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New Age "Asiatic" thought ... is establishing itself as the
hegemonic ideology of global capitalism. (Zizek)

Wednesday, January 31

bollocks

First, try different combinations:

  • Real-Centered Reality Theory
  • Event-Centered Eventuality Theory
  • Banal-Centered Banality Theory

When you've found one that works for you, write a journal article...

Person-Centered Personality Theory: Support from Self-Determination Theory And Positive Psychology

Thomas G. Patterson North Warwickshire NHS Trust, UK

Stephen Joseph University of Nottingham, UK

The present article examines the person-centered personality theory of Carl Rogers in light of recent developments in theory and research within the emergent discipline of positive psychology. In particular, the theoretical observations and research findings from selfdetermination theory are reviewed. It is argued that at the metatheoretical level, person-centered theory and self-determination theory provide similar perspectives, and thus the empirical evidence testing aspects of self-determination theory is equally supportive of the account of personality development, psychological functioning, and the process of therapeutic growth, as hypothesized within person-centered theory. This is an observation that will be of theoretical interest and practical relevance to those who specialize in person-centered therapies. These observations on person-centered metatheoretical assumptions also promise to be of interest to positive psychologists.

Key Words: person-centered theory • self-determination theory • positive psychology

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 47, No. 1, 117-139 (2007) © 2007 SAGE Publications











Friday, January 26

four out of ten

The four diet books at the right are currently listed among Amazon's top-10 bestsellers. Is it any wonder how much the rest of the world loves America? Here's another weight-loss option to consider. Send the money you'd normally use to buy the crap that's making you so fat to people who don't have anything to eat.

CARE World Hunger Campaign

Tonight, literally millions of children will go to bed hungry. Some of them will plead for food, not able to understand that their moms and dads simply have nothing to give them. Others — the little ones — will just cry with empty bellies. And some will be too weak to even cry. Maybe you can imagine watching your own child hurting, dying — and being unable to help. It's any parent's nightmare.

World Hunger Education Service Associates

Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself. There are an estimated 1.08 billion poor people in developing countries who live on $1 a day or less (Global Poverty Monitoring, World Bank). Of these,  an estimated 798 million suffer from chronic hunger, which means that their daily intake of calories is insufficient for them to lead active and healthy lives.

Bread for the World (Hunger Facts: International)

Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes -- one child every five seconds... hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food...

UN World Food Programme and partners

We can all make a difference to the lives of hungry children by making a donation to Fight Hunger. Even a small donation can help: for just US$34 the World Food Programme (WFP) can feed a child for a whole year. All donations we receive... are accumulated until we have a total of at least US$10,000. It is then allocated to help "close the gap" in a WFP school feeding project. (see partners here.)

The total cost of the diet books in the right column is $47.26

Sales Rank: #2
Cost: $14.70

Sales Rank: #3
Cost: $15.60

Sales Rank: #5
Cost: $8.97

Sales Rank: #10
Cost: $7.99



Tuesday, January 9

de-meaning

So honed is my extrasensory perception that I can tell you something really really important about this book without so much as reading the back-cover blurbs -- though I'm sure they're rich indeed. This is a trick I can teach you, too. Go ahead, try it for yourself. First, stare at the cover intently for 2.1 seconds. Then say the first word that comes into your head. Ready? OK, go!

Was the word you thought of "BULLSHIT" -- just like that in big capital letters? If so, congratulations! You're on your way to being psychic. Unless, of course, you picked up a subliminal hint from the callout in the right sidebar. That's a dead giveaway. If you peeked, you're disqualified.

You're also disqualified if you exceeded the 2.1-second limit to notice that the Foreword is by Neale Donald Walsch -- the guy who consistently makes the New Age bestseller lists by having conversations with God in his spare time. When the President of the United States claims to do shit like that, we understand that he's psychotic. When Neale-Baby does it, it's somehow OK. America -- what can I say? -- the beautiful.

And finally, you're disqualified if you had somehow previously learned that author Debbie Ford is a "workshop facilitator" with the Chopra Center for Well Being. Because that's got bullshit written all over it already.

For something less candy-coated but much saner, try this clip from Splitting Up: Enmeshment and Estrangement in the Process of Divorce. It costs more, and yes the words are bigger, but at least it won't insult your intelligence or turn what little dignity you may have left under such circumstances into a two-bit Course-in-Miracles sideshow.

Despite a characterological clash around separation, perhaps the acrimony of unilaterally imposed breakups could be avoided if relationships were either kept to the casual and transient or if people were prepared to expect and accept that even a committed union will someday end. This brings up the question, "Why can't they be civilized?" Chapter I argues that forgoing a lasting union in exchange for a cordial farewell is not a bargain everyone cares to strike. On the contrary, if ex-mates had a relationship of any depth, there will likely be no "friendly" divorce, for when love is dying, attachment needs persist. In addition, rage over the unmet needs the partner used to fulfill overwhelms both parties. Thus, each of the two protagonists undergoes a transition in feelings toward the other, and the mutual love in perpetuity that the couple once sought -- and thought they found -- now tragically turns to animosity and hate. The change from loving a cherished mate to virtually adversarial status during the crisis of breakup represents a fateful and largely unavoidable shift. But no matter how bitter such acrimony may be, this transition from love to hate cannot conveniently be skipped as a mere whistle-stop on the express track to divorce.
Notice the mention of "attachment" in that passage -- right after where it says: "when love is dying." The reference is to attachment theory, which is about how real people have real relationships -- blood, sweat and tears not unincluded. (For more than you may want to know, check this quite amazing Wikipedia article on Attachment in Adults, which I discovered just today.)

In contrast, note how Debbie Ford uses the term the only two times it appears in Spiritual Divorce:

  • page 45: "'...though I'd like it to be different, I will allow it to be as it is.' We give up our attachment to how we want our lives to be and how we want our partner to be."
  • page 125: "... I relinquished my attachment to my life turning out as I had planned and allowed the possibility of having an extraordinary life guide my choices and daily behaviors."

That sounds real Spiritual, I know. And it is, as "spiritual" has come to be construed -- which, if you read between the lines, is as utter BULLSHIT. As previously noted.

This is the same problem I mentioned a couple weeks ago in See Attached. And it entails far more than break-ups and divorces -- of the usual kind. The spiritual v. developmental uses of "attachment" hint at the boundaries of the phantom train-wreck-in-progress that is our current world. I'll have much more to say about all this -- right after I learn to let go with love and, you know, move on...

Calling on the popular tenets of 12-step programs and A Course in Miracles, Ford advises readers to view divorce as a "spiritual wake-up call" that "propels us to a journey of self-discovery," an opportunity to learn the lessons sent by the Universe or God, to "align with the destiny of our higher selves [and] our soul's purpose."

~from the Publishers Weekly review of Spiritual Divorce


Of course Debbie Ford has a website! Here's a little gift I found there -- from her to you.

Be sure to catch the part where she invokes Carl Jung.

And here are her Seven Spiritual Laws of Divorce.



Monday, January 8

the context of no context


betrayal of the assumptive world: a theory of america



Sunday, January 7

the triumph of the therapeutic

One of the unexplained and unexplored assumptions of "the recovery movement" is that we were ever "covered." If not, consider the possibility that many forms of "therapy" actually constitute a kind of re-cover-up. This is not exactly Philip Rieff's point in his book that shares a title with this post -- but close enough for government work. (Click graphic for graphic details.)

I went to the doctor and guess what he told me.
He said girl you better try to have fun
no matter what you do.
But he's a fool.

sinead o'connor ~ nothing compares to you



Friday, January 5

are you positive?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chickenlittelseztheskyisfalling), author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and a founder of Positive Psychology along with Martin E.P. Seligman, is also a member of...

His brief bio there says, in part...

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi's contributions to leisure sciences include an empirically-based model of enjoyment (flow) and the experience sampling technique (ESM) using pagers.

ground control to major thom
your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
can you hear me, major thom?

bowie ~ space oddity



Wednesday, January 3

damage

From the Official Site...
Originally released in February 2004 in one theater in Yelm, Washington, What the BLEEP Do We Know!? went on to become the fifth highest grossing documentary in the United States, with ticket sales of $12 Million.
Guess why Yelm, Washington. Because that's where J.Z. Knight, a.k.a. Ramtha, lives. Where fairy tales do come true. Ask yourself: how much social damage does this represent? And maybe more important: when did it happen?

from the back cover...



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