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Author: xbzg
Ethics of ambiguity: de Beauvoir’s ways of being
Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity is a pretty intense book. I found it equal parts exhilarating, terrifying and confusing. I couldn’t put it down, but I also had to go back to read over it in frustration. I loved it and I hated it for being so mind-expanding and disarming. I think it has…
Carl Rogers’ six conditions of therapeutic personality change
The six conditions are the therapeutic factors that Carl Rogers proposed as “necessary and sufficient” for personality change as part of his theory of psychotherapy. According to his theory, “if these six conditions exist, and continue over a period of time, this is sufficient. The process of constructive personality change will follow” (Rogers, C. 1957)…
Authenticity in existentialism: the four authentic actions
In this article I explore authentic living grounded in existential and other humanistic philosophies. It is anchored in four actions (becoming, choosing, connecting, unknowing) that challenge many of the popular ideas of what it means to be an authentic person. What is it to be an authentic person? Our popular understanding of being an authentic…
Pain and me
I live with pain. Pain rules my life as a kind dictator. It limits what I can do and how much I enjoy things. But it also makes me reflect on my lifestyle and builds my resilience to loss. There are many things I do to manage my pain – never in the hope it…
Was Diogenes an authentic person? An existential reflection
Popular explorations of what it means to be an authentic person often include ideas such as “living in accordance with our own values and ideals”, “despite challenging circumstances” and “regardless of other people’s opinions”. Some people may also include “unique, idiosyncratic preferences” in their definitions. This may be why Diogenes of Sinope, the ancient Socratic…
Existential concerns: Death, Aloneness, Freedom and Meaning
Existential concerns are deeply significant areas of human enquiry. They relate to the core of human existence and they can form the basis of much avoidance, fear and anxiety. They can also be important catalysts for growth, as they make us face repressed anxiety and facilitate our living with renewed enthusiasm and meaning. Irvin Yalom…
Overview of Jung’s psychology
Carl Jung was a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychologist who studied with Freud until their theoretical differences brought them apart. Jung went on to develop a unique school within psychoanalysis based on his model of the self and the methodology to work within it: a framework of symbols, dreamwork, dialogue, active imagination, and inner exploration. To…
Exploring the central humanistic ideas
The humanist tradition spans philosophy, literature, ethics, psychology and many other areas of human endeavour across the centuries. This makes it hard to define and delimit, but Sarah Bakewell does just that brilliantly in her book “Humanly possible”. — In this article, I wanted to lean on Sarah’s attempt to name the core ideas in…
Hegel’s Master/Slave Dialectic: collective healing in our complex world
Hegel proposed the Master/Slave thought experiment to understand human’s need for self-consciousness through the genuine recognition of (and by) others. Hegel argues that self-consciousness is not just being alive or thinking, but about knowing yourself as a subject. Unlike Descartes, for whom thinking alone proves existence (‘I think, therefore I am’), Hegel argues that existence…
