Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Peter Rabbit: A Critical Analysis
[Explanation: In October, 2009, played the role of “Linus” in a community production of the late 1960s Broadway Musical “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” based on Charles Schulz’ comic strip, “Peanuts.” I played the part of a rather precocious intellectual child who at the same time was caught up in an infatuation with my […]
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The Amplifying Unconscious (Part 4)
However plausible this idea may be in beginning to explain a number of mysteries in psychology and philosophy, it does face a significant obstacle: It doesn’t jibe with the “scientific” world-view of the mid-20th century. I put “scientific” in quotes because really the true spirit of science is not hampered by looking at things it […]
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The Amplifying Unconscious (Part 3)
I ended the previous essay (Part 2) about the amplifying unconscious by noting the basic thesis: one of the functions of this type of psychic dynamic is that it amplifies the intensity and speed of the experiences associated with perception, meaning, importance, and the sense of will. However, just because it’s powerful that doesn’t mean […]
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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 […]
Posted in Follies, Psychological Literacy, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry, Spirituality and Philosophy | 2 Comments
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 […]
Posted in Essays and Papers, Psychotherapy and Psychiatry, Spirituality and Philosophy | 6 Comments
Mysterio-solo-mio
(An occasional paper of the Journal of (Very) Speculative Philosophy) by Adam Blatner, Confabulologist Extraordinaire For more fun, see No. 2 of this Journal See other papers on Confabulology. And Yet Another Viewpoint The metaphor of the maze is widely used in various cultures, along with the labyrinth. God-as-essence (aka Godessence) enjoys our participating, co-creating, and indeed, our […]
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Apoptosis
Featured recently in the Oxford English Dictionary, their “word-of-the-day” feature misses the current relevance of the word. As embryos develop, parts of them dissolve, the cells going through a state of self-pruning, apoptosis. The webs between the embryo’s fingers disappear. The importance of the word is especially relevant in considering the relative changeability—the “plasticity”—of the […]
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Metaphors for Divinity
Zordak: You were wondering about how other beings in other parts of this or related universes think about God. You might anticipate that there are innumerable versions. I admit, though, that the notion of God being sort of like an earthly king sitting on a throne issuing commandments as such people did during only a […]
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About Me (Adam Blatner)
I play many roles. My more official role that is gradually fading, but not completely, is that of physician who specialized in psychiatry. Not that I was ever mainline, but neither was I very maverick—sort of in-between. I was enough mainline to serve on the faculty of a mainstream medical school in their departments of […]
Posted in Autobiographical, My Favorite Things | 2 Comments
Good versus Evil
Ah, that it were that simple. Of course “we” are the good guys—or at least that’s how most folks think: “Or at least we are defending “our” superior way of life against “them.” They can be hostile aliens bent on world domination and/or just eating us; terrorists or merely subversives; degenerate people in our own […]
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