Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Psychology
“A Precipitate”
In chemistry, mixing two solutions, depending on what they are, will generate a “precipitate”—a formation of solids that sink to the bottom of the test tube. It’s from a time when only physicians who know such words, who have taken chem-istry, were allowed to become psychoanalysts. In the 1960s first one psychoanalytic institute, then another, […]
“Mythification”
I am not shy about daring to coin new words, such as the verb, “neologize”—to create neologisms, which means “new words.” Today I’ll put out for your assessment the word, “mythification,” meaning to generate mythic-type ideas or mages. I see a trend in our culture towards mythification that has been advancing especially since the mid-1960s. […]
“Truth” in Psychotherapy
The idea that one theory for mind is true and the others less so is based on an idea that truth is one, whereas I think it likely that what’s true for one “level” may not be true for other levels or categories. What works for elementary arithmetic may not be true for psychology. It’s […]
“Vivification”
Here’s a term I just coined for vivifying what’s going on, highlighting it in a somewhat dramatic fashion. There is a spectrum of liveliness that one can bring to an experience. Drama does this, but, alas, the word “drama” tends to imply over-dramatization. Ideally, we should be aware that we can bring more or less […]
A Kaddish Contemplation
Kaddish is the name of the Jewish prayer said for those in mourning for those who have passed on, also known as a prayer for the dead. But in fact it’s not a prayer for the person who has died, it’s a prayer to re-align the living. Kaddish re-focuses the one praying; its words implicitly […]
A Sad But Amusing Situation
Fields of Specialization in psychology or medicine or anything need to struggle to gain recognition and status, but what happens when some of the more active aspirants are “upstarts” who challenge the “establishment”? I was one who, because of my persistence, obtained status from some people—but not in the eyes of everyone! I see this […]
Adam Many-Parts 2
I wrote about the joys of a diversified life over a year ago on this blog. It’s relevant to psychology because lots of folks play lots of roles, and this is thus relevant also to role theory. A cartoon ( Baby Blues 11/26/2000 by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott) noted all the roles of a […]
Adjustors to Rapid Reality Change?
There isn’t a word yet for people who help people who function in the “old” world but not in the new. What should they be called? “People who are highly function-ing, with areas that need some extra attention!?” Even highly functioning people need attention, because the world is changing. A century ago the theme was […]
Aggregate Experiences
Although there are words for meaning, self, society, family, happiness, and other experiences, we should recognize that these are states of mind are not a single phenomena, but rather they are the product of many— possibly hundreds—of component experiences of a variety of types. There is no “thing-ness” to such phenomena, but rather they should be […]
All Roads Lead to Illusion
As I reflect on the series of lectures on illusions that I gave last month for Senior University Georgetown, it became increasingly clear that a variety of phenomena that have not been vividly recognized as being similar—i.e., illusory—should be so thought of: – the defense mechanisms of the psychoanalysts, and some of the other […]
Amplification in Group Work
People often lower their voice unconsciously in order to disqualify their own statements. It’s an expression of ambivalence: “Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this.” There’s a gradient of disclosure from repression to shouting it from the highest hill: – I can’t admit it to myself at all. Repression. – I admit it secretly […]
Autobiographical Note
I like the following quote by the early 20th century playwright, George Bernard Shaw: “Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” I erroneously did just that, not realizing that I was considerably brighter than others, and also had a bent […]
But It Seems So Compellingly Real
This takes off from previous blog posts. It combines dimensional perspectives and numinour verisimilitude. These may be thought of as deriving their compelling-ness because mind operates on many levels simultaneously: – It can experience things as more or less, as if on a spectrum: One Dimension. – It can experience pattern, color, map, writing, all […]
Co-Morbidity
“Co-morbidity” is the way several things could be off or wrong, and it’s t’s the rule rather than the exception! More, there aren’t just one thing else that goes wrong, but many!: One person is intellectually limited and obsessive, another is narciss-istic and pushy—there may be several factors at play. This is even more so […]
Confabulation
This involves the mind’s propensity to just make things up. It’s an unconscious “mechanism” that is also called “confabulation.” We should not underestimate this dynamic. It makes dreams seem so real while you’re dreaming; it accounts for people swearing that they saw someone or experienced something that in fact they didn’t (i.e., “false memory syndrome”), […]
Confabulations (More)
I am impressed with mind as capable of confabulating, making all manner of thoughts as meaningful. The effectiveness of confabulation depends on the seemingly convincing things that are made up by the person, consciously, un-consciously, or in-between. It often serves in dream-work and occasionally while awake. (It’s a feature of alcoholic encephalopathy or some types […]
Contemplating Entitlement
I addressed the theme of entitlement six years ago, but more needs to be said. First, this is mainly unconscious, and were I to confront most people, if they didn’t punch me in the nose, they’d look with wide-eyed and sincere bewilderment: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” After all, entitlement is sometimes […]
Contemplating Folly
One of the problems with consciousness in our own era is that knowledge is expanding much faster than any even small collective can keep up with. Curiosity, the awareness that there is so much more to know, is not keeping up with our rapidly expanding horizons. There is a natural inclination towards inertia, which means […]
Corpus Callosum (2)
The connection between the right and left brain was shown earlier and it has been revealed to me what was going through the mind of the subject at the moment. It was this: Funny little sunny little puny human brain. Pretty incredibly complex, but not so much to beings who are far more intelligent and […]
Creativity & the Arts Therapies
In response to a request to speak to some students of one of the arts therapies at a college in the USA, I contemplated what such students need to hear. I asked about improvisation as a theme and the teacher noted that developing skills to promote improvisation in art media—music, dance, art, poetry, etc.—is indeed […]
Cross-Section of Images Crossing the Corpus Callosum
The brain is, in my thinking, not a manufacturer of thoughts, but rather a receiver. It picks up transmissions from what David Bohm calls the “implicate order.” (I wonder, though, if he ever recognized the profound dis-order that operates in that realm, mixed with certain kinds of order.) Here’s my drawing of three perspectives on […]