Category: Psychology
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Psychology as a Field of Study
Psychology is a relatively recent area of research and treatment for “inner” emotional problems, with Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) creating his famous brand of psychoanalysis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. William James (1842-1910) is an American philosopher who favoured pragmatic psychology as a way of explaining the mind. Other well-known leaders in the…
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Western Influencers Down Through The Ages
GREEKS of ANTIQUITY I had my first taste of philosophy at Armidale Teachers College in 1961. This was one of the options that I chose to study, apart from the more mundane teaching subjects that were mandatory. Miss Margaret Mackie enchanted us with stories of the Delphic oracle, as well as introducing me to a…
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Shadows and Synchronicities
The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) created many of the enduring terms for the mind and for the unconscious that have enriched literature and humanity during the twentieth century. Certainly he was firstly a follower of Freud and the psychoanalytic method that Freud instigated. But terms such as “projection”, “archetypes”, “complexes”, “the shadow”, “the collective…
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Networking and Emotional Intelligence
Swedish love coach, Carolin Dahlman, gave a presentation to our writers’ group on the idea of networking in order to be published. Most of the large group of writers who attended were hoping to be published one day. Her message was that, in this fast-moving world, we need to self-promote through the internet and other…
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Are You Left Brained or Right Brained?
I must tread carefully here… I have to be careful when discussing the concept of left versus right brained people, as I’m married to a scientist, who also happens to be a very creative person. He was an actor when we first met, but has for a long time worked in a left-brained (academic) field:…
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The Fear … the Fear…
Fear, like pain, is often a good thing. It’s normal to be afraid of dangerous creatures, such as funnel web spiders. It’s only when fear is out of proportion, and gets in the way of life and living, that it becomes a negative emotion. Some people are afraid of all insects, and all spiders. Even…
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Are you afraid of Death?
When I was sixteen, a boyfriend said during one of our many debates on the existence or not of God: “What if we decided not to believe, and woke up one day to realise we were wrong all along. We’d feel a goon. Maybe we should hedge our bets just in case.” I tried to…
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Things I fear …
Most people don’t admit to being afraid; this refers especially to men. That’s one of the reasons for the denial and stigmatising of mental illness. Showing vulnerable feelings is shameful in many people’s eyes. But everyone is fearful of something, and at certain times in life. A friend once said: “Tell me what you are…