Test 2: HI PSY

Question 1

Who are the major figures in psychology studied

Answer 1

Freud
Jung
Maslow
Rogers
James

Question 2

What are the major features of Freud’s psychological model

Answer 2

Ego/Id
* Id is developed out of biological needs and instinctual drives (“It”)
* Ego develops to handle the universe
* Superego develops to handle the demands of parents and society

Subconscious holds instinct, trauma, preconscious knowledge

Model for human development: Ego (self) emerges to direct the emotional energy of the unconscious id to engage with the world

Goal is to make what is unconscious conscious, to make it useful or within our control (strengthen ego, gain awareness of id/repressed content)

Dream images/symbols have hidden meaning

Introduced defense mechanisms (repression, denial rationalization, projection, isolation, reaction formation (opposite), sublimation (rechanneling energy)

Psychosexual developmental Model: oral, anal, phallic/genital

God & religion dismissed as longing for primary relationship with one’s father

Question 3

What are the major takeaways from Freud’s work to a spiritual leader?

Answer 3

Role of emotions & feelings

Early childhood experiences influence our unconscious beliefs

Thoughts/feelings have meaning

Must view & understand unconscious, like dream work

Therapists & practitioners work to uncover what is hidden

Use with client: hidden beliefs, symbols in dreams & imagery

Question 4

What are the major features of Jung’s psychological model

Answer 4

Core of this model: Archetypes (“Hero’s Quest”)
* Inherited predispositions to respond to the world in certain ways
* Form without content, just the structure
* Snowflake: Each is 6-sided. That’s the structure/archetype. Each can be unique while still expressing that structure.

Innate drive toward self-realization

Symbols, active imagination & dreams are important in counseling

Integrated spirituality & religion, believing psychology & religion related

God is essential part of person, not healed without a spiritual outlook

Personality Components: Ego (conscious self), shadow (unconscious self), Persona (mask for society) & Self (true self)

Question 5

What are the major takeaways from Jung’s work to a spiritual leader?

Answer 5

Wholeness, reconciling our various aspects

Integrating ourselves (oneness with God)

Archetypes & unconscious beliefs come with us into the world & manifest
Focus on broad internal growth through individualization vs narrow persona

Use with clients: shadow self to integrate fully wholeness

Question 6

What are the major features of Rogers’ psychological model

Answer 6

Person-Centered Counseling (therapy as growth experience directed by client, understanding the inherent desire to be whole, complete & self-actualized)

Client has his own answers

Tendency to grow, develop & realize full potential in every living organism

Treated clients with unconditional positive regard

Six Basic Prerequisites for any Counselor:
* Sensitivity
* Stance of Objectivity
* Attitude of respect for Individual
* Self-understanding
* Psychological Knowledge
* Empathy

Question 7

What are the major takeaways from Rogers’ work to a spiritual leader?

Answer 7

Tendency toward health or self-actualization is part of human nature

Capacity for positive change is natural & expected: control of conditions

Client has own answers: direct revelation

Use with clients: unconditional positive regard and inner wisdom, prac model

Question 8

What are the major features of Maslow’s psychological model

Answer 8

Hierarchy of needs (model of human drives): Physiological, Safety, Belonging & Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization (full use of capacities, enjoy peak experiences)

Peak Experiences: moments of bliss, joy, ecstasy; awareness of personal time& space dissolves; mystical, unitive &numinous experiences

Self-actualization is an ongoing process
* One is not self-actualized, but self-actualizing
* Refers to man’s desire for fulfillment, to become in actuality potentiality
* SA people are happier, continue to grow, but not perfect
* Involved in goals outside of themselves
* Healthy SA=productive, pragmatic, purposeful, practical, fulfilled
* Transcendent SA= more aware of sacredness of life, sense the unity of all, experience & value peak experiences as most important

Counselor as coach or guide – client can trust inner wisdom

Synergy: combined action of elements results in a total effect greater than the sum of all the elements independently, cooperation among individuals

Question 9

What are the major takeaways from Maslow’s work to a spiritual leader?

Answer 9

Ongoing process of growth

Identification of transcendence, sanctity of life, inner source of wisdom

Freedom – SA frees us from limitations

Being psychology: assumes we are whole and complete

Hierarchy of needs: use with clients to prioritize needs & beliefs to work on

Question 10

How would you describe Freud’s influence on psychology in a few sentences?

Answer 10

1856-1938 Austria

Put the Focus on what didn’t work; Developed the sick half of psychology

Added a basement (unconscious) to a single story house (conscious)

Question 11

How would you describe Jung’s influence on psychology in a few sentences?

Answer 11

1875-1961 Swiss

Built on Freud

Added an attic to the house (place for the numinous, bigger than basement)

Question 12

How would you describe Rogers’ influence on psychology in a few sentences?

Answer 12

Humanistic
1902-1987 USA

Focused individual drive toward growth, health & adjustment.

Emphasized current life situations more than past.

Question 13

How would you describe Maslow’s influence on psychology in a few sentences?

Answer 13

1908-1970 USA

Instrumental in creating the foundation of spiritual psychology.

One of the founders of Humanistic & Transpersonal Psychology

Distinguished between Deficiency Psychology (motivated by lack, deprivation & avoidance of pain) & Being Psychology (shift focus from coping to striving for full expression as a human being).

Question 14

What are Maslow’s needs?

Answer 14

Physical
Social
Esteem
Significance
Actualization

Question 15

What are Freud’s Defense Mechanisms

Answer 15

Repression: forcing anxiety producing event, idea, or story away from all awareness
Denial: unwilling to accept event that disturbs the ego
Rationalization: finding acceptable reasons for unacceptable thoughts or actions
Reaction Formation: focus on feelings/behaviors that are opposite of your true desire
Projection: your feelings are attributed to coming from others
Regression: de-maturing
Sublimation: energy redirected to new goals
Intellectualization: explaining away
Displacement: aim emotion at something else
Isolation: walled off true feelings anxiety related to an event

Question 16

What is the Sufi model of human nature?

Answer 16

Open the heart qalb and transform the personality.

Sheik

Remembrance and repetition zikr is the way to open the heart
Prayer

Nefs

Question 17

What is the yoga approach to modelling human nature?

Answer 17

Practices for health of chastity, diet, meditation, breath, energy centers and flows through the body, humors, spiritual transformation through physical transformation
We need work

Question 18

What is the zen approach to modelling human nature?

Question 19

What is the Buddhist approach to modelling human nature

Answer 19

4 noble truths
Suffering
Attachment
Eliminate attachment
8 fold path

RIGHT
Speech
Livelihood
Action
Effort
Mindfulness
Concentration
Thought
Understanding

Question 20

What was William James’ contribution to psychology and the understanding of consciousness

Answer 20

James was less interested in specific contents of the psyche than in the very dynamics of consciousness itself, and he pointed out that consciousness has a flow to it.

William James said this, he wrote brilliantly on habit—our habits are the things that tend to make us the most unconscious.

William James’ rise of religious experience or other look[s] at many of the great mystics, it doesn’t look like moments of sudden inspiration from a beautiful sunset or a beautiful piece of scripture. So often, the great mystics talk about the ‘going into the depths,’ ‘going into the dark night of the soul,’ really touching deep pain and darkness in their lives, and then from that going into a very powerful and mystical experience. And, it’s almost like the model we talked about yesterday, where going into the darkness is cleansing: you get rid of so much so when you come out of that space, in a way, one has been cleansed in a certain way and was more open to a really powerful mystical experience.

That most psychologists come to the stream and they bring a bucket, or a basin, or some container, and they kind of scoop this living, flowing water out, and they hold it in a bucket and analyze it, but something gets lost when you take your analysis out of the very dynamics of the flow which consciousness by its very nature is.

One of the interesting things that James points out is that consciousness is an active process, that we do not experience the world in a passive way. Before James, most of the philosophers that were interested in consciousness—Locke, Jung, Spencer, others—assumed that the mind is relatively passive, and that experience operates on the mind, and the mind simply, in a sense, receives the sensations that come in from the outside world. James pointed out that this isn’t true.

James said, and I quote, “my experience is what I agree to attend to.” It’s a very important issue. “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” In other words, attention is a key element in consciousness. We have habits of attention. And, in some sense, you might define a person not by their personality in terms of their personality style, but one way to define a person is: what are their habits of attention? What do they attend to in the outer world, and what do they not attend to? What do they attend to in their inner world, and what do they not attend to?

One person may be extremely attentive to anger. In a sense, they’re hyper-vigilant and they immediately notice if there’re any feelings of anger in anyone around them. They pick it up immediately, and they also may notice if they themselves have any feelings of anger. And, these are people who…for whom anger, that emotion, is one that’s frequently felt and frequently noticed because that’s where they pay attention. The opposite is also true: there’re people who tend to not to pay attention to anger. The classic, almost, in a dialog between a husband and wife and the wife said, “what’re you feeling,” and the husband says, “nothing. I’m not angry.” And it’s not only men, but men seem to do this really well, is to kind of ignore powerful emotions in themselves and in others.

So, in a sense, where – what is one alert to? [To] What does one pay attention? What makes one alert in the environment and what makes one fall asleep are good questions for us, and they’re ways of beginning to understand ourselves. If we don’t pay attention to inner sensations, what happens? We don’t become conscious of them. It’s an interesting way of looking at Freud’s notion and Jung’s notion of the unconscious, which is, to some extent, the unconscious is what we don’t pay attention to. It’s not necessarily repressed in Freud’s sense, but literally, bodily feelings or even thoughts or images that we don’t pay attention to, it’s not that we don’t have them, but they certainly don’t come into consciousness, and to some extent we may even act as though they didn’t occur.

One interesting notion is: to work on one’s attention is to expand one’s consciousness, and there are many spiritual disciplines where that is one of the key elements. In Zen Buddhism, for example, part of Zen sitting is to sit and pay attention to one’s thoughts without being carried away by them. That’s a very simple definition of, at least, the practice of Shikantaza, which is the Soto version of Zazen.

Schopenhauer’s fixed character vs James
“The problem we face is less what act we shall now resolve to do than what being we shall now choose to become.”
So he says we choose by our choices what character we shall have.