Adam Blatner

Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner

Psychology’s Expanded Scope

Originally posted on February 1, 2014

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 on the different relationships;
  – the small group, what roles tend to be taken, how much room there is to re-negotiate roles;
  – the larger group, and our shifting allegiances and alliances;
  – the sub-culture and culture, the language, the way we affect it in a small way by using novel or fashionable clothes, wordings, political causes; … and
  – the species and how we participate in the archetypal "collective unconscious," and how we create new identities and roles.

Any purported psychology that presents itself as complete is in radical denial of the influences of one level of dynamics on the other levels. And though we’re tiny, yet just as our vote counts, sometimes in a crucial way, so too do our creations and participations—or oppositions—matter.


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