Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Psychotherapy and Psychiatry
Should Cruelty Be Considered Insanity?
I object to the conflation of mental illness and inhumanity. Only rarely is deep mental illness associated with cruelty. It does happen, but never on a broad scale. Were the Nazis who so methodically pursued the “Final Solution” merely nuts? Were the Hutus who engaged in genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda insane? In my […]
Social-Depth Psychology
Fields become more complex as new developments and tools for examination emerge. Bacteriology evolved to include other microscopic and sub-microscopic agents, viruses, Rickettsiae, etc. So, too, 20th century psychology and sociology will be viewed in the next century, I predict, as offering promising beginnings, but still coarse. Already the discovery of the mirror neuron system […]
Sociometry in the Family
Comments on a cover article for Time Magazine of October 3, 2011—title: Mom liked you best* (*of course she would never admit it); (author: Mr. Jeffrey Kluger). It’s good that this theme is brought up again in an era in which social psychology is coming more into prominence, gradually competing with the trend towards focusing […]
Sociometry: An often-overlooked dimension of social psychology.
One of the more important dimensions of psychology operates not so much in the mind of the individual but rather in the interpersonal field. (This is perhaps why it was missed by the psychoanalysts.) One pioneer, Dr. Jacob L. Moreno, in the 1930s, noticed this dynamic and tried to find ways of measuring it. It’s […]
Some Other Foundations of Psychodrama
I just returned from attending the national conference of the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama—the only national psychodrama association (though there are a number in other countries); and the first professional association (by about six months) devoted also to group psychotherapy. Two things impressed me: First, in my Acting-In, I describe a number […]
Spectro-Psychography II
For some time I’ve been thinking about how there are so many things that are best thought about as as spectrum, from too little to just right, to too much. I hinted at this in my post yesterday and wrote about this also on my website Another boost to this idea was the work my […]
Spirituality and Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy might be thought of as the art of bringing people forth into a greater potential; this art rests on the implicit world-views shared by the counselor and the client. What we call faith, spirituality, and religion partake of the assumptions about what it’s all about, albeit often only superficially. This essay is in part […]
Standing in the Fire
In the Fall, 2011 issue of Dramascope: the e-newsletter of the National Association for Drama Therapy, a mini-essay of mine was published and I thought I’d put it up here, too. What’s said here applies also to the challenge of leading a psychodrama. Essentially (as an abstract of what I say), I note that one […]
Surgical Instruments
One of the ironies of my life is that although I ended up in psychiatry, as a kid I wanted to be a surgeon. I had no idea what was involved. But since I needed surgery (as a kid—and in pretty much cured me), this lovely article in LIFE magazine on February 11, 1946 was […]
Surrealism’s Relevance
Creativity is our new meme—the theme that is relevant for our time. The surrealistic artists anticipated this by a century, but so much creativity has characterized the many “inventions” of the 20th and beginning 21st century that it’s time we became aware that, as the philosopher Nikolai Berdyayev said (in Rissian), “Be creative, and foster […]
The Amplifying Unconscious (Part 1)
In this series of essays on my blog I am proposing the existence of not one but two types of unconscious functions: The first involves the more familiar complexes of disowned childish motivations and their associated reconciling mental maneuvers—what most psychotherapists learn about and treat. The second type of unconscious function amplifies, intensifies, and operates […]
The Amplifying Unconscious (Part 2)
[Please see Part 1 for an introduction to this: I am suggesting a second type of unconscious process that is far more powerful, less rational, far quicker in processing, far more clever, and that this hypothesis accounts for many previously-inexplicable psychological phenomena.] The Ordinary “Muddled Middle” Unconscious I’m a psychiatrist who was trained in the […]
The Amplifying Unconscious (Part 5)
This continues my reflections on what has occurred to me as a parallel, more “powerful” function of the unconscious. Today I’ll talk about dreams, the problem of “control,” and the nature of inspiration. As I’ve noted, this process seems to be more compelling, more able to capture our minds in the web of illusion and […]
The Appeal of Psychoanalysis
I’ve wondered why Freud became so popular. It was not that he was charming. He could be pleasant but also somewhat opinionated. For one thing, he wrote fairly clearly, compared to his peers. The riddle of why any personage, artist, showman, etc., becomes “popular” is not easily answered. However here are some other factors. Freud […]
The Archetype of Complacence
This phrase describes the deep tendency, when we learn or discover or invent something, to settle into that novelty as if it’s the end-point. Of course, it is not: There is always more to know, discover, and further refinements to whatever we invent or use. Since we don’t know what might be better, our experience […]
The Breadth of Being-ness
On my website I’ve posted a more lengthy paper about how it would be better for us to imagine that our sense of self expand beyond the boundaries of our brain and body to include not only close relationships, but our participation in wider social networks. (Some of you may know that my career and […]
The Communi-cube as Oracle
My friend John Casson in England created an instrument to get people communi-cating: The communicube. They communicate more articulately to themselves. You can see it on his website. My wife has used it in her spirituality group to get the small number of people involved to reflect more on their lives. She’s used it several […]
The Enterprise of Psychotherapy
First of all, “good candidates” for psychotherapy are willing to locate the source of trouble in the self rather than others. Many people are not good candidates because they blame others, including the current President of the United States (POTUS). Many people agree with Trump in believing that were it not for the dummies, the […]
The Higher Unconscious
The unconscious is not less conscious but more! It’s not just pushed down; it’s not just “Let’s not look at what we’re doing,”—i.e., repression—but rather what we’re doing you couldn’t begin to understand! What if the unconscious is super-con-scious and much faster and more clever than you can be. Some of it is influenced by […]
The Humanities in Medicine
One of my roles is as an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the local branch of Texas A&M Medical School, where I give occasional lectures on psychotherapy. Allied to that, I have an interest in supporting those who would promote the “Humanities in Medicine.” There’s a sore need for this, because most medical students […]
The Imponderable Nature of Mind
Psychotherapy is a mixture of the brain and the mind; the hardware (or, more accurately, “wet-ware”) and the programming; temperament and innate types of intelligence and all the habits we’ve picked up from our culture and family and, later, friends and teachers. It’s a mixture of innate tendencies and the conditioning of the era, the […]
The Inadequacy Complex
I wasn’t sure if I had an inferiority complex—it just wasn’t the right word. (The term was originated not by Freud but by Alfred Adler.) If you left me alone with my books or play I was fine. Finally at age 76 I found a better word: Inadequacy complex, which senses and feels bad about […]
The Individuality of Spirituality
This essay builds on the other essay published today, “Objective Reality,” and also points to personal expectations that go “Beyond Psychotherapy.” First, note that many of the procedures that constitute “psychotherapy” as a corrective for problematic thinking have applications beyond the medical model! They may be used for personal development, which in turn includes many […]