In Individuation and Narcissism, Mario Jacoby starts by recalling Ovid’s tale of Narcissus, he then explains the differences between the great psychoanalytic thinkers of our time, including Freud, Jung, Neumann, Kohut – particularly their thoughts on narcissism, why it develops, and the signs that it manifests. In addition, there is a thorough discussion of the … Read more
Robert Johnson starts Owning Your Shadow with Jung’s favorite story. Without effort or limit, the water of life wanted to make itself known on earth, so it appeared through an artesian well. People drank this magic water and were nourished, but eventually, they chose to escape this Edenic state. They erupted walls regulations, charged admission, … Read more
C.A Meier, the author of Personality – The Individuation Process, was a Jungian psychiatrist – in this book, he writes about Jung’s work into personality types and the process of individuation, including thorough explanations and origins of ideas like the anima, animus, the shadow, and persona. Features of Introverts vs Extroverts The Introvert The introvert’s … Read more
What is Sublimation? We all have impulses to do socially inappropriate things, we have sexual fantasies, that if we manifest in public, would be less than ideal. A solution to this plight of ours comes through sublimation, the redirecting of libidinal energy towards socially beneficial pursuits. This idea from psychology was popularized by Freud, but … Read more
Science as Falsification by Popper defines the way the modern mind approaches theories but there is something profound (pun intended) that is lacking in that approach. The paper explains the replication crisis in psychology. But two things occur to me. While Popper criticizes Adler’s theories for not being falsifiable and thus problematic, it is a … Read more
In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky describes the psychology of the underground man. He is someone you may relate to, and in the unlikely event that you do not at all relate to him, it is likely that you know people that do. The underground man is rational, intelligent, and perceptive. He claims to be afflicted … Read more
The Courage to be Disliked, which was wildly popular in Japan, was written by Ichiro Kishimi, who did for Adler what Plato did for Socrates. Alfred Adler was considered one of the three pillars of psychology, alongside Freud and Jung. The latter psychoanalysts focused on analyzing the unconscious, an aetiological approach (that seeks to determine past causes … Read more
It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of—namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always … Read more
The term “inferiority complex” was coined by psychologist Alfred Adler. The idea is that each individual is born with a weakness, this may be physical or not. For example, someone might be born with bad vision, hearing, or locomotion. These children tend to develop insecurities about these shortcomings (organ deficiencies) that they deliberately choose to spend … Read more
Adler was not interested in theories of the unconscious (psychoanalysis) the way Freud and Jung were. Instead, he was concerned with the practical world, particularly the social world. Understanding Human Nature is a book about understanding why people do the things they do, what arbitrary influences they had in childhood, and what attitudes hold them … Read more