conversation, argument, relationship, loving gesture, physical action, value, belief and so on, follows from psychological influences. But why is this important? It’s important for an endless number of reasons. For example, many people are not aware, or aware enough, of these influences. If more people recognized their psychological influences, then more people would consider their expressions, gestures, re...
The last article considered the relationship between psychosis, hallucinations and dreams. The commonality was the unconscious (hidden) psychology of each person. Dream symbols are related to psychotic symbols and the symbols associated with hallucinations because all symbols are expressions of the unconscious. Clearly, the symbols in dreams, psychosis and hallucinations are not logical, in other words rational. If not rational, then the symbols must be illogical or irrational. Since we dream...
When people think about psychosis and hallucinations, they usually think about severe mental illness, loss of reality and drugs. We never think in terms of dreams. So, is there really a relationship between psychosis, hallucinations and dreams? First, let me briefly describe psychosis and hallucinations. When someone sees or hears something that isn't really there, it can be considered a hallucination. Psychosis occurs when a person sees and hears hallucinations all the time, or for a period of...
In the previous article, I introduced the idea of strange coincidences known in psychology as synchronicity. In order for the experience to be considered synchronicity, the strange coincidence has to be meaningful to the person. Synchronicity was described as an expression of a personal myth or a collective myth, helping us to see and understand the active myths in our lives. Recall that our unconscious (hidden) psychology is responsible for creating the myths. Actually, it is the center of the...
Probably most of us have experienced coincidences that make us stop and say, "How did that happen?" These coincidences usually give us an eerie feeling and make us think that something mysterious is occurring. Well, in one sense this is true – something mysterious is occurring. A typical example of a strange coincidence is thinking about an old friend for a few days and then receiving an unexpected letter, email or phone call from that friend. Another typical strange coincidence is dreaming a...
The last article took us away from our current theme of collective and personal myths, due to an article written by Nicole Williams. Her article included many psychological elements that I thought would be helpful to review and describe. Returning to our theme, I'd like to respond to questions about discovering our personal myths. Since personal myths are directly related to each of us, we might think it's easy to discover our myths. But it isn't. Why? Well, we are unconscious of our personal my...
In the Dec. 24 issue of the Pathfinder, Nicole Williams, a Seeley-Swan High School student, wrote an article for the Junior Journal addressing a logical solution for harmoniously living with wolves. Her article introduced a number of psychological characteristics described in my previous articles. So, I thought it worthwhile to review these characteristics using Nicole's examples. Nicole presented the idea that civilizations around the world and throughout time have portrayed the wolf as the...
The past couple of articles introduced collective and personal myths and the importance of uncovering the meanings of these myths. In this article, two examples of personal myths are provided. The examples present two individuals who discovered, or were living, their myths at an early age, which is unusual. People typically discover their personal myths at middle age, if at all. Gioachino Rossini, born in 1792, was an Italian composer who wrote operas and other forms of music. At the age of 12,...
In the previous article, I introduced myths as expressions from our unconscious (hidden) psychologies. Since both myths and dreams are expressions from the unconscious, providing us with meanings, it is very important to understand that each expression is critical for the development of the individual and the human species. Understanding that myths are personal expressions in our lives, however, is not easy to grasp. Actually, myths are not just expressions in our lives. Instead, myths are our...
Often myths are considered nonsense, fictional and useless, and simply lacking in value and truth. As a result, most people can't understand why myths are worth reading. Myths tell us stories that are filled with images. The stories might be descriptions of the beginning of the world, the beginning of the universe or maybe the beginning of human nature. These stories are called creation myths. Different cultures throughout the millennia all created myths – creation, as well as other types of m...
