Adam Blatner

Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner

February, 2014

Effective Love Requires More Consciousness

I recently read an email advocating the virtues of love of humanity and a quote from Albert Einstein about the ultimate unity of life. I agree, being a person of my time, subject to the idealistic paradigms of what civilization seemed to be reaching for. Yet it also stimulated in me a contemplation of why […]

Posted in Follies, History, Psychological Literacy, Spirituality and Philosophy | 1 Comment »

Ego, Memory, and Forgetfulness

I have been contemplating the sheer vulnerability of my memories, and the innate elusiveness of so many of the experiences that part of me wants to cling to. I want to have these experiences whenever I want to access them, as if they were kept possessions, treasures. Well, that’s one of the things ego does. […]

Posted in Autobiographical, History, Play and Spontaneity, Psychological Literacy, Spirituality and Philosophy | No Comments »

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 […]

Posted in Current Events, History, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry | No Comments »

Mind-Tools

A favorite theme in my life at present is the idea that certain conceptual complexes are basically tools, and, specifically, tools for the mind. The alphabet, Roberts’ Rules of Order, and other non-hardware procedures are tools too. There are major inventions, supporting inventions, and then techniques (mind-tools) for using these. Writing and reading are kinds […]

Posted in Autobiographical, Mind-Spectrums, Psychological Literacy, Social-Depth Psychology (Sociometry) | No Comments »

Doubling: Helping to Express the Unspeakable

Sometimes poets and songwriters say well what one can hardly express.  A successful poem or song can express more poignantly, or beautifully than people’s more mundane feelings and thoughts.  I’m reminded of a verse by a song sung by Roberta Flack in the 1970s, “Killing Me Softly:” “I heard he sang a good song, I […]

Posted in Mind-Spectrums, Psychodrama, Psychological Literacy | No Comments »

Psychology’s Expanded Scope

The psyche is influenced by and in turn influences many levels of human organization:   – the psycho-somatic domain, the  mind-body;   – the intra-psychic realm, which contain different parts of the mind, internalized complexes, sometimes conflicting, sometimes supporting each other;   – the interpersonal field, and this may be slightly to very different depending […]

Posted in Psychology, Social-Depth Psychology (Sociometry), Wisdom-ing | No Comments »

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