Madness or Genius? Schopenhauer’s Prescient Insights into Memory, Trauma and the Irrational Mind

Madness or Genius? Schopenhauer’s Prescient Insights into Memory, Trauma and the Irrational Mind

The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is renowned for his profound and often controversial views on the nature of reality, ethics, aesthetics, and the human condition. Among his most intriguing and influential ideas are his reflections on the phenomena of madness and genius, which he saw as two sides of the same coin - deviations from ordinary cognition that reveal deeper truths about the mind and the world. Schopenhauer's perspective on these topics was deeply rooted in his overarching...

Why IFS Works: Philosophy, Biology, and Neuroexperience

Why IFS Works: Philosophy, Biology, and Neuroexperience

Why Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Works: Exploring the Philosophical, Biological, and Neuroexperiential Foundations The Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, developed by Richard Schwartz, has gained significant recognition as an effective therapeutic approach for treating a wide range of mental health issues. This essay explores the philosophical, biological, and neuroexperiential underpinnings of IFS, shedding light on why this approach works. We will delve into the concept of multiple consciousness, the...

Meta-Cognition: Observing Conciousness Itself to Heal Trauma

Meta-Cognition: Observing Conciousness Itself to Heal Trauma

"Pain - has an Element of Blank - It cannot recollect When it begun - or if there were A time when it was not - It has no Future - but itself - Its Infinite realms contain Its Past - enlightened to perceive New Periods - of Pain." -Emily Dickinson, Pain - has an Element of Blank (1890) In this haunting stanza, Emily Dickinson captures the timeless, all-consuming nature of deep emotional pain. When we are in the throes of anxiety, depression, or trauma, it can feel as though this state has no beginning and no end....

The Dictionary of Norse Mythology for Jungian Psychology

The Dictionary of Norse Mythology for Jungian Psychology

Encyclopedia of Norse Myth for Depth Psychology and Comparative Religion Norse mythology, the pre-Christian religious beliefs and legends of the Scandinavian peoples, offers a rich tapestry of gods, goddesses, heroes, and cosmic events that continue to captivate the modern imagination. Yet compared to the well-known and widely worshipped deities of ancient Greece and Rome, the gods of the Norse often feel more enigmatic, their stories more fragmentary and elusive. This sense of mystery is partly due to the nature...

PTSD and Intuition: Did Our Reptile Ancestors have a Literal Third Eye?

PTSD and Intuition: Did Our Reptile Ancestors have a Literal Third Eye?

The Subcortical Brain and the Roots of the Unconscious The human mind is a vast and complex landscape, with conscious awareness representing only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface lies a realm of unconscious processes, instincts, and archetypal patterns that profoundly shape our perceptions, emotions, and behaviors. In recent years, advances in neuroscience and depth psychology have begun to shed light on the evolutionary roots of the unconscious mind and its intimate connection to the subcortical brain...

Turning Anger Into a Signpost: Understanding and Channeling Your Rage

Turning Anger Into a Signpost: Understanding and Channeling Your Rage

How can I get over on Past Anger? Anger is a powerful and often misunderstood emotion. Many of us have been taught to view anger as a purely negative force - something to be suppressed, avoided, or released in cathartic outbursts. But what if anger could be more than just a destructive impulse? What if it could serve as a signpost, pointing us towards important truths about ourselves and our relationships to the world around us? At its core, anger is a signal that there is a mismatch between our inner experience...

The Dark Reflection: Adam Curtis’s “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”

The Dark Reflection: Adam Curtis’s “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”

What is the Point of All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. These opening lines from Richard Brautigan's 1967 poem "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" paint a seductive picture: a world where nature and technology blend seamlessly, where humans and machines coexist in a kind of symbiotic dance. But beneath the surface of...

Science or Science-Flavored Capitalism? Deconstructing the Evidence-Based Practice Paradigm

Science or Science-Flavored Capitalism? Deconstructing the Evidence-Based Practice Paradigm

Evidence-based practice (EBP) has become the dominant paradigm in healthcare and mental health, promising to ground clinical decision-making in rigorous scientific evidence. Proponents argue that by privileging data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic reviews, EBP can optimize treatment outcomes, standardize best practices, and eliminate waste from the healthcare system. However, a closer examination of the EBP movement reveals a number of epistemological, methodological, and political issues...

The Limits of Behaviorism: Rediscovering the Soul in Psychotherapy

The Limits of Behaviorism: Rediscovering the Soul in Psychotherapy

 For much of the 20th century, the dominant paradigm in psychology was behaviorism, which focused on observable behavior and sought to understand the mind through the lens of stimulus-response conditioning. This approach gave rise to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which remains one of the most widely practiced forms of psychotherapy today. While CBT has proven effective for certain conditions, particularly anxiety disorders, it is fundamentally limited by its reliance on a narrow, mechanistic view of the...

Generational Cycles and Parts-Based Therapy: Understanding Generational Differences as Overreactions

Generational Cycles and Parts-Based Therapy: Understanding Generational Differences as Overreactions

The Generational Cycles of Trauma: A Parts-Based Perspective It has long been pointed out be different schools of therapy that the patterns that repeat in the individual psyche on a micro level also mirror the family system at a mezzo and the society at a macro level. Parts-based therapy, a post-jungian modality rooted in the recognition of distinct internalized aspects of the self, offers a valuable lens through which to understand these generational cycles. Parts-based therapies represent an evolution of...