This is one of our LIVE shows that my longtime friend Jerry Trumbule, ABD, and I did on Blog Talk Radio. We had a wide ranging conversation, including a discussion of the new HBO series, “In Treatment”– a dramatic series about psychotherapy. Other topics we touched on were erotic transference and countertransference, the Internet as a prosthesis for the brain, evidence that evolution is speeding up, camera-aided memory for Alzheimer’s patients, and recent findings about certain blind people’s ability to sense light and what implications that might have for the mystical “third eye,” among other topics.
(Psychology podcast by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.)
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Thankyou for the ‘heads up’ re In Treatment, I subscribed, downloaded the first 10 episodes and ate them up within 3 days. When I arrived home tonight I discovered that episodes 11 – 14 had magically appeared in my podcast list – you have to love technology! The show is a fabulous insight into the vulnerabilities of us humans, therapist included! We are in it together and if the only insight is that the Shadow has to be met and spoken with then the programmes are worth the HBO budget!
Once again, thankyou for Shrinkrap and your professional authenticity and, I think I can also add… your personal integrity after listening to Live 6 …
I’m exploring the concept of Alchemy as a metaphor for the artmaking process with my Year 12 students at the moment. We are looking at Jung’s ideas and they are finding many parallels between the creative process and individuation – of course! As a metaphor, it resounds with all types of process work and it is providing rich ground for some inner work for both my students and myself. Each time I revisit the idea the frequency of my dreams increases – providing fertile ground for further class discussion.
Life is good and the subconscious – full of adventure : )
Not about anything in particular, but this reminded me of the Second Life discussion. Looks interesting. Hi!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPOxuOCGi9I
I guess I will go download the Buddhist show. I just started reading lots of Schopenhauer for my dissertation!
P.S.
Speaking of transference…I remember reading in Freud that therapy doesn’t work without transference and that it has to be “positive transference” because a negative transference will destroy the whole process….but I am wondering what happens when / if someone is constantly self-evaluating in the moment (in the room / in therapy) and thinking “Is this transference?”, “Am I doing this right?”, “Is *this* how should I be feeling about this (therapist) if I am undergoing positive transference?”, — I mean I guess that the theory is that even thinking *those* things is in someway treating the therapist as the person in your life that makes you think constant self-evaluating thoughts about your performance in regards to personal interaction? Is that what someone knowledgeable about such things would say? That it is a type of recursive embeddedness of such thoughts that nevertheless have as their foundation the fundamental fact of that relation in the moment in the room? Also, (really naive question) does it matter what sex your therapist is? Because I cannot say that I have ever fallen in love with my therapist. Is that because I don’t have personal issues with romantic love? Or is it because I am straight and my therapists have all been women? Or is there a third reason (multiplicity of reasons)? Sorry to be so dumb about this stuff but I always wondered if people who were a little (but not a lot) knowledgeable about psychoanalysis / therapy / transference were at a disadvantage because they were always “looking behind the curtain”. But then I remember that in order to even become a psychoanalyst you must first go through your own analysis and so most people who *are* psychoanalysts must have been consciously self-reflective about the nature of the practice even in the moments that they were engaged in it.
Did that make sense? I am sure it is impossible to answer here but maybe on a show sometime….
I really liked the topic of “uneven relationships” in this show.
Which reminds me of one of my alltime favourite films that is an example of…. how shall I say it… extremely dysfunctional relationsships in the academic world 🙂
The title of the film is “The Decline of the American Empire” and the director is the Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand.
It’s a very bleak and cynical look at a bunch of college professors, their complicated and weird sexual and marital life and what kind of people they have become over the years. I think I don’t have to add that none of these characters is very lovable.
Looking deeper it is also a very sad story about the misuse of power and the loss of innocence and ideals.
I hope that this film is not a mirror of the everyday academical folk. Just kidding 🙂
Reinhard from Austria