Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Psychotherapy and Psychiatry
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 […]
The Mighty Power of the Subjunctive
I continue to think about why psychodrama works, and here’s my latest hypothesis: Humans have a developed neocortex which gives them the power to imagine “if”-type sentences. This in grammar is known as the subjunctive tense. (Linguistic analysis, including grammar, gives clues to different ways people think in using different languages.) Psychodrama brings into play […]
The Problem with Holistic Medicine
Holistic and alternative medicine has been largely coopted by quacks. This is not to say that some of its approaches are valid. I suspect they are, and indeed that they will induce a revolution or two in the field. However, there are 1000 alternative holistic approaches out there and 950 are probably not valid, in […]
The Re-Integration Of Spirituality And Psychotherapy
(These remarks are a supplement to a talk I gave at the Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds of the Scott & White Medical Center, on October 1, 2004.) (See also: Re-Story-Ing the Soul.) Historical Developments The history of the re-emergence of spirituality in psychotherapy is complex, but just briefly mentioning some of the precursors lets […]
The Semantics of Psychodrama
I like psychodrama as a field, and also as a way of life. I’m working on an anthology of applications of the method beyond psychotherapy—title: Action Explorations. I don’t use psychodrama for these many applications, for the reasons mentioned below: First of all, I bow with respect to tradition: The word “psychodrama” and the creativity […]
The Super-Conscious “Unconscious”
It occurs to me that it’s possible that what people call the unconscious mind is at least partially super-conscious. It isn’t repressed so much because it’s nasty and we don’t want to think such thoughts, but rather the things it’s thinking are so subtle that they can’t be recognized, or so subtle that there are […]
This is “My Brave”
Moreno’s theory of group work did not necessarily involve psychodrama. Of course it bridges over naturally, but my emphasis here is that just doing it openly in a group has healing power. There is a website called www.thisismybrave.org that opens mental illness up wide! Wow!
Thoughts on Psychology Research
In a conversation with a colleague who brought up the issue of the impact that a disabled child might have on siblings, I warmed up to the different constellations that might be involved. Here are just a few: The type of disability certainly makes a difference. Mental, physical? Retardation, autism, paralysis or weakness of limbs, […]
Trauma, ACoA, Psychotherapy
The following are thoughts stimulated by reading a book by my friend Tian Dayton, who recently published The ACoA Trauma Syndrome: The impact of child pain on adult relationships, (2012, Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications Inc.). The book notes that substance abuse affects not only the person involved, but often the family members, and offers […]
Unhelpful Overgeneralizations: A Form of Psychobabble
One of the common pitfalls in counseling is the use of words and phrases that are unhelpful generalizations. Consider these, among others controlling self-deceptive narcissistic don’t trust me defensive repressed paranoid inappropriate manipulative neurotic difficult unresolved conflicts stubborn superficial regressing fixated resistant selfish aggressive too sensitive fragile lazy immature feeling sorry for yourself hostile self-centered […]
Vaguely Quantitative Psychology
Sometimes I use percentages with decimal points when I write or talk, as if I knew with some precision what I was talking about. I don’t. These numerical affectations suggest two things: First, on one level, most of the time, I am serious about the general proportion involved, though the actual number really may be […]
Victimoid Cruelty
I coined this term to describe a type of subclinical emotional abuse that arises not from the cruel person’s feeling of power, but rather a kind of grumpy defiance. I also think that for every situation in a marriage or family where there’s recognizable emotional abuse—not to speak of the other kinds of physical or […]
Vitality Enhancement
This is my term for a very valid activity. This phrase is needed. Of course it’s also recreation, but that category has been co-opted by two activities that may offer illusory gratifications. One is competition, which often is so focused on the winning that the fun is lost. The second gratification is vicarious. There’s a […]
What’s Up This Month
Oh, my, sometimes I think my mind is like an artist’s studio, an “atelier,” with various papers or books, presentations being prepared or books someday to write or revise, blogs to post, papers to complete on my website. It’s not one thing after another, it’s a little bit of this, and then, now that I […]
Why Don’t They Lock Up the Nuts?
I as talking with an acquaintance who was dismayed and a bit angry at the murders by nuts around the country. “Why don’t they lock ‘em up?” It turned out that she really believed that psychiatrists were able to tell with some degree of accuracy who was really dangerous and who wasn’t. She was a […]
“Shrink” Or “Expander”: Re-Evaluating The Psychotherapist’s Role
This is the first of two related papers I’m posting on this website. I welcome your feedback. (With your feedback, I can always change my wording or insert your comments.) This paper notes how psychotherapists came to be called “shrinks;” how this term in some ways is a little bit true; and how in some […]