This document discusses several secular approaches that can lead to a nondual state, including flow, psychological presence, hot cognition, engagement, and improvisation. Flow involves being fully immersed in an activity using intuition rather than rational thinking. Psychological presence means being fully attentive, connected, integrated, and focused on a task. Hot cognition is more intuitive and unconscious compared to rational cold cognition. Engagement involves passion and absorption in one's work. Improvisation taps unconscious repertoires and relies on intuition, expertise, and being in the moment. These secular concepts are presented as ways to access a nondual state through activities that reduce self-consciousness and rational thinking.
Individuals often do not know their own mind. Most thinking is automatic and frequently unchecked. During waking hours, the separation between mind and consciousness is not often discernible. The character of consciousness makes the mind both simple and complex at the same time. Simple in that if a person has awareness, they are in charge of what they are thinking, feeling, and doing. Complex in that seeming awareness is often compromised, clouded by an unconscious (subconscious) mind.
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention (IJHSSI) is an international journal intended for professionals and researchers in all fields of Humanities and Social Science. IJHSSI publishes research articles and reviews within the whole field Humanities and Social Science, new teaching methods, assessment, validation and the impact of new technologies and it will continue to provide information on the latest trends and developments in this ever-expanding subject. The publications of papers are selected through double peer reviewed to ensure originality, relevance, and readability. The articles published in our journal can be accessed online.
The Journal will bring together leading researchers, engineers and scientists in the domain of interest from around the world. Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to :
Bradford 213 short lecture 4 social cognitionJohn Bradford
This document discusses types of thinking and models of consciousness. It describes controlled vs automatic thinking and defines schemas and priming. It contrasts the Freudian view of the unconscious, which involves repressed memories, with the cognitive view of the unconscious involving mental processes that influence behavior outside of awareness. Evidence from studies on readiness potentials and subjective relocation in time suggest that consciousness does not initiate actions but rather rationalizes decisions after the fact and projects awareness backward in time.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Joost Abraham Maurits Meerloo (March 14, 1903 â November 17, 1976) was a Dutch Doctor of Medicine and psychoanalyst.
Born as Abraham Maurits 'Bram' Meerloo in The Hague, Netherlands, he came to United States in 1946, was naturalized in 1950, and resumed Dutch citizenship in 1972. Dr. Meerloo was a practicing psychiatrist for over forty years. He did staff psychiatric work in Holland and worked as a general practitioner until 1942 under Nazi occupation, when he assumed the name Joost to fool the occupying forces and in 1942 fled to England (after barely eluding death at the hands of the Germans). He was chief of the Psychological Department of the Dutch Army-in-Exile in England.
After the war he served as High Commissioner for Welfare in Holland, and was an advisor to UNRRA and SHAEF. An American citizen since 1950, Dr. Meerloo was a member of the faculty at Columbia University and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the New York School of Psychiatry. He was the author of many books, including Rape of the Mind, the classic work on brainwashing, Conversation and Communication, and Hidden Communion.
He was the son of Bernard and Anna (Benjamins) Meerloo. He married Louisa Betty Duits (a physical therapist), May 7, 1948.
Education: University of Leiden, M.D., 1927; University of Utrecht, Ph.D., 1932.
Meerloo specialized in the area of thought control techniques used by totalitarian regimes.
This book has regained prominence because of the Barack H, Obama regime, and the methods that were used to establish it. One can gain many useful insights into Obama's campaign strategy by reading this book.
This document discusses Suzanne Cook-Greuter and her work on ego development psychology. It outlines the stages of ego development from theorists like Loevinger and Cook-Greuter, including Impulsive, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist, and Unitive stages. It also discusses the WUSCT test used to measure ego development and provides examples of responses. Finally, it reflects on the current state of developmental theory, addressing postmodern criticisms and the role of developmental theory in fields like education and leadership.
This document discusses how science and religion are cognitively different from each other, and more similar to other domains like theology and common sense explanations. It argues that from a cognitive perspective, comparisons of science and religion based on their epistemological or metaphysical merits are misguided. Religions represent the world in ways that only modestly violate intuitive assumptions, allowing many default inferences to apply. This makes religious representations cognitively easy to process and appealing. In contrast, science often represents counterintuitive concepts that are hard to learn and go against intuitions of agency.
The document summarizes the major perspectives in psychology:
1) Humanistic perspective focuses on free will and an individual's potential for growth. Key figures are Maslow and Rogers.
2) Behavioral perspective studies observable behavior and believes behavior can be controlled through environment. Pioneers are Watson and Skinner.
3) Cognitive perspective focuses on how people think and understand the world. Key psychologists are Piaget and Sternberg.
4) Biological (neuroscience) perspective examines the brain and nervous system's effects on behavior. Founders are Bernard and Bell.
5) Psychodynamic perspective views behavior as motivated by unconscious forces. Founders include Freud, Jung, and Adler.
1. The document discusses Kazimierz Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration and developmental potential as it relates to personality development and emotional giftedness.
2. Developmental potential includes overexcitabilities, talents and abilities, and autonomy which can create strong emotions and crises but also opportunities for growth.
3. Michael Piechowski brought Dabrowski's work to the field of gifted education and emphasized the intensities and sensitivities often experienced by gifted youth.
Individuals often do not know their own mind. Most thinking is automatic and frequently unchecked. During waking hours, the separation between mind and consciousness is not often discernible. The character of consciousness makes the mind both simple and complex at the same time. Simple in that if a person has awareness, they are in charge of what they are thinking, feeling, and doing. Complex in that seeming awareness is often compromised, clouded by an unconscious (subconscious) mind.
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention (IJHSSI) is an international journal intended for professionals and researchers in all fields of Humanities and Social Science. IJHSSI publishes research articles and reviews within the whole field Humanities and Social Science, new teaching methods, assessment, validation and the impact of new technologies and it will continue to provide information on the latest trends and developments in this ever-expanding subject. The publications of papers are selected through double peer reviewed to ensure originality, relevance, and readability. The articles published in our journal can be accessed online.
The Journal will bring together leading researchers, engineers and scientists in the domain of interest from around the world. Topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to :
Bradford 213 short lecture 4 social cognitionJohn Bradford
This document discusses types of thinking and models of consciousness. It describes controlled vs automatic thinking and defines schemas and priming. It contrasts the Freudian view of the unconscious, which involves repressed memories, with the cognitive view of the unconscious involving mental processes that influence behavior outside of awareness. Evidence from studies on readiness potentials and subjective relocation in time suggest that consciousness does not initiate actions but rather rationalizes decisions after the fact and projects awareness backward in time.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Joost Abraham Maurits Meerloo (March 14, 1903 â November 17, 1976) was a Dutch Doctor of Medicine and psychoanalyst.
Born as Abraham Maurits 'Bram' Meerloo in The Hague, Netherlands, he came to United States in 1946, was naturalized in 1950, and resumed Dutch citizenship in 1972. Dr. Meerloo was a practicing psychiatrist for over forty years. He did staff psychiatric work in Holland and worked as a general practitioner until 1942 under Nazi occupation, when he assumed the name Joost to fool the occupying forces and in 1942 fled to England (after barely eluding death at the hands of the Germans). He was chief of the Psychological Department of the Dutch Army-in-Exile in England.
After the war he served as High Commissioner for Welfare in Holland, and was an advisor to UNRRA and SHAEF. An American citizen since 1950, Dr. Meerloo was a member of the faculty at Columbia University and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the New York School of Psychiatry. He was the author of many books, including Rape of the Mind, the classic work on brainwashing, Conversation and Communication, and Hidden Communion.
He was the son of Bernard and Anna (Benjamins) Meerloo. He married Louisa Betty Duits (a physical therapist), May 7, 1948.
Education: University of Leiden, M.D., 1927; University of Utrecht, Ph.D., 1932.
Meerloo specialized in the area of thought control techniques used by totalitarian regimes.
This book has regained prominence because of the Barack H, Obama regime, and the methods that were used to establish it. One can gain many useful insights into Obama's campaign strategy by reading this book.
This document discusses Suzanne Cook-Greuter and her work on ego development psychology. It outlines the stages of ego development from theorists like Loevinger and Cook-Greuter, including Impulsive, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist, and Unitive stages. It also discusses the WUSCT test used to measure ego development and provides examples of responses. Finally, it reflects on the current state of developmental theory, addressing postmodern criticisms and the role of developmental theory in fields like education and leadership.
This document discusses how science and religion are cognitively different from each other, and more similar to other domains like theology and common sense explanations. It argues that from a cognitive perspective, comparisons of science and religion based on their epistemological or metaphysical merits are misguided. Religions represent the world in ways that only modestly violate intuitive assumptions, allowing many default inferences to apply. This makes religious representations cognitively easy to process and appealing. In contrast, science often represents counterintuitive concepts that are hard to learn and go against intuitions of agency.
The document summarizes the major perspectives in psychology:
1) Humanistic perspective focuses on free will and an individual's potential for growth. Key figures are Maslow and Rogers.
2) Behavioral perspective studies observable behavior and believes behavior can be controlled through environment. Pioneers are Watson and Skinner.
3) Cognitive perspective focuses on how people think and understand the world. Key psychologists are Piaget and Sternberg.
4) Biological (neuroscience) perspective examines the brain and nervous system's effects on behavior. Founders are Bernard and Bell.
5) Psychodynamic perspective views behavior as motivated by unconscious forces. Founders include Freud, Jung, and Adler.
1. The document discusses Kazimierz Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration and developmental potential as it relates to personality development and emotional giftedness.
2. Developmental potential includes overexcitabilities, talents and abilities, and autonomy which can create strong emotions and crises but also opportunities for growth.
3. Michael Piechowski brought Dabrowski's work to the field of gifted education and emphasized the intensities and sensitivities often experienced by gifted youth.
Biology and Psychology: Behavior is the result of the mutual relation between “nature” and “nurture”. The result of a complicated interaction between “genes” and “environment”: integration Mind and Brain.
Consequences for looking at pathology:
No causal relation between risc factors and the development of pathology; the amount of risc factors is in a way predictable.
The quality of the early attachment relationships is important for the possible development of pathology.
Vitamin G Conference--Stemming the Flow of Cognitive Lava: The Arts and the '...Morgan Appel
In many respects, the ‘gifted brain’ resembles an active volcano on the verge of eruption: swirling, chaotic and yearning for release. Stemming the Flow … explores the neuroscience that fuels everything educators admire about the gifted and talented yet tends to wreak emotional havoc. In an effort to facilitate focus, confidence and competence, this presentation explores the arts as a whole and disaggregated by artistic discipline and defines their specific roles—individually and in concert—in stemming the flow of cognitive lava. Resources and recommendations are disaggregated by grade level and unique attention is paid to special populations within the gifted community, including twice exceptional pupils and those who are diverse linguistically and socioeconomically.
Sigmund Freud was a famous Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis. Some key aspects of his theory include that mental life is divided into the conscious and unconscious minds. The unconscious contains drives and urges beyond our awareness, and can be revealed through dreams, slips of the tongue, and other mechanisms. Freud believed psychopathology arises from unconscious conflicts between the id, ego, and superego. He developed techniques like free association and analysis of transference to treat disorders like hysteria and neuroses. Psychoanalysis examines early childhood development and the influence of sexuality and aggression on personality formation.
Into the Light: Addressing Socioemotional Needs of the Gifted and Talented Th...Morgan Appel
Using Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as metaphorical context, Into the Light explores the ways that the visual and performing arts can be infused across the curriculum to attend to the unique and complex socioemotional needs of gifted and talented students. Special foci include fostering creativity, confidence and commitment among twice-exceptional students; historically underrepresented students in GATE; and socioeconomically and linguistically diverse gifted and talented. Practical recommendations and resources for teachers, administrators and parents are provided, grounded in cutting edge research on the neuroscience of the arts and emotional connection to learning.
The document describes a personality assessment that identifies a person's preferences across four dichotomies: extraversion vs introversion, sensing vs intuition, thinking vs feeling, and judging vs perceiving. For each dichotomy, it provides characteristics to help the reader determine their natural preference. The reader is asked to choose which preference in each dichotomy best fits them to determine their overall 4-letter personality type.
Psychological thrillers focus heavily on a central character, explore themes related to the mind such as identity and perception, and contain suspenseful scenes that relate to mental processes and understanding reality.
Personality refers to enduring characteristics that produce consistency and individuality. Psychoanalytic approaches view personality as motivated by unconscious forces. Freud's psychoanalytic theory proposed that personality is structured into the id, ego, and superego and develops through psychosexual stages from infancy through adulthood. Neo-Freudians like Jung and Horney rejected some aspects of Freud's theory. Trait theories seek to identify basic traits to describe personality, such as the Big Five traits. Learning and social cognitive approaches emphasize how personality develops from learned behaviors and cognitions. Biological and evolutionary approaches suggest important components of personality are inherited from temperament. Humanistic approaches view personality as uniquely self-actualizing with an inherent need for positive self-
Theories of personality, psychology, Characteristics Of Personality, Factors Influencing Personality Development, Purpose Of Personality Theories, Theories Of Personality’s Types, Jung's Personality Theory, Jung’s Eight Personality Types, Adler's Personality Theory, Adler's Psychological Types, GORDON ALLPORT’s TRAIT THEORIES, IN PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE, presentation,
Abstract the unity of mind and feelings in the process of cognition.AlaaAlchyad
The mind is the set of thinking faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, judgment, language, and memory, as well as non-cognitive aspects such as emotion. Under the scientific physicalist interpretation, the mind is housed at least in part in the brain
The original meaning of Old English gemynd was the faculty of memory, not of thought in general. Hence call to mind, come to mind, keep in mind, to have mind of, etc. The word retains this sense in Scotland.[1] Old English had other words to express "mind", such as hyge "mind, spirit".[2]
Spiritual Intelligence: The ability to behave with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer peace regardless of the situation.
Spiritual Intelligence must show up in our actions an our behaviors.
Carl Jung broke from Freud to establish his own theory of analytical psychology. Jung believed that in addition to repressed experiences, we are also influenced by a collective unconscious containing archetypes inherited from our ancestors. The psyche has conscious, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious levels. The collective unconscious contains archetypes like persona and self that influence our behavior. Jung's theory views people as having both opposing traits like introverted and extroverted, and the goal is achieving self-realization through balancing these opposing forces.
This document provides an overview of knowledge in economic and management theories. It discusses how major thinkers have treated knowledge differently. Early neoclassical economists like Marshall focused on existing knowledge represented by prices but neglected knowledge creation. Austrian economists like Hayek and Schumpeter emphasized subjective knowledge and its role in driving economic change. Later theorists viewed firms as repositories of knowledge. The document also contrasts "scientific management" theories which formalized workers' knowledge with human relations theories emphasizing social factors and interpersonal skills. Barnard attempted to synthesize the mechanistic and humanistic views of management.
The document is a thesis submitted for a Master's degree that examines how the mind can act as either a barrier or doorway to higher consciousness. It discusses Edgar Cayce's view of the mind as having three layers - the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious. The conscious mind operates in the physical world, while the superconscious connects to higher realms, and the subconscious acts as a bridge between the two. However, the subconscious often functions as a "malefactor" that creates a disconnect from the true self through feelings of isolation. The challenge is to unlock the subconscious and use the mind to reconnect to higher consciousness.
This document discusses the concepts of perception, sensation, and the perceptual process. It describes perception as the process of becoming aware of and making sense of one's external environment. Sensation is the immediate response of the senses to basic stimuli, while perception involves selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensations. The perceptual process involves selection of stimuli, organizing them perceptually, and interpreting or comprehending them. Factors like physiology, social influences, and self-concept can influence perception.
This document outlines a training session on interpersonal communication skills for working with gang-impacted environments. It discusses Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how gang involvement fulfills some of these needs. It also covers emotional intelligence and transactional analysis models. Practitioners are encouraged to reflect on interactions and how factors like age, gender, race and culture influence communication. The importance of building trust to facilitate open sharing of personal stories is also emphasized.
The document discusses personality from several perspectives. It defines personality as the dynamic organization of characteristics that determine one's adjustment to the environment. Personality has physical, mental, emotional, social, and moral-spiritual aspects. Major theories discussed include Freud's view of the id, ego, and superego; Jung's concepts of introversion and extroversion; and Eysenck's model of extraversion, neuroticism, and temperament versus mood. The Five Factor model outlines the traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. Defense mechanisms are described as unconscious means of managing anxiety.
The document summarizes four major perspectives on personality:
1) Psychoanalytic perspective focuses on unconscious motivations and childhood development, as proposed by Freud. It includes concepts like the id, ego, and superego.
2) Trait perspective assesses personality through traits and self-report inventories, such as the "Big Five" factors.
3) Humanistic perspective, influenced by Maslow and Rogers, focuses on self-actualization and fulfilling one's potential.
4) Social-cognitive perspective emphasizes how personality and environment interact reciprocally through mechanisms like locus of control and learned helplessness.
The document discusses thinking and metacognition. It describes metacognition as thinking about the process of thinking and learning. It discusses various stages of creative thinking such as orientation, preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. It also discusses techniques for effective studying such as active reading, understanding main points, highlighting, and understanding concepts before criticizing them. The document aims to help understand principles of thinking and relevance for medical students.
Lecture on influential conceptions of consciousness in psychology, social psychology and sociology and their relationship to ideas about identity and self.
The document provides an overview of the key topics covered in a psychology lecture, including:
- Early psychologists like Wundt who studied consciousness using introspection.
- William James who believed thinking and other mental processes help humans survive.
- Memory studies by Ebbinghaus and Calkins showing forgetting occurs rapidly at first.
- Cognitive psychology focusing on thinking, perceiving, and other intellectual processes.
- Behaviorism studying how learning from experience shapes behavior.
- Freud believing unconscious motives like sex and aggression influence behavior.
- Neuroscience examining the brain structures underlying psychological processes.
- The sociocultural perspective considering how gender, culture and experiences shape people.
Chapter 1 introducing social psychologyFaizaKhalid50
This document provides an overview of key concepts in social psychology:
- Social psychology attempts to understand how individuals are influenced by others and examines social thinking, influence, and relations.
- Major themes include that we construct our social reality, social intuitions can be powerful but sometimes perilous, and social influences shape our behavior.
- Social behavior has biological roots in evolution and social neuroscience, and social psychology principles apply to everyday life.
Biology and Psychology: Behavior is the result of the mutual relation between “nature” and “nurture”. The result of a complicated interaction between “genes” and “environment”: integration Mind and Brain.
Consequences for looking at pathology:
No causal relation between risc factors and the development of pathology; the amount of risc factors is in a way predictable.
The quality of the early attachment relationships is important for the possible development of pathology.
Vitamin G Conference--Stemming the Flow of Cognitive Lava: The Arts and the '...Morgan Appel
In many respects, the ‘gifted brain’ resembles an active volcano on the verge of eruption: swirling, chaotic and yearning for release. Stemming the Flow … explores the neuroscience that fuels everything educators admire about the gifted and talented yet tends to wreak emotional havoc. In an effort to facilitate focus, confidence and competence, this presentation explores the arts as a whole and disaggregated by artistic discipline and defines their specific roles—individually and in concert—in stemming the flow of cognitive lava. Resources and recommendations are disaggregated by grade level and unique attention is paid to special populations within the gifted community, including twice exceptional pupils and those who are diverse linguistically and socioeconomically.
Sigmund Freud was a famous Austrian neurologist who founded psychoanalysis. Some key aspects of his theory include that mental life is divided into the conscious and unconscious minds. The unconscious contains drives and urges beyond our awareness, and can be revealed through dreams, slips of the tongue, and other mechanisms. Freud believed psychopathology arises from unconscious conflicts between the id, ego, and superego. He developed techniques like free association and analysis of transference to treat disorders like hysteria and neuroses. Psychoanalysis examines early childhood development and the influence of sexuality and aggression on personality formation.
Into the Light: Addressing Socioemotional Needs of the Gifted and Talented Th...Morgan Appel
Using Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as metaphorical context, Into the Light explores the ways that the visual and performing arts can be infused across the curriculum to attend to the unique and complex socioemotional needs of gifted and talented students. Special foci include fostering creativity, confidence and commitment among twice-exceptional students; historically underrepresented students in GATE; and socioeconomically and linguistically diverse gifted and talented. Practical recommendations and resources for teachers, administrators and parents are provided, grounded in cutting edge research on the neuroscience of the arts and emotional connection to learning.
The document describes a personality assessment that identifies a person's preferences across four dichotomies: extraversion vs introversion, sensing vs intuition, thinking vs feeling, and judging vs perceiving. For each dichotomy, it provides characteristics to help the reader determine their natural preference. The reader is asked to choose which preference in each dichotomy best fits them to determine their overall 4-letter personality type.
Psychological thrillers focus heavily on a central character, explore themes related to the mind such as identity and perception, and contain suspenseful scenes that relate to mental processes and understanding reality.
Personality refers to enduring characteristics that produce consistency and individuality. Psychoanalytic approaches view personality as motivated by unconscious forces. Freud's psychoanalytic theory proposed that personality is structured into the id, ego, and superego and develops through psychosexual stages from infancy through adulthood. Neo-Freudians like Jung and Horney rejected some aspects of Freud's theory. Trait theories seek to identify basic traits to describe personality, such as the Big Five traits. Learning and social cognitive approaches emphasize how personality develops from learned behaviors and cognitions. Biological and evolutionary approaches suggest important components of personality are inherited from temperament. Humanistic approaches view personality as uniquely self-actualizing with an inherent need for positive self-
Theories of personality, psychology, Characteristics Of Personality, Factors Influencing Personality Development, Purpose Of Personality Theories, Theories Of Personality’s Types, Jung's Personality Theory, Jung’s Eight Personality Types, Adler's Personality Theory, Adler's Psychological Types, GORDON ALLPORT’s TRAIT THEORIES, IN PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE, presentation,
Abstract the unity of mind and feelings in the process of cognition.AlaaAlchyad
The mind is the set of thinking faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, judgment, language, and memory, as well as non-cognitive aspects such as emotion. Under the scientific physicalist interpretation, the mind is housed at least in part in the brain
The original meaning of Old English gemynd was the faculty of memory, not of thought in general. Hence call to mind, come to mind, keep in mind, to have mind of, etc. The word retains this sense in Scotland.[1] Old English had other words to express "mind", such as hyge "mind, spirit".[2]
Spiritual Intelligence: The ability to behave with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer peace regardless of the situation.
Spiritual Intelligence must show up in our actions an our behaviors.
Carl Jung broke from Freud to establish his own theory of analytical psychology. Jung believed that in addition to repressed experiences, we are also influenced by a collective unconscious containing archetypes inherited from our ancestors. The psyche has conscious, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious levels. The collective unconscious contains archetypes like persona and self that influence our behavior. Jung's theory views people as having both opposing traits like introverted and extroverted, and the goal is achieving self-realization through balancing these opposing forces.
This document provides an overview of knowledge in economic and management theories. It discusses how major thinkers have treated knowledge differently. Early neoclassical economists like Marshall focused on existing knowledge represented by prices but neglected knowledge creation. Austrian economists like Hayek and Schumpeter emphasized subjective knowledge and its role in driving economic change. Later theorists viewed firms as repositories of knowledge. The document also contrasts "scientific management" theories which formalized workers' knowledge with human relations theories emphasizing social factors and interpersonal skills. Barnard attempted to synthesize the mechanistic and humanistic views of management.
The document is a thesis submitted for a Master's degree that examines how the mind can act as either a barrier or doorway to higher consciousness. It discusses Edgar Cayce's view of the mind as having three layers - the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious. The conscious mind operates in the physical world, while the superconscious connects to higher realms, and the subconscious acts as a bridge between the two. However, the subconscious often functions as a "malefactor" that creates a disconnect from the true self through feelings of isolation. The challenge is to unlock the subconscious and use the mind to reconnect to higher consciousness.
This document discusses the concepts of perception, sensation, and the perceptual process. It describes perception as the process of becoming aware of and making sense of one's external environment. Sensation is the immediate response of the senses to basic stimuli, while perception involves selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensations. The perceptual process involves selection of stimuli, organizing them perceptually, and interpreting or comprehending them. Factors like physiology, social influences, and self-concept can influence perception.
This document outlines a training session on interpersonal communication skills for working with gang-impacted environments. It discusses Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how gang involvement fulfills some of these needs. It also covers emotional intelligence and transactional analysis models. Practitioners are encouraged to reflect on interactions and how factors like age, gender, race and culture influence communication. The importance of building trust to facilitate open sharing of personal stories is also emphasized.
The document discusses personality from several perspectives. It defines personality as the dynamic organization of characteristics that determine one's adjustment to the environment. Personality has physical, mental, emotional, social, and moral-spiritual aspects. Major theories discussed include Freud's view of the id, ego, and superego; Jung's concepts of introversion and extroversion; and Eysenck's model of extraversion, neuroticism, and temperament versus mood. The Five Factor model outlines the traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. Defense mechanisms are described as unconscious means of managing anxiety.
The document summarizes four major perspectives on personality:
1) Psychoanalytic perspective focuses on unconscious motivations and childhood development, as proposed by Freud. It includes concepts like the id, ego, and superego.
2) Trait perspective assesses personality through traits and self-report inventories, such as the "Big Five" factors.
3) Humanistic perspective, influenced by Maslow and Rogers, focuses on self-actualization and fulfilling one's potential.
4) Social-cognitive perspective emphasizes how personality and environment interact reciprocally through mechanisms like locus of control and learned helplessness.
The document discusses thinking and metacognition. It describes metacognition as thinking about the process of thinking and learning. It discusses various stages of creative thinking such as orientation, preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. It also discusses techniques for effective studying such as active reading, understanding main points, highlighting, and understanding concepts before criticizing them. The document aims to help understand principles of thinking and relevance for medical students.
Lecture on influential conceptions of consciousness in psychology, social psychology and sociology and their relationship to ideas about identity and self.
The document provides an overview of the key topics covered in a psychology lecture, including:
- Early psychologists like Wundt who studied consciousness using introspection.
- William James who believed thinking and other mental processes help humans survive.
- Memory studies by Ebbinghaus and Calkins showing forgetting occurs rapidly at first.
- Cognitive psychology focusing on thinking, perceiving, and other intellectual processes.
- Behaviorism studying how learning from experience shapes behavior.
- Freud believing unconscious motives like sex and aggression influence behavior.
- Neuroscience examining the brain structures underlying psychological processes.
- The sociocultural perspective considering how gender, culture and experiences shape people.
Chapter 1 introducing social psychologyFaizaKhalid50
This document provides an overview of key concepts in social psychology:
- Social psychology attempts to understand how individuals are influenced by others and examines social thinking, influence, and relations.
- Major themes include that we construct our social reality, social intuitions can be powerful but sometimes perilous, and social influences shape our behavior.
- Social behavior has biological roots in evolution and social neuroscience, and social psychology principles apply to everyday life.
According to a 2010 study, the president who scored highest on the Psychopathic Personality Inventory was George W. Bush. The document then provides writing prompts and discussion questions about psychopaths and traits from the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. It discusses how psychopathic traits could potentially be reframed as beneficial and provides class activities on defining psychopaths and discussing the film "Scorpio Rising".
The document discusses how perceptions differ between individuals due to subjective experiences and the selective and creative nature of perception. It explains that culture, gender roles, and co-cultures all influence perceptions. Perceptions are shaped by one's unique experiences and background as well as social and cultural influences.
This document discusses various concepts related to practical intelligence and mental flexibility. It covers topics like affirmative thinking, mental flexibility, anxiety and performance, meditation techniques, brain waves, trance states, biological clocks, dreams, and more. The overall message is that practical intelligence involves having an open and growth-oriented mindset, continually learning and challenging preconceived notions, and expressing one's individuality.
What We Know about Emotional Intelligence How It Affects Learning, Work, Rela...KorieArsie
This document provides an overview of a book about emotional intelligence. The book examines what is known about emotional intelligence, how it develops over the lifespan, its relationship to intelligence and personality, and its role in learning, relationships, work, and mental health. It aims to present the current state of research on emotional intelligence and evaluate both scientific evidence and popular claims about the topic.
This document provides an overview of personality psychology and its application to negotiation. It discusses several key theorists in personality psychology, including Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Isabel Briggs Myers. Freud developed concepts like the conscious/unconscious mind and defense mechanisms. Jung further developed the personality structure and introduced psychological types. He described elements like the ego, persona, shadow, and collective unconscious. Jung and Myers also developed the concepts of introversion/extroversion and thinking/feeling as key dimensions of psychological types. The document aims to educate negotiators about personality psychology concepts to help them better understand other people.
This document discusses holistic development of the whole person by examining the interconnection between thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and the different aspects of a person including the physical, cognitive, psychological, social, and spiritual. It explores philosophical concepts of dualism and holism. Dualism sees the person as separate mind and body, while holism views the person as a unified whole that is more than the sum of parts. Holistic development considers all aspects of a person to fully understand their totality.
This document provides an overview of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and Carl Jung's analytical psychology perspective on personality development. It discusses key concepts in Freudian psychoanalysis like the structure of personality consisting of the id, ego and superego. Defense mechanisms and psychosexual stages are also explained. Jung diverged from Freud in rejecting his sexual theory and emphasis on biological drives, focusing more on spirituality and individuation. The document also outlines techniques used in psychoanalytic therapy like free association, dream analysis, and interpretation of transference and resistance.
This document provides an overview of the philosophical, psychological, sociological, and anthropological foundations of guidance and counseling. It discusses concepts from various philosophies such as rationalism, empiricism, and existentialism that relate to understanding the self. Key philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine are mentioned in connection with principles of personal development. The document also outlines major fields of psychology including clinical, developmental, educational, and social psychology. It defines sociology and anthropology, noting how culture and groups influence human behavior.
This document discusses Gordon Allport's definition and theory of personality. It begins by outlining Allport's 1961 definition of personality as "the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought." It then examines key aspects of Allport's view of personality, including his emphasis on the uniqueness of individuals, the idiographic approach, traits/dispositions, and the development of the self or "proprium" through seven functions from early childhood through adulthood.
Carl Jung believed that dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind enriches a person. He coined the term "individuation" to describe personal development through connecting the ego with the self. Jung also described psychological types of introversion and extraversion, and the four main psychological functions of thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. He proposed that beneath the personal unconscious lies the collective unconscious containing innate archetypes shared between all people.
Carl Jung believed that dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind enriches people. He coined the term "individuation" to describe personal development involving a connection between the ego and self. Jung identified four main psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. He also distinguished between introversion and extraversion in people's orientations. Jung proposed a personal unconscious similar to Freud's, as well as a deeper collective unconscious containing innate archetypes shared between all people.
PERPETUAL SELF CONFLICT: SELF AWARENESS AS A KEYMurray Hunter
PERPETUAL SELF CONFLICT: SELF AWARENESS AS A KEY
TO OUR ETHICAL DRIVE, PERSONAL MASTERY, AND
PERCEPTION OF ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2011, pp. 96-137
The document discusses emotional intelligence, including its history and models. It describes Salovey and Mayer's initial definition of emotional intelligence as monitoring emotions in oneself and others to guide thinking and actions. Three main models are discussed: ability, trait, and mixed. The ability model focuses on cognitive skills while trait and mixed models incorporate personality factors. Key components of emotional intelligence include self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. High emotional intelligence is important for leadership, performance, and relationships.
This document provides information about autism and working with autistic clients. It begins with a quote about being different and unique. It then defines autism as a spectrum of brain development characterized by differences in social interaction, communication, and repetitive behaviors. It discusses common misconceptions about autism and defines Asperger's syndrome. The document then compares clinical and non-clinical viewpoints on autism. It discusses the importance of the therapeutic relationship when working with autistic clients and potential therapy approaches. Finally, it highlights considerations for therapists and issues clients may face.
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, And Traditional Psychodynamic...Diana Turner
This document discusses psychodynamic theories of personality, including those proposed by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and others. It explains that traditional psychodynamic theories focused on the unconscious mind and believed personality traits were innate, while contemporary theories emphasized how personality develops through interactions with the external world. The document also briefly describes some of the key ideas from Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology.
●Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: Ability to reason logically and perform mathematical calculations.
●Spatial Intelligence: Aptitude for visual and spatial thinking and understanding relationships between objects.
●Musical Intelligence: Skill in musical abilities, such as pitch, rhythm, and composition.
●Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: Expertise in controlling body movements and handling objects.
●Interpersonal Intelligence: Capability to understand and interact effectively with others.
●Intrapersonal Intelligence: Self-awareness and understanding of one's own emotions, motivations, and goals.
●Naturalistic Intelligence: Sensitivity and knowledge about the natural world and its phenomena.
The document discusses several theories of intelligence including Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, practical intelligence, and emotional intelligence. Gardner's theory proposes that there are eight types of intelligences including verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Practical intelligence relates to adapting to one's environment through experience. Emotional intelligence involves self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The document also discusses how culture can impact the development and expression of the different types of intelligences.
The document discusses different philosophical perspectives on the human person:
1. The biological perspective views humans as evolved beings and emphasizes our physical traits.
2. The psychological perspective focuses on human behavior, thought processes, and mental capabilities like rationality and intelligence.
3. The economic perspective sees humans as productive beings driven to meet needs and wants.
4. The theological perspective considers humans as God's creation with a special relationship to the creator.
5. Philosophy defines the human person by traits like awareness of self and sentience, and concepts of identity, personhood, and the integrated and developing self.
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Secular Approaches to the Nondual
(A background document for the poster session presentation at the
Science and Nonduality Conference, October, 16, 2015, San Jose, CA)
Mike Levenhagen, Ph.D., University of Washington, Bothell
There are a number of secular references or activities that appear to lead to a nondual
state of affairs.
1. FLOW
Flow is perhaps the most widely known idea among those presented here in this paper.
Flow has been described as being “in the moment,” “in tune,” “in the groove,” “wired
in,” “in the zone,” “centered,” and so on. Flow has been noted in sports, art, religion,
spirituality, education, gaming, and other pursuits. People have reported feelings of
spontaneous joy, complete immersion, almost mindless concentration in a given activity.
People in flow state have reported no self-consciousness, and a sense of personal
control or agency in situations, motivated by intrinsic rewards rather than extrinsic
rewards. Flow states have been most often found in solitary endeavors aimed at self-
improvement. Cognition in flow states has been referred to as “operational thinking” as
opposed to “discursive thinking.”
Most of the writing about flow says that it arises when one’s skill is perfectly suited to
a challenge. Three conditions for flow are: (i) clear goals and progress; (ii) clear and
immediate feedback; and (iii) a balance between challenges and skills (otherwise
boredom or anxiousness ensues). To sustain the balance referred to in (iii) may imply
greater and greater challenges, spiraling complexity, increasing skill levels (see mastery
below), and increasing risks. In some endeavors (e.g., climbing), this may lead to
over-reaching with grave consequences.
2. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESENCE
Being psychologically present means to be alive, “there.” It refers to being physically
involved, emotionally connected, and cognitively vigilant.
The literature in psychological presence makes frequent reference to authenticity—a full,
honest expression of one’s feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Authenticity requires an
integrated whole self that brings the depths of a personal self into role performances.
That, in turn, requires personal vulnerability, risk-taking, and experiencing conflict and
portraying it constructively.
There are 4 dimensions of psychological presence:
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Attentiveness: being open to others, not disabled by anxiety, where defenses
are managed.
Connection: the notion of empathy is key here—a sense of giving and
receiving.
Integration: people who are psychological present are physically, emotionally,
and intellectually grounded; actors can call up different facets of the self as
needed, and that means that they can switch temperaments as situations might
demand.
Task- or role-focused: one’s personality is channeled through a role being
played; neither personality nor role assumes dominance.
Psychological presence can be identified in others in the following ways (see Navarro’s,
Katz’s, or Eckman’s works) .
Physically, people are planted—they are there for the interaction (intrinsically, not
extrinsically-oriented); physically they stand their ground.
Psychologically present people exhibit eye contact about 60%-85% of the time;
they hold the other person “there”; they see who the other person is; they exhibit
useful non-verbal gestures that communicate.
They can perform all the speech acts competently: they know how to make
promises, offers, requests, declarations, and assertions; their speech exhibits
cadence, sing-song tones, laughter, softness now and then, and their voices are
filled with personality and personal values.
They can follow conversations; they make sense of another’s talk; they ask
questions; they are constantly in search of the object of conversation rather than
intellectualizing the topic of a conversation; they do not nitpick.
They are authentic: they work with their honest emotions in context of a task
situation and in the role that they find themselves in; they do not dismiss or avoid
emotion; they wear no obvious masks; they do not “act out”; they display what
they are feeling and thinking.
Why doesn’t psychological presence show up more in people?
People present a multitude of voices, ideas, energies, and feelings. This leads to
confusion and inconsistency; hence, people cycle in and out of psychological
presence, and their theories-in-use about their “selves” split their personhoods
from the roles they find themselves in.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes. (Walt Whitman)
People feel vulnerable when they show their “real” selves.
Being psychologically present can be exhausting for people. Being vigilant with
constant attention can lead to burnout.
It takes determination and courage to be psychologically present.
3. HOT VS. COLD COGNITION
Cold Cognition refers to mental-rational, conscious, discursive thinking. It tends to
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focus on content and process: viz., “knowing what.” Most people mean this kind of
cognition when they think about mind or what mind does. When people talk about
intellect and analytical thinking, cold cognition is usually what they are referring to.
Cold cognition is explicit, deliberate, effortful, rational, driven by a sense of autonomy,
willpower, and individualism. Cold cognition tends to be slow and oriented to objective
reality and extrinsic rewards (and measurements). This kind of cognition seems
particularly dualistic and exhibits an archaic hedonism (self-interested in a narcissistic
sense rather than a stoic sense).
Cold cognition also tends to be flexible, adaptive, digital or polar (e.g., with
unambiguous and sure consequences), and often exhibits complex modeling. Cold
cognition tends to rely upon language--most often the very basis for new-knowledge
acquisition.
Cold cognition, however, also exhibits limited capacity (in terms of processing power and
memory, what some economists have called “bounded rationality”). It also provides the
basis for free riding, deception, excess desire, artifice, guile, hypocrisy, and strategy.
“Hot Cognition,” on the other hand, is more about “know-how.” Hot cognition is tacit and
practical, and resists formalization. Hot cognition tends to be spontaneous, natural, and
largely unconscious (instinctual). It is fast, semi-automatic, and effortless, often showing
up ostensibly as habits, feelings, emotions, and instincts. Hot cognition appears more
analog (with fuzzy continuums) than digital, and it seems to arise out of experiences,
intuition, and expertise. Hot cognition also presents more holistic approaches in the form
of emotions, images, or reflections. (It’s been claimed that culture and the arts are
mechanisms for social cohesion that rely upon hot cognition.)
Here are some processes that have been distinguished in studies of hot vs. cold
cognition.
Downregulation: those activities that seem to allow the control regions of the brain to
become somewhat disengaged (e.g., in dancing, playing, meditation, drunkenness).
Downregulation makes people less inhibited, more authentic, less guileful, and more
forthright about their feelings. Such activities seem to rely upon a short-term suspension
of ego maintenance. (Important business deals in the Far East are often accompanied
by heavy drinking as a social mechanism by which to discover the character of the
persons with which a deal is being made.)
High Formality [my term]: one can occupy the conscious mind by focusing closely on the
details of movement (say, carefully forming letters on a piece of paper, paying close
attention to pushing keys on the keyboard, careful and deliberate brush strokes on
canvas) that can open access to one’s unconsciousness for expression. “What
shows up” in one’s art is often surprising and unexplainable from a rational perspective.
Thin-slicing: intuitive “gut feelings” can quickly result from narrow windows of experience
or very few observations, implying some sort of unconscious pattern discernment.
Categorical inflexibility: This seems to point to a contemporary human tendency to be
dominated by “mind”: that is, letting the rational mind dominate other avenues of
wisdom (emotions, stories, instinct, etc.). Learning consensus-based conceptualizations
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of objects can limit one’s ability to witness reality in novel, creative, and open-ended
ways.
Trying Not To Try: an infuriating conundrum that any meditator has experienced.
There is no ‘try’ or ‘not try.’ There is only do. (Yoda)
Improper application of rationality without hot cognition: unconscious hot cognition
(emotions, habits, tacit or implicit skills) plays a much greater role in human behavior
than commonly believed. Many argue that it is the emotional self that motivates and
directs the rational self.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio argues that somatic markers accompany most all
representations that one has of the world. He believes that objects in the world are
tightly linked to feelings of all sorts regarding what is good, bad, urgent, appropriate, etc.
He claims his research shows that the conscious mind, ungrounded by the wisdom of
the body, is remarkably incapable of taking care of business in daily life. Specifically,
people with certain injuries at the center of processing emotions in the brain may well be
able to pass IQ tests, process math, undertake abstract reasoning, and refer to memory,
but when it comes to making life decisions, those brain damaged people are barely
capable of functioning. They cannot make simple choices or take into account the future
consequences of decisions. Disembodied reason (reason alone, without the feelings that
arise out of the body) is incapable of guiding human behavior—especially when it comes
to moral issues, says Damasio, (see also Haidt). Being in the real world requires
spontaneity, un-self-consciousness, automatic-processing “hot cognition.” Hence,
one should seek to find ways to be relaxed yet vigilant (that is, living in “hot cognition”).
One should be ready to call on cold cognition if one gets into trouble.
Paul Ekman and Joe Navarro write that bodies instinctively communicate truer signals of
people’s intentions and beliefs (the subtext) than what they profess verbally (the text).
One can watch Woody Allen’s eyebrows; how people position their feet or their eyes
when confronted; or how emotions are expressed in people’s faces (oftentimes unknown
and uncontrollably by those who present them). Indeed, many signals given out by the
body appear to be impossible to mimic by poseurs. (See also Strasberg method acting.)
One must “be there” and in the moment to express subjective truth.
Societies do not want people with extra cold cognition sneaking around backstage with
nefarious plans, especially in a world of excessive individualism, alienation, and
materialism. Communities would seem to be well served by people who exhibit no gaps
between their actions and their intentions or motivations. This could be an indication of
what’s called “engagement” in business studies.
4. ENGAGEMENT
Engagement has been a popular topic in organizational studies. Practicing managers
want to know how to engage people so that they are emotionally connected to the
workplace (and so organizations can take advantage of it).
Over 12 years of surveys, Gallup has consistently reported that 70% of the workforce in
the U.S. is either unengaged (only suiting up and showing up, and nothing more) or
disengaged (actively attempting to sabotage the operations of the organization). Only
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30% of personnel in organizations are working toward their organizations’ stated
purposes. Gallup estimates the losses from unengagement and disengagement to be
about $450B-$550B / year in the U.S. Gallup supports these claims with 160 million
data points from its surveys from around the world.
Engagement (according to Gallup) revolves around passion, complete absorption,
emotion, self-expression, “activation”, being “plugged-in,” creativity, personal voice,
authenticity, non-defensive communication, playfulness, and “ethical behaviors.” The
behaviors exhibited by engaged personnel have been described as neither sacrificing a
role for a self, nor the self for a role.
Engagement also relates to personal connections with the cultural elements of work
communities, innovation, and improvisation.
5. IMPROVISATION
Improvisation appears to tap an infinite number of repertoires residing in the
unconscious. Improvisation is intuition-in-action or perhaps pure style. Improvisation also
seems to be connected to notions of expertise and a state of “mindfulness.”1
It’s been said there are 5 different stages of competence.
The first stage (if one were a competent teacher in the area) is, “you watch me
do it.” Here, the student is considered naïve.
The second stage is, “I (the teacher) watch you do it.” Here, the student is
considered a novice.
The third stage is, “you do it alone, and then I’ll monitor the outcomes in some
fashion.” This is the stage that most of us find ourselves in most activities. (Now
the student is considered competent.)
The fourth stage is, “as you do the work / task, you add your personality
(imprimatur) to it.” Others identify your work stylistically as [your name]‘s work.
“Oh, yeah, that’s Joe’s work.” This fourth stage is known as virtuosity.
The fifth stage, mastery, is, “when you do the work, you do it differently each and
every time—never the same way twice.” A master can start anywhere and finish
anywhere in the work / task under many conditions. Understanding or knowledge
no longer shows up as content or process. Instead, mastery is an in-the-
moment, creative, unique expression. Competence shifts knowledge of content
and process to simply presence.
Mastery appears to reside in the unconscious. When mastery is shown, it is the
expression of one’s unconscious.
Style comes through expressions of the smallest details of movement, mind, and
speech. Style comes through every mark one makes. They are manifestations through
1 “Mindfulness” is an unfortunate misnomer. The actual phenomenon or experience of “mindfulness” is much closer to
w hat Buddhists have technically referred to as “emptiness.” One’s mind is not full in the sense that it is fullof the
consideration of an object of attention, but instead empty of “cold cognition” regarding an object of attention. Employing
here a linguistic model of subject – verb – object (“I – see – that”), mindfulness w ould appear to be a state of experience
of only a gerund of being--i.e., dropping the I and the that--leaving only seeing. (See also wu-wei below .)
6. 6
which “the Self” expresses IT-self. Every self is an intricate design of individuality,
personally and transpersonally. There would seem to be nothing random about anyone.
Randomness seems impossible.
A great deal of attention in the literature on improvisation emphasizes practice:
“practice, practice, practice.” But it’s not “practice making perfect.” That kind of practice
looks more like “professionalism”--that is, rigid forms of skill acquisition and formalized
education. In improvisation, practice is play, and play is practice.
Play is not what a player does, but how a player does it. It is different than game. Play is
more of an attitude than a defined activity with rules, playing field, or participants (game).
All creative acts are forms of play. Practice, properly performed, is without objective or
goal, just play, where there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose. “Funktionlust” (Ger.)
looks similar: the pleasure of doing or producing an effect, as opposed to attaining an
effect or having something.
When practice no longer feels like play, a player (an artist) is supposed to quit practice
until it has become play again.
Improvisational practice is patient and thorough. It often looks to so many people like
ritual. But, ritual itself is a form of concentration and love. Playing or preparing with the
instruments or tools of one’s activities is ritualistic. All artists and players adore their
instruments. Players follow their rituals to invoke the muse, to clear obscurations and
doubts from their minds, to open capacities, concentrate, intensify, tune-in, tune-up, turn-
on, stabilize him or herself for the challenge that lies ahead. An instrument (even a body)
“played,” is a dance with that object. Writing, for example, is an art for a person who
adores language, where the purpose is not to make a point but to provoke an
imaginative or imaginary state.
Concentrating on close-order technique (e.g., with the body, gravity, balance, a writing
instrument, a drum) leaves room for inspiration to sneak through the barrier between the
unconscious and the conscious unimpeded. It is then that “the player” disappears; all
that’s left is simply playing--playing seemingly playing itself. The entire system of
player-instrument-audience-environment is one indivisible, interactive totality. When that
relationship is realized, even concepts of mastery or control become meaningless.
For art to appear, the player must disappear. Practice is art, as meditation is
enlightenment, as climbing is the mountain. Of course, as all meditators and artists
can attest, they get stuck or blocked in their personal development of their art or work.
Stuckness occurs when a player puts too much effort into his or her practice. Creative
despair, being hopelessly stuck, is simply a symptom that a player is throwing everything
she has into her effort. The artistic or psychic crisis could indicate a looming spiritual
transition.
Losing sight of playfulness, work or art becomes ponderous and stiff. Any player may
devise a plan of action or an agenda, but when approaching the moment of truth in
performance, he or she needs to throw them away. Instead, a player should become
what he or she is doing (“out ‘I’ go, and there is only the work”). The noun becomes a
verb through a samadhi—an absorption in a fascination of textures, resistances,
nuances, limitations. A player needs to let go, relax, do nothing, just let things happen
(Jung, Tilopa).
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So many things in life look to be improvisational, but most people don’t think about them
that way. Ordinary speech is improvisational. Every conversation is a form of jazz.
Conversation is not meeting another halfway but developing something new to both—a
dialogue. Riding a bike is improvisational—where effortless “control” comes through
balance and continual adjustment to continuous change. The closer one looks, the more
that everything in life looks improvisational, spontaneous, a synaptic summation, a
balance and combination of multivariate complexities in a single flash. Zing. Pop!
Radiance crackling with energies.
There are a few particular techniques in improvisation worth noting.
Galumphing Anthropologists have found that “galumphing” is a prime characteristic of
higher life forms. Galumphing (e.g., the exaggerated walk of models on runways) is
rambunctious, inexhaustible, seemingly useless elaboration, an ornamentation of
activity, profligate, excessive, exaggerated, uneconomical, and guaranteeing an over-
supply of requisite variety. (See also “Shakti”). It is pure style. Also referred to as
“technique to burn,” this form of play sharpens the capacity to deal with an ever-
changing world--referred to by some as impermanence. (Watch Brad Pitt’s portrayal in
the movie, 12 Monkeys.)
Entrainment Focusing on making small impeccable acts entrains the body, speech,
and mind into a single stream of activity. Have a person start a beat, have a second
person add a second beat to it, and then add a third person with a new beat into the mix.
Every player must listen closely and adjust constantly to keep the pulse, but mostly it’s
nonstop, in-the-moment adjustments, push-and-pull. One has to relax to stay with it.
Being slightly off from one another makes finding each other exciting. People feel carried
away or carried inward by rhythmic, mantic, qualities of music, poetry, theatre, and
ritual. Entrainment creates trance states.
When composing messages or tunes, simply focusing on hitting the keys on a keyboard
or piano one at a time, drawing the perfect letter with pen and paper, or getting up from
the chair to go to the kitchen as if perfecting the choreography of a dance, one can make
movements flawlessly, gracefully, stylistically. This kind of relaxed yet mindful [see
footnote 1] attention to detail, using small and impeccable acts, can occupy the working
or discursive mind completely to allow one’s unconscious creativity to seep through the
conscious mind to express itself.
Structure can ignite creative spontaneity. Limits can provide artists and players with
something to work with and against. But it’s not like art or beautiful work is thought up in
consciousness to be expressed by the hand or feet or mouth. A player’s feet or hands or
voice may surprise him or her, as if appendages were creating and solving problems on
their own. Players can almost hear an audible click when feeling and form slip into one
another to become one. It creates a surge of energy, the recognition of an old feeling
that has never surfaced into consciousness before.
We don’t learn . . . we remember. (Plato)
Eduction is a drawing-out of a thing or pattern from reality, something that a player
somewhat already knows. It is an assimilation of an outside pattern—and an
accommodation to it. Eduction is the never-ending dialogue between making and
8. 8
sensing, something perhaps never quite seen before—but nonetheless something that is
a natural outgrowth of a player’s original nature. It is the dance of a player endlessly
projecting archetypes into the external world, sensing those projections objectively, then
subjectively amending the projections—and so on in a back-and-forth dance of mutual
causality.
Personal creativity is baffling and paradoxical. Trying to control or break-free of self-tied
knots requires a player to distance him or herself from what he or she is already.
Improvisation is a form of surrender, but the surrender needs to be complete, genuine,
uncontrived, wholehearted, with hope and fear abandoned, with nothing to gain or lose.
Fear-based playing, on the other hand, is “trying” to play while being pre-occupied with
self. Not caring, a player plays better. Anytime a player performs an activity for an
outcome, he or she is not totally that activity.
When Miles Davis approached the microphone, he focused into a meditative space
before playing the first note. There would often be long silences between phrases in his
playing. Keith Jarrett said of Miles that his sound came from silence that existed before
time, before the very first musician played the first note. Vladimir Horowitz exhibited
absolute stillness and concentration as he “watched his hands” play highly complex
pieces. When players have that kind of connection, they report their art / work is more
like “taking dictation.” (See Mary Watkins’ writings on the subject of artists taking
dictation from invisible guests.)
Players should put their hands on their instruments and trust them. Then material plays
itself, and it comes out as “the player’s voice.” This idea goes so far as to not even care
about being artistically good. Even that must be surrendered. As Miles said (and later
Thelonious Monk showed everyone with his music), “there are no wrong notes.” The
more a player feels as though he or she can walk away, the more powerful the playing
becomes. “Try to imagine as much as possible that someone else is doing the playing,”
says piano coach, Kenny Werner. If you do not have this kind of patience, then stop
playing. Keep it light. Let your art come to you.
In theatre, improvisation is a well-practiced art form. An improviser makes an offer: he
or she defines some part of a scene of reality in an unconstructed space to begin with.
The offer might start with an actor referring to a name, exposing a relationship, indicating
a location or a physical environment. Then an improvising partner has the responsibility
to accept the offer by building on it: . . . “yes, and . . . “. Not doing so is known as
blocking, denial, or negation, which usually prevents a scene from proceeding or
developing. Offers and acceptances are the cornerstones of improvisation in theatre.
Each back-and-forth between actors further refines a situation and its characters,
(especially important in the earliest stages of an improvisation). Physical props can be
used to help flesh-out scenes, but mime is most often used in improvisation because it
can facilitate an infinite set of possibilities spontaneously.
Working with masks is another training technique in improvisational theatre. Actors
choose a mask, put it on, and are then quickly shown their reflections by acting coaches
who hold up mirrors so that the masked actors are confronted by their masks rather than
their own faces. This is supposed to throw actors into possessions by the masks. If
actors’ own personalities sneak back into their performances, their coaches quickly show
them the mirror again in the hope that the mask will again take over the actor. Actors do
not act through masks. Instead, unconsciousness exposes itself.
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Masks have a long history of use in sacred rituals in primitive societies. Masks express
wisdom about self, Gods, internal or external forces, and nature that cannot be
conceptualized or verbally articulated. Mask work tends to lead into trances.
6. TRANCE
The meaning and use of the word trance suffer from many definitions and applications.
They include enchantment, states of mind where voluntary action appear to be missing,
deep sleep, love, infatuation, possession, out-of-body experiences, rapture or ecstasy,
altered states of consciousness, hypnosis, and extreme dissociation. In general these
states are contrasted to states of normal waking consciousness. Some researchers
believe that trance is the result of a shift in how mind filters internal or external
information.
Trance can be induced by paying close attention to any physical (modality) sense (taste,
touch, smell, etc.) that repeats itself: e.g., chanting, mantras, dance, mudras, story-
telling, breathing, symmetries, strobe lights, perfumes, tastes, ingestion (drugs or
otherwise), disciplines (yoga, meditation), dreams, prayer, as well as various other
experiences (trauma, sleep deprivation, narcosis, fever, sensory deprivation).
Trance has also been associated with ritual, preparation, visualization, or practicing with
the tools in one’s trade or art as forms of entrainment.
Some psychologists say that trance is a common everyday occurrence. Trance shows
up when waiting for trains, reading, listening, and being involved in strenuous activities—
wherever or whenever one is immersed in an activity, whenever attention is fixated, or
when a person appears obsessed. People tend to be oblivious to their trance states
until something re-stabilizes their attention back to (conventional, consensual) normal
reality. Common experiences of wonder, engrossment, and confusion can be trance.
Psychologists such as Milton Erickson argue that all states of consciousness (waking or
not) qualify as trances.
Trances supposedly connect the conscious mind with the unconscious mind--not
through conventional language but through archetypes and symbols that create
openings, opportunities, metaphors, contradictions, paradoxes, artifacts, etc. Trances
can arise when meaning is ambiguous, complex, or expressed through patterns (e.g.,
alliteration, sounds) that lull consciousness, or through interruptive declarations (“HA!”)
that are meant to propel consciousness into non-conceptual spaces.
Notions for which people have no mental space are places where trances can be
generated. For example, in the middle of cognitively chunked experiences that are
performed as single operations (e.g., tying shoelaces, shaking hands, kissing),
interruptions can initiate trances. If singular automatic behaviors can be diverted or
frozen midway, a person can experience trance and stay there until something gives
new direction or a person snaps out of it. Erickson claims that any habitual pattern that
is interrupted unexpectedly will cause a light trance. Other interruptions can engineer
sudden and violent trances momentarily--as when one takes one more or one less step
on a stair than is needed.
10. 10
Trance also supposedly shows up among creative artists who have claimed to receive
their inspiration from imaginative, invisible guests in conversations. Unbridled fantasy,
through internal dialogues in so-called psychotic states, hallucinations, or multiple
personalities—from unconscious to conscious awareness—appear available to artists
who are unafraid observers. Mary Watkins’ work (2002) in this area of phenomena is so
replete with its references to well-known artists, novelists, and composers that the
imaginary dialogues with invisible guests might look more like weak norms than
exceptions.
7. WU-WEI
The way [Great Tao] is not difficult;
just avoid picking and choosing. (Seng Tsan).
Wu-wei (pronounced, “ou-way”) is a Chinese notion that is most concerned with virtue.
“Wu” translates as non-being; so wu-wei is the being of non-being or the action of non-
action. The Tao (“the way”) is meant to provide a path to virtue and morality. How one
does that (using wu-wei, anyway) has been a topic of controversy among four different
Chinese masters who wrote about it spread over two millennia.
As a secular scholar, Confucius was first to refer to wu-wei, and he argued that wu-wei
would result from much practice, training, and time by studying proper responses to
social situations (manners, civilities, dress, music types, decision making, etc.).
Confucius taught his students to carve and polish their behaviors in order to be at-ease
(One) within China’s social world.
Laozi was up next, and he took an opposite view. Virtue could best be found not
through the artifice of practice and polishing one’s being and character, but by simply
letting-go. Perfection already exists in everything; nothing needs changing. Artifice
(social learning) simply puts up veils in front of one’s true being. Like Michelangelo,
Laozi claimed that beauty, truth, and ethics are already present to be discovered within
any object or being. They simply need uncovering.
The third and fourth masters (Mencius then Zhuangzi) who wrote about wu-wei
continued the vacillation between trying and not trying (although not so starkly as
Confucius or Laozi). Zhuangzi’s final guidance was to try and not try--but not too hard.
Wu-wei exposes a number of paradoxes. One conundrum arises among the notions of
virtue and altruism. One cannot be truly altruistic or virtuous if one holds an intention to
be altruistic or virtuous. The very effort of trying means that one cannot be fully or purely
altruistic or virtuous. Moreover, one becomes oriented to achieving virtue or altruism.
Virtue is supposed to be its own reward; virtue is simply supposed to “feel right,”
effortless.
The Chinese (and later the Japanese) built their religious systems around virtues of
naturalness and spontaneity. A “felt success” in life for them was linked to “de,” (as in
The Tao de Ching). De is typically translated as charisma or charismatic power—a
radiance that others detect when one is completely absorbed, completely at-ease, in a
state of un-self-consciousness and spontaneity. These are indications of wu-wei.
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De has a relaxing effect on others. Its power is like the North Star; one simply remains
in one’s place, invisible, dwelling in dark valleys, and pulling everyone else into order.
When a person has de, people like, trust, and are relaxed around him or her.
In practice, de appears to show itself as a combination of body language, micro-
emotional expressions, tone of voice, and general appearance by people who are
relaxed, honest, sincere, self-confident, and without guile. (In this regard, it echoes
some of the points made above regarding hot vs. cold cognition in neuroscience.)
Focusing on simply being what one cannot help but be, especially in a skill-relevant
environment, can mean, “getting lost” in free play. Having an openly mindful (empty)
external focus on the world around one means tuning-in to others more than one’s own
mind, listening closely to the objects of conversations of others rather than one’s own
thoughts, and to the body language being projected by others than what one is
attempting to do or achieve for him- or herself. In other words, one can be moved by
one’s environment rather than trying to control it. Action still occurs, but without
intentions of a subject towards an object: viz., the action of non-action.
Wu-wei seems to offer a world without artifice, hypocrisy, or excess desire. Wu-wei
arises when one is properly situated in the cosmos. Wu-wei provides the ability to move
through a human world with ease. The wu-wei actor naturally finds his or her place
within communities--within social interactions and shared values. People who act from
or out of virtue provide the stable dispositions to perform socially desirable actions within
a community, sincerely motivated by the values that one shares with others.
The person in wu-wei moves through the open spaces of social life, rather than bouncing
from known certainty to known certainty (like a ball in a pinball machine). The wu-wei
actor leans, sidesteps, moves around, absorbs, or (like the resiliency of bamboo) bends
or flows through difficulties that damage the spirit and wear out the body. Allowing
things simply to be puts one into harmony with the forces around oneself. Emptying
oneself of the self creates a receptive space and an openness to what any situation can
expose. Wu-wei works only if one is sincere. A person can attain the power of de only if
he or she doesn’t want it.
According to Confucius and Mencius, rituals are essential behavioral training practices.
They socialize and institutionalize. Social scripting and guided reflections can turn
instinctual reflexes of actors into more mature reactions through storytelling, art, peer
modeling, literature, and understanding the wisdom of old texts. The purpose of these
cultural practices is to create social cohesion. (The arts may be especially crucial for
engendering socially responsible behaviors.)
When personal will disappears, spirit rushes in. Willfulness is replaced by a sense of
wu-wei. A person feels he or she knows where things are moving to, and he or she feels
(rather than thinks) what is the right thing to do. Wu-wei is cooperation with the
inevitable. One no longer asks about which way is the right way. One gets beyond right
and wrong. One doesn’t commit to either. One quits arguing with life and awakens at
the level of the gut, playing his or her part in many roles with full expression.
There is nothing that anyone can do to let go to achieve wu-wei. Letting THAT in, is
finally letting go. All holding appears to be futile. Grasping any view makes one blind to
everything else possible. One perceives from wholeness, without being divided on the
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inside.
As a note of distinction, wu-wei might look like flow (above) to some, but flow is different.
Flow is a precise calibration between skill and challenge, which often leads to an ever-
increasing spiraling complexity due to ever-increasing learning or skills. In particular,
flow tends to be solitary and aimed at self-improvement, arising from an almost pure
individualistic perspective. (Csikszentmihalyis, the first to write about flow academically,
advised it was probably better to lessen the connection between flow and extrinsic
performance measurements.)
Wu-wei differs from flow by emphasizing social dimensions in communities. Wu-wei
occurs only in the service of something bigger, something beyond one’s own narcissistic,
rational, personal self-interests. (Only perhaps in a pure stoic sense can “rational self-
interest” possibly look like virtue—when one does something because it is simply the
most reasonable thing for one to do.)
David Brooks in The New York Times argues that the celebration of bluntness and
straight talking has blinded moderns to the moral function of civility and manners. He
argues that peoples’ mundane social habits and practices end up shaping the people
they are on the inside. Maybe society could use more role-centered, tradition-bound,
communitarianism as found in Confucianism. It might make cold-cognition (a highly
approved set of orientations and behaviors in today’s modern world) more reliable by
making them natural and spontaneous, so that every action could be free and easy yet
perfectly appropriate. Then the conscious mind could let go so that the body would take
over. Cold cognition would then simply maintain a background situational awareness.
CONCLUSION: PATTERNS OF SIMILARITY
The threads of commonality that run through these (so-called) secular approaches to the
nondual are authenticity and the unconscious—and nonconceptuality for the most part.
All orient to radical, free-form subjectivity. What is objective are simply the words and
their meanings / definitions--not what the words point to. What they point to cannot be
accurately or completely pinned down.
Authenticity shows up in honest expressions of being—less cold cognition, less guile,
and more spontaneity. Spontaneity shows up in free play and the motivation of intrinsic
rewards. Personality is expressed within roles that one finds oneself in—neither to the
detriment of the roles nor to the detriment of the personality. Neither dominates the
other; neither subordinates the other. Within one’s roles (father, sibling, teacher, citizen,
etc.), one observes oneself being who and what they cannot help but be. Both the role
and the personality work within and without from each other. This interactive unity
expresses a dance of mutual causality, neither one leading the other.
The unconscious shows up repeatedly in these topics in the paper, both out from the
words, and in the very writing of the words as they appear on my screen as I type them.
Out from these hands arise what looks to be an indescribable, creative energy.
The writing and topics here also suggest a conundrum by a repeated references to
“self.” (But there is no “self” that anyone can apparently find within themselves; the “self”
appears to be merely an expedient convention, a concept.)
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Life, living day to day, in the moment, can appear to be simply a loosely connected
series of reflexes: “a life experienced” is a role played by an actor in a grand narrative
the Hindus refer to as the Lila). If one sees, as an apparent living entity, that one’s life is
simply that which is “being lived,” then one can experience no harbored intentions.
Without intentions, there would be no need to form concepts. If indeed urges arise
independent of conceptualizations, then one can let go into complete spontaneity. A
pervading sense of emptiness, openness—and finally a sense of pervasive unity—then
show up.