I’m really, really way behind on my reading for class and that’s because I don’t have one of the books and also because I’ve been focused too much on working and not paying attention in class, missing out on good shit.
It’s fascinating really, all the things that I’m learning about the great psychologists of all time. Learning about how they viewed human interaction and how they were shunned for their ideas when they first presented them. Freud’s books were even burned.
To sit down and read about why people interact with others in a certain way both pleases and astounds me. Did you know that some people will say that another person feels a certain way about them, but really it’s how that individual feels about the other person.
Like…Me coming up with all of those stories about how The Prez was feeling me. He wasn’t. It was all ME projecting my feelings onto him, convincing myself that he cared about me because I cared about him.
I almost fell on the floor when I sat back and examined other attitudes that I have. Like…I think all men are disgusted by me when they get to know me. Am I projecting my own feelings of disgust and self hatred onto men? Wow.
I don’t feel disgusted with myself though. I think I’m pretty great it’s just no man has noticed it yet.
Also, did you know that Freud thought people who are gifted creatively do so out of a need to express their aggression?
What about a reaction formation? It’s when a person has an undesireable impulse, an impulse to do something that society deems unacceptable so instead of acting on that impulse, they do the opposite. The book gives a shocking example: Kill them with kindness.
There’s this term called displacement that teaches us that when a person is hurt and needs to release their tension and they can’t release it on the person who caused the pain, they will find someone who is seemingly weaker to release their anger on.
Wowsa!
I don’t know man…studying has never been this much fun.