Lesson 3: Past, Present, and Future


Attention

The graphic is merely to represent the fact that the stories we make of our pasts, how we tell it, affects not only our present state, but also our beliefs in the possibilities available in the future....


Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Define and explain Happiness.
  • Define and explain Nihilism.
  • Define and explain Hedonism.
  • Define and explain the hedonic treadmill.
  • Utilize Erik Erikson's Developmental theory and the idea of the bio-psycho-social model and ages and stages models of development and transpose the lens of positive psychology to the analysis of Erikson's Crises and the idea of past, present and future experiences.

Teaching

Most of the teaching section is taken from my own dissertation. I am attempting to provide my own framework in which to bring Happiness back into the realm of the therapeutic experience- My thesis focuses on the Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual importance of Happiness and Hope.  It presented a distillation of traditional psychological modalities, approaches, and paradigms; but, more importantly I presented a connective thread on which all humans walk the razors edge or dance in life exuberant.

The difference is not a vast, impassable chasm that separates the unwell from the well. We are all the same. The difference is in toward what direction the clinician helps the client to focus. The relevance of this unitive approach is exponential. To know that one is human, that humans suffer, and that suffering can create strength can lead practitioners to approach the 'talking cure' as, in fact, a curative.
A healing process, by which the individual patient leads the way and the clinician guides and participates as a conduit to mental health, not, as so often is the case, as the diagnostician of a mental illness.

Taking into account all aspects of the individual participant, simultaneously, is to form a new definition of the therapeutic alliance and in the work as a co-creation of complementing affects. I describe, in detail, each component of our external and internal system of ever changing and adjusting experience, and I reframe our entire experience as an interaction of events that breathes life into the new organism called: human if we intentional attempt to do so.

Each of us, with biographies and biology that dictate our behaviors, each of us endure our own experiences, expectations, and play out our roles varying context to context, unfolding within the social circumstances with which we are faced. Our individual energy is transformative as we touch the boundaries of others' if we are purposeful about making that so.
It is a goal, this intangible 'we;' identifying features in others, deriving self-esteem and efficacy from these interactions and associations- that is the power and process of living, that is receptivity.  A unitive experience if we attempt to transform our experiences into meaningful lessons and life purpose.

An understanding of Universality is essential. The relationship is the energy/alchemy/process. That alliance can become brilliance incarnate, it can become vivid, and within it, healing can begin; or, within the interactions of self with others, defenses can solidify and damage can be done. Sometimes it may be a cloudy promulgation of defiance or surrender, growth or regression, or sometimes no movement at all. It is in the listening and offering. It is in the Interdependence and Connection. It is the undefended mirror that reflects another's face in our own, and vice versa; but only if we choose to look, and disbelieve the Shadow's whisper that we will turn to stone if we admit a fear or strength.

The touchstone of alchemy, my term for the therapeutic alliance we can share with others when our leaden selves become golden within that combination of interaction of person and experience, and therefore the energy pushing happiness forward, through the tragedies, comedies, and dramas of life, leading to pathos or joy for which there is hunger or starvation, is the therapeutic venue ripe for controlled emotional experimentation that can assist the individual in gaining insight and potential. The keystone is safety. Within the therapeutic alliance, within one another, and within one's self each must feel safe and connected. "Only by discovering alchemy have I clearly understood that the Unconscious is a process and that ego's rapports with the unconscious and his [sic] contents initiate an evolution, more precisely a real metamorphoses of the psyche" (http://www.carl-jung.net/alchemy.html, 2011, p. 2).
What if all things are connected? A butterfly flaps its wings and the course of life changes, weather is altered, and so behaviors. The genesis of this, the "butterfly effect," coursed from the creation of the Chaos theory and the "sensitive dependence on initial conditions"

http://www.artisticgenius.com/butterfly.htm, Donaghey, n.d.

Could it be that tiny variations, behaviors, energy and action create ripple effects that may transcend space and time in an esoteric manner that has a place in reality, and the human psyche's conception of happiness and well-being?

Click HERE to view this directly on YouTube  

Click HERE to view this directly on YouTube

Click HERE to view this directly on YouTube  


Assessment

Lesson 3 Quiz

  1. Define Nihilism and give examples
  2. Define Hedonism and give examples.
  3. Define the Adaptation Principle.
  4. Define Hedonic Treadmill and illustrate your understanding by summarizing.
  5. Trace the history of psychology from philosophical Hedonism to Positive Psychology and include historic social/economic/political events and scientific discoveries that may have influenced subjects of study, direction of research and the ultimate embrace of positive psychology research.
  6. Review Erik Erikson's theory regarding stages of development, and summarize how conceptualizing positive psychology's framework (strengths based and value laden orientation- keeping in mind Erikson's resolutions result in virtues) may be used as a guide to raising healthy/happy individuals.

Lesson 3 Discussion

Create a discussion on blackboard for an experienced event- please select something that is not too traumatizing, painful or that can trigger you. It can be positive or negative, but it has to be an experience that helped shape you.

The key to this assignment is the detail of your feelings toward the events and the way it impacted your future decisions and identity. Please use psychology's vocabulary and essential self-defining experiences. Remember the bio-psycho-social model (the interactions between genetic and biological factors, psychology- identity and esteem factors- and social interactions).

Use at least 500 words to describe this. I want you to READ everyone's response. There are not many people in this class- I want you to respond in 100 words to at least two other classmates regarding something similar in your own life or convey the understanding of the experiences impact.