The following is a fantasized letter from Sigmund Freud to Carl Jung about the nature of a more holistic psychology:<\/p>\n
Dear Carl, Since arriving at this plane of existence, I have been many times humbled and also given the grace of a sense of humor—which I lacked to some moderate degree, looking back \/ down on the life-reviews. So, as another example of relativistic thinking, because I did indeed enjoy jokes, especially the wry, bittersweet Jewish jokes, it didn\u2019t occur to me that there were many other ways in which perhaps I was humorless. <\/p>\n So, now, flushed with Divine Grace (which I couldn\u2019t see because I thought God was sort of a Jewish projected uber-father-figure), I can now acknowledge without an overwhelming narcissistic injury: Yes, I was so wrong in many ways. Yet I was also partly right and pioneering in some ways. From this perspective, I can see that others before me had many related ideas, but still I was acknowledged to have systematized it, and also organized a movement to systematically explore self-deception. I have also been shown that some of my success was the product of an idea whose time had come—a post-war swing away from over-idealism. So it wasn\u2019t just me, me, me. Mainly, though, I\u2019ve been shown that there\u2019s so very much more, including your ideas. <\/p>\n Please forgive me for finding your explorations to be too occult. The irony that I am writing this from a pre-reincarnation semi-existence—well, how occult can you get? Ho! So I apologize for raining on your parade. From my perspective, we both have tons yet to learn, and many others have also found things that both of us overlooked. So bless you and all the other pioneers who were trying to think about the way we think. As they say today in improv training, instead of \u201cno, but\u2026\u201d I should have said, \u201cYes, and.\u201d <\/p>\n So I was a little right, sometimes about stuff that I didn\u2019t even recognize. And you were a little—and more than a little—right. And Jake Moreno (you didn\u2019t know about him) was a bit right. We were all a lot wrong, but it is hoped that Jake\u2019s insights about creativity will be more widely recognized, and folks will be encouraged rather than discouraged in building on what was right. I see now that we all need to continue to revise, refine, and gently allow the bathwater to drain away. Of course, we might need to give the baby another bath in cleaner water. But that\u2019s stretching the proverb. <\/p>\n Whitehead talked about dialectic, referring back to Hegel, and if we\u2019re not too technical, I\u2019ve learned that that is what happens more on all of these levels, Talmudic, intellectual, in all sciences, etc. Or as Moreno indicated (not that his own life really too closely followed the principles of blessing the creative), the creative process is eternally subversive of the cultural conserve. He didn\u2019t say it, but on this other-worldly surplus-reality level, I don\u2019t mind saying it. <\/p>\n There have been scholars who have respected each other and also differed. I am reminded of the 2nd-millennium BCE debates of Rabbis Shammai and Hillel. It seemed to me that neither pretended to final truth. They know that in a century or millennium new paradigms might emerge which would make all their speculations not necessarily wrong so much as relative, partial. (Or perhaps I\u2019m just projecting this on them. I\u2019ll have to ask them when I get to the next higher level.) Or again as dear Al— we call Whitehead Al up here—he doesn\u2019t mind— said, \u201cAll truths are half-truths. It\u2019s treating them as whole truths that plays the devil.\u201d Great quote, Al. <\/p>\n Now Adam has just modeled an example of what you termed the Senex<\/em> complex—especially the better, wiser, more nurturing side of that complex. He has validated his 47 year old son and used the senex<\/em> power to say, \u201cyes, and.\u201d If you haven\u2019t read David\u2019s recent book, Spectrums<\/a>, you should do so. Yes, even here on the other side. It\u2019s transcendentally good. So beyond reconciliation, there\u2019s encouragement, synthesis and play. <\/p>\n Well, end of my transmission channeling to Adam\u2019s mind. Too much and his brain will burn to a \u2018crips,\u2019 as he calls it. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following is a fantasized letter from Sigmund Freud to Carl Jung about the nature of a more holistic psychology: Dear Carl, Now that I\u2019m dead to the living, I\u2019ve discovered that as part of my purgatory, my purification process, on this post-death plane I\u2019m encouraged to do a life review. I have come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foolin","category-psychotherapy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":857,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions\/857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Now that I\u2019m dead to the living, I\u2019ve discovered that as part of my purgatory, my purification process, on this post-death plane I\u2019m encouraged to do a life review. I have come to realize that I was terribly caught by the ego, which is un-ending in its illusory snares. (But then, hey, just about everyone is also caught up in their egos in their own ways, so I am also learning to be self-forgiving.) I have learned, though, that, as the 8th and 9th of the Twelve Steps in AA<\/a> suggests, I need to make amends to you: I felt so ego-inflated because I had discovered a way to escape a little from the snares of illusion that I allowed myself to be blinded by that and overlooked so much more—many times more illusions that I never realized. I admit now to excessive pride because I was so very excited about what I had discovered. <\/p>\n