Individuation: The Path of Self-Discovery
Carl Gustav Jung: In the mirror of the human mind, Carl Gustav Jung shines as a master whose words act as a powerful torch, illuminating the dark corners of the human psyche. Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and the creator of analytical psychology, akin to a modern-day Socrates, called upon people to explore the inner depths […]
Behind the Mask of the False Self: Dancing with Abandonment
Within each of us, a small, mysterious world rages. A world where two faces collide – the true and the false. It’s a dance of the soul that each of us performs, often unconsciously, as we try to find our place under the sun. The true self is raw, spontaneous, what we are when no […]
The Struggle for Love in Toxic Relationships
Dear readers, Welcome back to my blog, where we dive into the deep waters of human emotions and relationships. Today, I want to talk about something that can be crucial in understanding toxic love affairs – the concept of moral defense. One might say that love is like a battle. However, we often find ourselves […]
Shame, envy and jealousy
Are you craving attention from a person whose focus is on someone else? Do you desire attributes that are possessed by another? When you experience jealousy or envy, you have measured your sense of your self against your image of another person and arrived at a conclusion that was motivated by the biological signal of […]
Integrative psychotherapy
The term “integrative” as it is used in integrative psychotherapy has a number of meanings.
Primarily it refers to the process of integrating the personality, which includes helping clients to become aware of and assimilate the contents of their fragmented and fixated ego states into an integrated ego, to develop a sense of self that decreases the need for defense mechanisms and a life script, and to re engage the world and relationships with full contact.
Yin and Yang
Each quality that we hold is at one end of a continuum and is accompanied by the opposite end of that continuum. For example, as we possess an ability to love, we also possess an ability to hate. Just as the light needs the dark for it to exist, each quality has its polar opposite. One can imagine the yin and yang, which links to concepts of duality and interconnectedness. When we focus on our self-concept, there are some qualities, which we more or less, own or disown. Below are a few examples of polarities in relation to self-concept:
Life script
Life script is another major theoretical concept within transactional analysis.
Basically, life script is the idea that we tend to have an unconscious life plan – like a story – that we make up as children about ourselves and our lives, which we tend to keep to and follow even when we are adults.
Relational needs
Relational needs are the needs unique to interpersonal contact. They are not the basic needs of life—such as food, air, or proper temperature—but the essential elements that enhance the quality of life and a sense of self-in-relationship. Relational needs are the component parts of a universal human desire for intimate relationship. Although there may be a large number of relational needs, the eight described in this article represent those needs that clients most frequently describe as they talk about significant relationships.
The Paradoxical Theory of Change
Do you feel that you are trying very hard to change something in your life or something about you but no matter how hard you push yourself to change, you don’t end up getting the results or outcomes you desire? Do you find you can force some change in the short term but it doesn’t stick and you soon fall back into your old habits and patterns?
Narcissism and loneliness
One of the most common hindrances to healthy human relationships can be boiled down to narcissism. It’s the unspoken expectation that the people close to you should be moved by your same interests and passions, have your same values and beliefs, see the world from your same vantage point.