Negative Psychology
Episodes
75 episodes
Negative Capability
Psychological work does not involve 'forcing ourselves to be a particular way'. That isn't psychological work - that's simply fear. Whenever we find that we are either trying to suppress or promote some particular state of mind ...
Soul Sickness
We know fair bit about physical sickness these days, but frighteningly little (if anything at all) about Jung refers to as 'sickness of the soul'. We don't acknowledge that there is such a thing. This doesn't mean that we won't 'learn about it ...
Mental Health versus Control
We conflate 'mental health' and 'control' (or 'regulation') such that - as far as we're concerned - the more control we have the better off we will be, mental health-wise. This is clearly not the case - the more we try to control or re...
Western Mindfulness [1]
Western mindfulness is 'mindfulness with an agenda', the problem here being that when mindfulness has an agenda then it isn't mindfulness. It's not mindfulness but control.
Advantage Seeking [1]
No one ever improved their mental health - as we like to say - by 'seeking the advantage'. when we seek the advantage then this isn't to our advantage. 'Nothing fails like success', says Alan Watts....
The State of Psychological Naivety [1]
There is no shame in being 'psychologically naive' - what we're doing in our culture is enforcing this state by trying to say that our ridiculous naivety in psychological matters is actually 'knowledge'. It isn't knowledge, howe...
Social Interaction
Any social interactions is usually an ambush - it's an ambush because what's generally going on is control not communication. We're being given someone else's mind, someone else's world-view, and this is control rather than comm...
The Predator Gives Us Its Mind
Communication can only occur on a level playing field (which is to say, when no one voice is given greater weight of validity than any other), and this is precisely what NEVER happens in society! Society is all about conforming to the do...
Self-blaming [2]
Self-blaming is a mechanical reflex that we are powerless to stop. It isn't really us blaming ourselves however, it's the thinking mind. The thinking mind is a mechanical reflex that controls us rather than vice versa.
Self-blaming [1]
Self-blaming is a mechanical reflex that we are powerless to stop. It isn't really us blaming ourselves however, it's the thinking mind. The thinking mind is a mechanical reflex that controls us rather than vice versa.
Approval and Disapproval [2]
To belong to a group we must conform to its rules, but this means we are 'putting the rules above ourselves', and doing this leaves us 'wide open to being abused and exploited by the system'...
Inequality and Control
Mental health and 'autonomy' are one and the same thing. Power compromises autonomy - it eventually destroys it entirely - and because we live in a world that is BASED on control, that is ALL ABOUT control, we completely disregard the whole top...
Controlling the controller (1)
To paraphrase Alan watts: We try to instruct ourselves to change (so that we can be a way that is more to our liking) but the one who needs to be changed is the one doing the instructing.
When we can't help interfering
Mental health can't be brought about in any sort of 'procedural' way, no matter how sophisticated the procedures may be. Mental health is not a goal, but rather it is something that appears by itself when we stop compulsively interfering...
Exposure to reality [1]
When we disagree we agree without meaning to. 'Disagreeing' isn't empowering, therefore - it's a sucker move...
Paradoxical Change
The measure of our lack of psychological insight as a culture is our deep conviction that it is possible for us to change ourselves, change our 'inner state', just because we want to! This is pure, dumb wish-fulfillment that is driven by our pr...
Universal Exploitation
Psychological insulation is psychic death, yet if we don't insulate we become subject to exploitation. The world we live in - we might say - is a predatory one that sells itself as being our friend...
Not Accepting Isn't Disagreement
Just because we don't accept someone's reality doesn't mean that we disagree with them. If we disagree with someone that means we are essentially in agreement with them.
Psychological Defence
To safeguard ourselves psychologically in everyday life we have to be able to 'bite back' - if we aren't for whatever reason able to do this then we will be exploited to the hilt by practically everyone we meet...
