Philosophical realism vs. radical constructivism. The three worlds hypothesis. interpersonal reality-testing. Transcending narcissism in science and in personal life. Illusions. Delusions.
Thanks for your videos professor. I don't have much to add in terms of comments or questions but your lectures have been very enlightening and enjoyable. I greatly appreciate your work and hope you continue to make more videos.
Also, I'm pretty sure the person who articulated the Three-Worlds Theory was Mao Zedong. But I also think that may be a different theory with a similar name. Maybe Karl Popper is your guy?
Dear Jonas, to my shame I am not at all well-versed in Jung. I did study him in the 1960s for a year or so before turning to Freud and the post Freudians. I know there is much of value that I have missed. So I do not feel competent to do what you ask I’m afraid. I think the topic approached clinically is most interesting and someone should do a book on it, whether they draw on young or winter coat or other authors.
Thank you for being one of the few good psychoanalytic resources on CZcams. Your videos are really helpful, whether as introductions or refreshers. I would love if you would do some more videos on Lacan, especially his ideas on trauma and psychosis. Or a comparison of trauma or psychosis across the psychoanalytic schools.
Thanks for the video, just finished it. I think I have a better idea of what reality testing is now. I like that your concept of reality testing includes good reality testing, or what we might call science or just making friends. Until now I had mostly hear the term used to refer to bad reality testing as indicative of pathology. On a different note, I would like to hear more about your view that life contains both positive and negative experiences. I found the argument presented in "Studies in Pessimism" by Schopenhauer to be very convincing and my assumption is usually that lived experience is only negative, but I am aware that I have not experienced everything on offer and would very much like to be proven wrong :)
Thanks professor! Finally get references to "P.S". (Paranoid Schizoid) & "D." (Depressive position) & their relation in our personality stage development. Was this phase progression, from PS to D in our childhood, first introduced by Klein? Comprehend the past lectures a bit more now, though the past 5+ lectures are still facinating to , outside the field, laymen. Your pro. insight & knowledge are greatly appreciated.
Hello. As I enjoy your lectures, curious to know if you have any resources on narcissism, narcissistic families and it's dynamics or structures. Thank you for your work, contributions.
Yes; thanks. “Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky was a Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemis” he wrote “the biosphere“ in 1926.
Don, I was wondering whether you might consider doing a video on Harry Searles and his contributions. I have recently found some old video footage of him on you tube. I have started to read some of his articles/books and found him very insightful and creative. Many thanks again.
Good evening mister Carveth, Considering the path of overcoming narcissism through reality testing, I had regarded the “capacity of concern” rather as a necessity for the individual in the face of war. I was wondering what are your thoughts on war, whether or not it can be regarded as a manifestation of a collective narcissism, and to kindly ask if you have ever considered making a video on it? A video of such would be highly appreciated and, I must mention that I would be the first to watch it! Thank you! Regards, Lorena
Hello don, thank you for your valuable lectures. I would like to ask What about didier anzieu the "skin-ego"? And the "autistic comtiguous position" of Ogden? Can you please speak about them?
That’s a really good idea but, unfortunately, I am not deeply knowledgable about Lacan. This is a job for someone else; I have some younger colleagues who would be able to do so.
@@doncarveth I love how you speak about narcissism in such a way as to make apparent it's universal nature. I remember the conversation I had with my therapist when I was told I had significant narcissistic traits and would likely have been diagnosed with NPD if I was a few years older. I asked him to explain the core of the disorder as he understood it. He told me that he believed it to be a protective overcompensation for unsermountable insecurities and a fragile sense of self. I readily agreed that the reason for my self-centered behavior and intellectual overconfidence was ultimately to address an internal lack of any stable self or self image, but that I had long recognized this and furthermore that it is a feature essential to the human condition! He said this sort of universalizing was a narcissistic way to fake insight. I was right I think
@@doncarveth I think I was right that it is part of the human condition. I was wrong to discount quantitative differences between people in this regard. I had no concept of humility as a separate value from a resistance to narcisism, and for this reason I discounted humility as self-deception. This was wrong, humility is far more complex then merely being a negative facet of narcisism, most of all because humility is interpersonal: a facet of social harmony, of Grace, and of duty. These virtues can be found within, but I dont think they can be discovered independently. It takes the experience of being in harmony with others to see how the same principle might be applied internally. Plato's republic is a beautiful metaphor for the human soul, but you cannot reach his understanding of justice if you begin with a human in isolation. I sense a connection here to reality testing but I'm not sure I understand it yet so let me return to your video for now. Recognizing the universal nature of narcisism is a necessary step towards freedom, but embracing narcisism is quite the opposite. EDIT: This is not news to you judging by your video. I wish it was a more popular view. Sorting people into normal and narcissist and embracing narcisism out of spite are two facets of the same misunderstanding I think, and correcting it creates a much clearer picture.
Don, thanks for the valuable work. Could you do something on Jung, individuation in relation to spirituality and psychoanalysis generally speaking? I don't want to get more specific than that, but I can say that my main interest, personally, is the transformations that start to occur when our ego meets the true self, becomes lethally wounded and allows for release of control and transformation. Best, J
Professor, if I may ask a question that is only tangentially related to the content of this particular topic: Do you yourself believe that primary process thinking predominates in the unconscious? If the answer is yes, then do you also believe that psychoanalytic progress requires the application (or translation?) of primary process thinking to logical, critical thinking?
James football I don’t believe the unconscious is entirely made up of primary process thinking. I think there is secondary process thing that is unconscious. I’m not sure how that affects the rest of your question.
Hi professor, I had a quick question: you mentioned that one should strive to eliminate contrary beliefs (in reference to the climate change deniers), but earlier in the video you also mentioned that one should also strive to achieve the depressive position, which is the reconciliation of two seemingly opposite internal beliefs. Would you mind elaborating on how these two concepts differ? I feel like I might be committing a definitional error of sorts
Excellent question. One way to overcome contradiction is to find the synthesis, beyond thesis and antithesis, the higher order synthesis that negates, preserves, and transcends the opposites. Instead of embracing one or the other of the opposites 16 the third thing that transcends and synthesizes them. This is not a middle position, not seeking the midpoint between the opposites but moving up beyond the opposites to the peak of the triangle. This is dialectical thinking.
Wow this is insightful. Am I right in saying that you can also view regression into the ps-position as a movement from the peak of the triangle to either side? In a way the patient wanders around the triangle in different stages of their life, but with the goal of arriving the peak. I’d imagine that to some extent the patient is prevented from self identifying the peak of the triangle by their own delusions or illusions!
You discuss reality beautifully up until minute 38, when you cease to talk about reality and suddenly subscribe to social constructionism. What sort of consensus do you think climate scientists have regarding relationships? Does their own reality-testing ability perhaps affect their scientific one? How does institutional consensus equal "reason", especially when the average person has no ability to test the reality of anthropogenic climate change the way they can test their relationships or indeed the sea level? This points to an inconsistency in you of the kind you discuss. I hope this is helpful as your videos are.
@@doncarvethThe kind of reality involved in relationships, which you discuss firstly, is embodied and ordinary. The kind of reality discussed by climate scientists, while it is empirical, is outside the reach of the individual observer; it is accessed collectively and is highly symbolic; it is not a good example of the ability to test reality. The other day, for example, they removed signs in some national park which said that there wouldn't be glaciers by 2020, because they are still there. There may be compelling evidence that climate change is happening, but there is also compelling evidence of the biases of government funded scientists, of the propensity toward myth in so-called rational thinkers. These biases are arguably caused by the scientists' own psychic reality, which they are largely ignorant of. The reason the political left and right cannot think isn't that they haven't taken a course on rational thinking, but that their theories are conditioned by their personal inability for reality-testing, that their theoretical symbols inherit the unreality of Mother and Father. You seem to conflate rationality as an embodied ability (the realistic perspective I also take) with rationality in a social constructionist sense ("anthropogenic climate change is happening because authoritative people say so"). Does this make sense? Please let me know if I misunderstood.
Jose Maanmieli Yes, I think you did misunderstand. There was a time when all authorities agreed the world was flat, but it wasn’t. The scientific consensus that a CD is real doesn’t make it real. But if I have to bet I will bet with the scientific consensus until I see evidence to the contrary. I hope that clarifies. Best, DON
@@doncarveth I don't see how that argument shows I misunderstood; it shows that I understood. I agree it's good to bet with the scientific consensus, particularly regarding directly-observable things like the shape of the earth. But what does that have to do with what I said? You aren't referring to a scientific consensus when discussing personal lies and self-deception. Someone who needs to believe experts in order to "realise" that their partner is bad can hardly be said to possess an ability for reality-testing.
Jose Maanmieli therapy is a dialogue in which I help a patient enhance their own reality testing. I do not tell them that their partner is bad, I enable them to do a kind of research, to observe, to question, to study the facts and think about them and arrive at their own hypotheses. Not the same thing as empirical research in the natural sciences but it kind of research in any case. It bears comparison to what detectives do.
Wow, I just stumbled on this video. Fantastic job on explaining your views and diving into reality testing.
Thank you
Thanks for your videos professor. I don't have much to add in terms of comments or questions but your lectures have been very enlightening and enjoyable. I greatly appreciate your work and hope you continue to make more videos.
Also, I'm pretty sure the person who articulated the Three-Worlds Theory was Mao Zedong. But I also think that may be a different theory with a similar name. Maybe Karl Popper is your guy?
Greg, thank you for the encouragement. I do plan to continue.
Thank you once again, Professor. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And God Bless.
I watch all of your lectures don, and eagerly await the next one! Thanks a bunch! Feels very insightful
Shane, good idea, thanks.
Thank You, These videos are really helpfull.
Most welcome
James, thank YOU.
Dear Jonas, to my shame I am not at all well-versed in Jung. I did study him in the 1960s for a year or so before turning to Freud and the post Freudians. I know there is much of value that I have missed. So I do not feel competent to do what you ask I’m afraid. I think the topic approached clinically is most interesting and someone should do a book on it, whether they draw on young or winter coat or other authors.
Many thanks Don! Much appreciated.
Thank you, Chelsea.
I’m happy to hear this, thanks.
Thank you for being one of the few good psychoanalytic resources on CZcams. Your videos are really helpful, whether as introductions or refreshers. I would love if you would do some more videos on Lacan, especially his ideas on trauma and psychosis. Or a comparison of trauma or psychosis across the psychoanalytic schools.
Extremely helpful. Thank you!
Vernadski, may be?
Thank you for lectures!
Thanks for the video, just finished it. I think I have a better idea of what reality testing is now. I like that your concept of reality testing includes good reality testing, or what we might call science or just making friends. Until now I had mostly hear the term used to refer to bad reality testing as indicative of pathology.
On a different note, I would like to hear more about your view that life contains both positive and negative experiences. I found the argument presented in "Studies in Pessimism" by Schopenhauer to be very convincing and my assumption is usually that lived experience is only negative, but I am aware that I have not experienced everything on offer and would very much like to be proven wrong :)
Thanks professor! Finally get references to "P.S". (Paranoid Schizoid) & "D." (Depressive position) & their relation in our personality stage development. Was this phase progression, from PS to D in our childhood, first introduced by Klein?
Comprehend the past lectures a bit more now, though the past 5+ lectures are still facinating to , outside the field, laymen. Your pro. insight & knowledge are greatly appreciated.
Thanks a lot for a great lecture!
Hello. As I enjoy your lectures, curious to know if you have any resources on narcissism, narcissistic families and it's dynamics or structures. Thank you for your work, contributions.
Yes; thanks. “Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky was a Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemis” he wrote “the biosphere“ in 1926.
Don, I was wondering whether you might consider doing a video on Harry Searles and his contributions. I have recently found some old video footage of him on you tube. I have started to read some of his articles/books and found him very insightful and creative. Many thanks again.
Most welcome.
Shane, you’re welcome.
Thanks!
Good evening mister Carveth,
Considering the path of overcoming narcissism through reality testing, I had regarded the “capacity of concern” rather as a necessity for the individual in the face of war. I was wondering what are your thoughts on war, whether or not it can be regarded as a manifestation of a collective narcissism, and to kindly ask if you have ever considered making a video on it? A video of such would be highly appreciated and, I must mention that I would be the first to watch it!
Thank you!
Regards, Lorena
Hello don, thank you for your valuable lectures. I would like to ask What about didier anzieu the "skin-ego"? And the "autistic comtiguous position" of Ogden? Can you please speak about them?
That’s a really good idea but, unfortunately, I am not deeply knowledgable about Lacan. This is a job for someone else; I have some younger colleagues who would be able to do so.
Excellent
Thanks
@@doncarveth I love how you speak about narcissism in such a way as to make apparent it's universal nature. I remember the conversation I had with my therapist when I was told I had significant narcissistic traits and would likely have been diagnosed with NPD if I was a few years older. I asked him to explain the core of the disorder as he understood it. He told me that he believed it to be a protective overcompensation for unsermountable insecurities and a fragile sense of self. I readily agreed that the reason for my self-centered behavior and intellectual overconfidence was ultimately to address an internal lack of any stable self or self image, but that I had long recognized this and furthermore that it is a feature essential to the human condition! He said this sort of universalizing was a narcissistic way to fake insight. I was right I think
@@apostleofazathoth7696 sorry, who was right? Him where are you?
@@doncarveth I think I was right that it is part of the human condition. I was wrong to discount quantitative differences between people in this regard. I had no concept of humility as a separate value from a resistance to narcisism, and for this reason I discounted humility as self-deception. This was wrong, humility is far more complex then merely being a negative facet of narcisism, most of all because humility is interpersonal: a facet of social harmony, of Grace, and of duty. These virtues can be found within, but I dont think they can be discovered independently. It takes the experience of being in harmony with others to see how the same principle might be applied internally. Plato's republic is a beautiful metaphor for the human soul, but you cannot reach his understanding of justice if you begin with a human in isolation. I sense a connection here to reality testing but I'm not sure I understand it yet so let me return to your video for now.
Recognizing the universal nature of narcisism is a necessary step towards freedom, but embracing narcisism is quite the opposite.
EDIT: This is not news to you judging by your video. I wish it was a more popular view. Sorting people into normal and narcissist and embracing narcisism out of spite are two facets of the same misunderstanding I think, and correcting it creates a much clearer picture.
Don, thanks for the valuable work. Could you do something on Jung, individuation in relation to spirituality and psychoanalysis generally speaking? I don't want to get more specific than that, but I can say that my main interest, personally, is the transformations that start to occur when our ego meets the true self, becomes lethally wounded and allows for release of control and transformation. Best, J
Professor, if I may ask a question that is only tangentially related to the content of this particular topic: Do you yourself believe that primary process thinking predominates in the unconscious? If the answer is yes, then do you also believe that psychoanalytic progress requires the application (or translation?) of primary process thinking to logical, critical thinking?
James football I don’t believe the unconscious is entirely made up of primary process thinking. I think there is secondary process thing that is unconscious. I’m not sure how that affects the rest of your question.
Oh Don, I thought you were a dialectical materialist.
Hi professor, I had a quick question: you mentioned that one should strive to eliminate contrary beliefs (in reference to the climate change deniers), but earlier in the video you also mentioned that one should also strive to achieve the depressive position, which is the reconciliation of two seemingly opposite internal beliefs. Would you mind elaborating on how these two concepts differ? I feel like I might be committing a definitional error of sorts
Excellent question. One way to overcome contradiction is to find the synthesis, beyond thesis and antithesis, the higher order synthesis that negates, preserves, and transcends the opposites. Instead of embracing one or the other of the opposites 16 the third thing that transcends and synthesizes them. This is not a middle position, not seeking the midpoint between the opposites but moving up beyond the opposites to the peak of the triangle. This is dialectical thinking.
Wow this is insightful. Am I right in saying that you can also view regression into the ps-position as a movement from the peak of the triangle to either side? In a way the patient wanders around the triangle in different stages of their life, but with the goal of arriving the peak. I’d imagine that to some extent the patient is prevented from self identifying the peak of the triangle by their own delusions or illusions!
Logan Lawrence That would be a regression from PsD or the transcendent position to either PS or D.
11 21 30
You discuss reality beautifully up until minute 38, when you cease to talk about reality and suddenly subscribe to social constructionism. What sort of consensus do you think climate scientists have regarding relationships? Does their own reality-testing ability perhaps affect their scientific one? How does institutional consensus equal "reason", especially when the average person has no ability to test the reality of anthropogenic climate change the way they can test their relationships or indeed the sea level? This points to an inconsistency in you of the kind you discuss. I hope this is helpful as your videos are.
Jose, can you explain this more clearly? I don’t see the inconsistency. Might you be misinterpreting me?
@@doncarvethThe kind of reality involved in relationships, which you discuss firstly, is embodied and ordinary. The kind of reality discussed by climate scientists, while it is empirical, is outside the reach of the individual observer; it is accessed collectively and is highly symbolic; it is not a good example of the ability to test reality. The other day, for example, they removed signs in some national park which said that there wouldn't be glaciers by 2020, because they are still there. There may be compelling evidence that climate change is happening, but there is also compelling evidence of the biases of government funded scientists, of the propensity toward myth in so-called rational thinkers. These biases are arguably caused by the scientists' own psychic reality, which they are largely ignorant of. The reason the political left and right cannot think isn't that they haven't taken a course on rational thinking, but that their theories are conditioned by their personal inability for reality-testing, that their theoretical symbols inherit the unreality of Mother and Father. You seem to conflate rationality as an embodied ability (the realistic perspective I also take) with rationality in a social constructionist sense ("anthropogenic climate change is happening because authoritative people say so"). Does this make sense? Please let me know if I misunderstood.
Jose Maanmieli Yes, I think you did misunderstand. There was a time when all authorities agreed the world was flat, but it wasn’t. The scientific consensus that a CD is real doesn’t make it real. But if I have to bet I will bet with the scientific consensus until I see evidence to the contrary. I hope that clarifies. Best, DON
@@doncarveth I don't see how that argument shows I misunderstood; it shows that I understood. I agree it's good to bet with the scientific consensus, particularly regarding directly-observable things like the shape of the earth. But what does that have to do with what I said? You aren't referring to a scientific consensus when discussing personal lies and self-deception. Someone who needs to believe experts in order to "realise" that their partner is bad can hardly be said to possess an ability for reality-testing.
Jose Maanmieli therapy is a dialogue in which I help a patient enhance their own reality testing. I do not tell them that their partner is bad, I enable them to do a kind of research, to observe, to question, to study the facts and think about them and arrive at their own hypotheses. Not the same thing as empirical research in the natural sciences but it kind of research in any case. It bears comparison to what detectives do.