This is very interesting. I just have to share it.
Excerpt from Kazimierz Dabrowski’s Views on Authentic Mental Health By Elizabeth Mika
“…Mental health of average people is characterized by relatively easy adjustment to changing life conditions (i.e. negative adjustment); if occasional periods of maladjustment occur in their lives, they are not very intense, do not last long and usually do not leave a lasting mark on their psyche. Average individuals are, in general, efficient, effective and productive in their activities, are capable of overcoming difficulties and focus on meeting their basic needs. Among their life goals are usually a successful career, material wealth, high social status and a degree of influence over others. Their emotional lives are characterized by balance: if they experience sadness or depression, for example, these experiences tend to be moderate and do not lead to self-transformative efforts. Their spiritual lives are consistent with their social norms and are typically defined by stereotypical religiosity.
Eminent individuals exhibit a strong desire for realization of their particular talents and related ambitions. Their psychological growth is limited to one-sided development of the talent and life domains associated with its realization. In their psychological make-up, we can observe sometimes significant developmental discrepancies within and among certain functions. This is especially evident when the leading talent or set of special abilities is related to mathematics, physics, technical abilities or politics. These individuals, as Dabrowski observed, typically exhibit little or no desire to awaken and develop their inner milieu, and are not interested in self-transformation. They may show lack of empathy in their relationships with others, and sometimes even aggressiveness with tendencies to cruelty. They are at little, if any, risk for mental disorders.
Individuals engaged in accelerated development, or functioning on the level of personality, exemplify hierarchical, multisided and multilevel mental health, which is an expression of their multidimensional growth. They are focused on development of their own inner psychic milieu and help others in similar efforts. They are devoted to realization of the ever higher hierarchy of values and show strong strivings toward growing and strengthening of underdeveloped parts in their personality. They exhibit signs of increased psychic excitability, especially emotional, imaginational and intellectual; tendencies toward transcending their biological life cycle and psychological type, as well as stereotypical approaches to different areas of life such as education, sociology and psychology, psychopathology and philosophy, etc. Their life history is full of difficult experiences associated with their need for inner psychic transformation and self-perfection. These experiences most often include neuroses and psychoneuroses, which express their strivings toward ever fuller understanding, discovering and creating of a higher reality. Their attitudes toward themselves and others are based on clear perceptions of their concrete personality ideal in its individual and social essence.
From the above descriptions, it is obvious that only the last group – personalities or individuals developing toward personality level through positive disintegration – represent authentic mental health, understood by Dabrowski as multilevel, multidimensional and accelerated personality growth. Admittedly, by these standards, only a small group of people would qualify as mentally healthy – those few gifted individuals endowed with high developmental potential who function on higher levels of development. The overwhelming majority of society falls short of the standards of authentic mental health. Dabrowski concurred with this observation and noted that society at large would not be able to develop and gain a higher level of mental health if it did not have the clear, concrete hierarchy of values exemplified by lives of the few, who can be seen as models of “what ought to be.” These individuals, through their own concrete life examples, show possibilities that awaken and stimulate development – and mental health – of their group and society. The majority of people possess some degree of developmental potential, manifested in their sensitivity, individual talents and special abilities and more or less developed beginnings of self-awareness and inner milieu. That potential, as Dabrowski wrote, can be developed and exemplars of advanced development play a crucial role in this process…
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I wasn’t thinking about myself as I read this, but when I got to the third classification, I saw myself, clearly. I’m such an idiot, I expected to ultimately be called some type of crazy, as this is so common to hear in my case. Instead, I got this fine bit, “Their attitudes toward themselves and others are based on clear perceptions of their concrete personality ideal in its individual and social essence.”
I have this capacity and I will be working this going forward.
Previously, I’ve mentioned, I feel psychology as a field has been degraded. I didn’t come up with idea, independently.
I took my son to see psychotherapist when he was struggling as a pre-teen. This would have been about a dozen years go. He’d been traumatized; we both had.
Listening to our story, the psychologist, who was an older man told us, how the things we’d suffered through, would have never occurred, thirty years prior. That was when he was starting his practice. He explained, at that time, problems were addressed directly and resolved. He was embarrassed at the ineptitude in his own field. He held his hands out, as if the knowledge and prowess had somehow slipped through the collective’s hands.
We benefitted from hearing this. I mean, my son and I, with our 8th house suns, both knew something was off. The psychologist validated our perception.
Over the years, I’ve realized the best material in this field was written 1940’s-1960’s. Eighty years ago!!
I’m sure of this, because when I try to find information, I get nowhere… no one knows, no one cares! Then I find 60 year old reference and read, “Psychologists are all familiar with, X phenomena, that I am trying to learn about, and are well trained on how to deal with these issues…”
I’m thinking, no they aren’t and no they haven’t! It makes me want to scream!
I’ve been saying for years, people have lost the ability to solve problems. In this scenario, it would due to the professional being under-educated if not flat-out miseducated. No one knows what do to, because they can’t understand or even recognize the problem in front of them. They knew what it was in 1960, peeps!
I suspect this is the case in other fields. We’re sort of socialized to believe we’re progressing but when you’re living in a decaying society, that idea doesn’t hold up very well.
Ideas? Remarks? Your own stories or observations?
I agree, I’m currently studying part-time and feeling underwhelmed by the quality of the education I’m receiving. This business school seems mostly interested in sustainability, inclusiveness and the pushing the WEF agenda. I was really hoping they would teach us more practical stuff like corporate law, finance and taxes, how to manage people, quantitative analysis methods. Critical thinking, and supplying the tools to do that, is fading out. Now it seems more of an indoctrination than an education.
Indoctrination at best.
Sorry, but that’s what I think.
I agree.
Departments of Education at universities are heavy on teaching future teachers about inclusivity, affirmation, social justice. And while I see that Nick is in business school, these teaching methods or biases are not exclusive to one department in higher education.
Yes I agree. I took grad level courses for Early childhood cert. I was surprised at how much they emphasized social justice, inclusivity and so forth. The criteria for excellence were barely mentioned.
Sounds more like mis-education than education..But there are some really good online courses in Accounting, Law and practical business methods, and from some pretty high level people..Try that, businesses that want to make money are quitting the woke nonsense at a good clip now….
That is really scary.
I noticed a change in “education” in the 80s, while I was in high school. The focus began to switch from how to learn things, to memorizing facts to test well.
We all have these great research machines in our hands, but it seems like people don’t know how to find information or are too lazy and would rather be spoon fed.
People aren’t using their own brains. Critical thinking is missing and it’s been replaced with buzzwords. Mental/Emotional health is the same. We know all the words, but the meaning has been lost.
Maybe this all needs to happen for the pendulum to get to a sustainable rhythm. It seems like the swing has gone way too far, but maybe we need to see the outer edges before we’re comfortable with the middle.
elsa said: “best material in this field was written 1940’s-1960’s”
Spot On!
…critical thinking and depth valued,
victim consciousness rejected–weakens people
social promotion of independent thinkers,
can do spirit,
organizations strongly invested in ‘local morality’
(see how Carl Jung’s work changes lives…utilized astrology as a therapeutic tool)
…devoted to realization of the ever higher hierarchy of values,
strong strivings toward growing and strengthening
of underdeveloped parts in their personality. (Dombrowski)
a takeaway:
U n – L e a r n i n g
is a full time job.
“Dis-engaging our velcro from nonsense and pretense,
is a first step to goodsense.” ~ Capt. Hook (de-burred)
Ok.. this is way more complicated than it might seem. There’s education, knowledge, learning, cultivation and each of them has become its own thing. It was easier to be clear eyed 60 years ago because in all fields people had less information, less data to deal with. But the more fields expand, the muddier the understanding becomes. That’s just part of our brain’s computational capacity, we can olny take in and hone into a limited amount of information. In astrology terms it’s like a Virgo vs Sagittarius thing. So that lowers the general capacity of any practitioner in any field while it raises the specialised capacity of any practitioner in any field DEPENDING ON THEIR SPECIALTY (and their propensity to delve into specialised knowledge and not just fall back into some generalised, vague knowledge/capacity, knowing a bit of everything but nothing really well). . And that ends up in making it very hard for anyone to find the right person for the right job. That’s all about knowledge, learning and cultivation.
Then there’s education, which is largely political. People tend to approach education rather passively, thinking that it’s something others must organise and provide to them, when in fact, it’s something we should pursue much more consciously. Official policy (and that goes worldwide, there are international committees discussing and deciding on these things, how why and with what criteria in mind is a long and sad story) has directed public education to veer towards quantitative education vs qualitative. Quantitative is focused on skills (and valuable skills are, unfortunately, shaped by employers, so if employers need passive and skilful workers, the skills they will deem useful and promote, will create passive and skilful workers/citizens, as the more non critical the nature of our jobs, the more non critical the rest of our lives will be).
Qualitative education, on the other hand, is that which will promote the general well being of each person, it is often not linked to results but to overall cultivation (there’s that notion again)and it often goes against the narrow minded acquisition of wealth.
What makes things even more complicated is that both quantitative and qualitative education are useful. One needs to learn skills to survive but also ways of becoming independent thinker and better able to pursue one’s own happiness according to individual characteristics. To top it all off, all these can get so complicated and often at odds, that most people/parents/students end up going after the quantitative educational institutions because, well, they are the mainstream ones, they are the more commercially established, and at least, they feel they will give them the best chance of financial survival if not prosperity.
So that’s the reality. What each of us does in this reality, how do we push for personal or overall development and what each of us means by ‘development’, well, that’s a different story.
Excuse the long winded comment but I could not put it more succinctly.
for a critical reading of educational reality (in this case of art institutions but a good example nonetheless) check out this article, rather short and comprehensive
https://www.frieze.com/article/schools-thought
It’s seems passion, desire and intellectual curiosity have taken a back seat to keep up with this cheaply fabricated present world. Mental instability thrives in this world culture Petri dish – While the accelerated search the ground to see where they have misstepped. We have been duped.
When I was having my mental breakdown last fall, one of the things I got diagnosed with was “adjustment disorder.” The doctor who diagnosed me with that said it translated into “you’d be fine if you had a different job.” It amused me that there was such a loosey-goosey term one could be diagnosed with, but it pretty much translated into:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjustment_disorder
“The maladaptive response usually involves otherwise normal emotional and behavioral reactions that manifest more intensely than usual (considering contextual and cultural factors), causing marked distress, preoccupation with the stressor and its consequences, and functional impairment.
Unlike major depression, the disorder is caused by an outside stressor and generally resolves once the individual is able to adapt to the situation.”
Which is to say, I didn’t rebound or keep my self-esteem while being bullied, nitpicked, and harassed for years. I did not, and could not, “easily adjust” to that. (Frankly, I’d like to know who COULD.) I don’t know how you can adapt to always being wrong, bad, and a failure.
I’m not mentally healthy and everyone knows it (but doing better), but if the definition is “rebounds easily from heavy stress,” then who the heck is doing that?!
if, language structures thought, structures emotion,
structures behavior, then…
how do you feel when you change the word
(about your situation) from Breakdown…
to BreakThrough?
I write a substack letter There’s Nothing Wrong With You (And There Never Was) except what we believe is wrong.
“The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.”
Margery Williams
Author
Ok here’s a fast one; My youngest son was suffering with a bad shoulder couple weeks decided he neglected himself should get an x-ray ,goes in. The technician says you’re looking at a shoulder replacement
You’ve got bone on bone .says I’ll refer you to a specialist. He says I’ll work this one out ,last night his shoulder pops back in the socket his shoulder was out of the socket ??however, he had lots of opinion ,suggestion, and specialist thrown at him Couldn’t see that it was out of the socket ??but could see potential money to be made so the view was obscured with the smell of money maybe ?? hope this relates over specialized over opinionated lack of seeing what’s in front of your eyes because you smell bigger fish to fry , YeahBluck Yuck really???
Doctors denying the reality that we are all OK they found new titles to throw around The medical industry is over doing every thing from the pill commercials to the yearly physicals. As is the educational industry , I mean, come on we just heard about the college debt being forgiven as it was dragging us through the mud to be obliged to something we signed yes I mean I’m happy people don’t have a bill, but that was kind of selective buzz it .I just went in for my yearly physical so they would sign a prescription for a year for a thyroid medicine they prescribed to me , because you know, I’m on the spectrum?
I get a bill from the doctor my Medicare won’t seem to pay. She writes the doctor. She gave me a 15 minute talk about depression and a 15 minute talk about alcohol prevention abuse ??? Lady come on that’s pure lying and sending me a bill for it. I have no affection for alcohol and I keep myself happy. I don’t rely on anyone else. I’m pretty down proud of myself anyways the doctor is trying to get $405 from me ha ha good luck with that. She made me wait an hour complained that she’s the only walk-in I was the only person in the building. She proceeded to talk on the phone for 20 minutes and then tell me about her brand new house. She spoke to me in total 10 minutes, I’m disgusted with the education Educational and the medical institutions. We call doctors and hospitals. It’s all a big money grab. these industries control the narrative and assume they know how to take better care of us m better than we can as a family or as an individual. It’s nauseating.
But you know healthcare is mandatory so is our educational system you better go I’m gonna wind up in jail if you’re not in school! I think your doctor is saying the norm. The majority of us are all on the same page if there’s a couple Asterix a couple hang on commas or exclamation points out there they do not represent the majority of us , the Norm no matter what country what economic story we have I think the threads that hold us well with this world is our immeasurable love of nature and human nature we are supportive creatures unfortunately, we are a number to a number of industries that likes saying Cha-Ching Cha-Ching Cha-Ching .
Only reading the work of Rudolf Steiner provides guidelines for me. (Lectures, books, articles – a massive body of work) A scientific study of the spirit. Not for everyone but certainly worth the read.
I read that and that text is a perfect portrait of practically all the people I have known since childhood, or most of them. Finish school, build a career, not get distracted, accumulate wealth and retire. I live in a place where you can only do all that by having a government position, or two, there is no room for more. Anything outside of that is considered mentally unstable. However, among those “solid” people you can find deeply sick personalities, who have chaotic private lives.
I recently saw some basic educational material for children between 7 and 9 years old, the thing is flooded with political indoctrination. Teachers must stick to that when teaching. It is a little scary but it is all so disguised. In the end it is all about the biweekly check. The biweekly check makes you a normal, healthy human being. “Robotic” behavior is deeply rooted in society, technology only made it crudely evident.
Yes I identified with the same third category. My path is positive disintegration or what I’ve called the path of rupture and rapture.
As to the incompetence in the field of psychiatry don’t get me started.
I’ve recently met an excellent therapist who specializes in family scapegoat abuse who sees me as a colleague – our level of clarity is rare.
She fits that third category.
We are rare.
As Pluto finishes his run across my first house I find myself grateful for the liberation he brought. Yes, painful. Excruciatingly positive disintegration.
I took a round-about way of going to college. Graduated from high school in 1966. Two weeks later, I volunteered for the military. I don’t know if the military still does help pay for college tution to vets, but that was when I went to college. Wanting to get a degree in psychology, I too became very quickly disappointed with the academic appproach to human mental health. Everything was geared towards “behavioral psych”, which followed the paths of Freud, Pavlov, and B.F.Skinner. I got into a heated argument with my “guidance counselor” about what was being taught, which I felt was nothing but a bunch of bulls**t! In order to study the more gritty subjects as written about by Carl Jung and others who extolled the virtues of humanism, I was told I would have to go to California! WHAT!??? More bulls**t! I really believe Big “Farma” is behind it all. Behavior can be modified with pills, but having everyone empowered with their higher human potentials are dangerous for their abilty to make money.
In case anyone wants to read more in terms of critical thought/education crisis
“Bernard Stiegler works systematically through the current crisis in education and family relations resulting from the mesmerizing power of marketing technologies. He contends that the greatest threat to social and cultural development is the destruction of young people’s ability to pay critical attention to the world around them. This phenomenon, prevalent throughout the first world, is the calculated result of technical industries”
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17590
“Living in a decaying society” is a powerful phrase. I wonder if you could write more about this, specifically how most don’t realise they’re living in a decaying society and the astrology of it.
Really? You think people don’t realize?
Absolutely. They either accept it as “normal” or minimise. Perhaps something like the frog in boiling water scenario
Thanks for explaining this. I understand now.
I try to think how to do this all the time, but it’s very hard because people are comfortable, believing and this is just a fact. The whole world is designed to make it this way and keep it this way. It’s hard to tell people things they don’t want to know, basically.