Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Envisioning Our Children’s Needs in the 21st Century
Parents tend to rear their children with the mental and cultural tools they know about. For my parents’ generation, the goal was to get the kid raised in one piece, ideally resilient enough to go to college and get a good job. One category they didn’t know about was “validating the child’s individuality.” Sure, if […]
Posted in Current Events, Essays and Papers, Psychological Literacy | No Comments
RELINQUISHING THE QUEST FOR THE WHOLE TRUTH
February 15, 2008 One of the developments in the last half century has been an exponential expansion of information, areas of investigation and sub-specialization, and other variables. This is part of the postmodern condition—an accelerated state that differs qualitatively, not just quantitatively, from the early 20th century (which saw the apex of modernity). I suggest […]
Posted in Spirituality and Philosophy | 1 Comment
Subtle Oppressions (I): Role Overload
There’s a rather unpleasant yet widespread story that if a frog is put into hot water it will jump out, but if put into cold water and the water is very gradually heated, the frog won’t notice until it dies of hyperthermia (i.e., too high temperature for life). I don’t know that this is even […]
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Another Way to Think About “Divination”
I mentioned my meeting with Rowena Kryder yesterday in another post (an astonishingly insightful holistic thinker), and another idea I got from her was a different way of thinking about divination. She said: “Divination is of course one of the oldest and profound methods of humans finding truth. “To divine” is to reach the eternal […]
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Exploring Patterns
I met a fascinating wise woman yesterday (i.e., Rowena Kryder) who helped me see that my drawings are really explorations of pattern. They are certainly not mere doodling, or even cartooning, which implies a bit more story, or comic humor. They are more tentative than fine art; closer to sketches, but more abstract. We talked […]
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On “Scient-ism”
In chatting with friends, the theme of “scientism” came up—an interesting term, referring to the tendency to attribute to science virtuous qualities that it has neither claimed or properly earned. While science uses methods that ultimately require the employment of the senses and be replicable, this approach cannot address a wide variety of very relative […]
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Socio-Psycho-Analysis
Reflecting on over 35 years as a psychiatrist, I think that at least half of the problems people have psychologically are due not to the quirks of their own minds or the particulars of their family makeup, but rather that they (1) believe the common (non-)sense ideas of their culture, following a host of social […]
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Hell: A Helluva Concept
Speaking from the role of child psychiatrist, I think the concept of hell is a form of emotional abuse no less than beating a child with the buckle of a belt or a stick is physical abuse. It is a nasty, unnecessary idea that is part of a culture that reared children primarily through the […]
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About the Fear of Death and Speculations on “the Afterlife”
Someone read this blog and asked me what I thought about the fear of dying and theories of the afterlife. I don’t know much, but I enjoy thinking, so here are some thoughts: I think a lot of the fear of death comes from the fear communicated to young children by parents and others who […]
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