Author: Barbara Jo Brothers
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9781560240891
Category : Autonomy (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
This insightful new volume explores the many and varied aspects of the process of intimacy as it relates to autonomy in couples therapy. The nature of intimacy in relationships is explored from a variety of vantage points by experienced therapists with a wide range of backgrounds. This thought-provoking book will provide all therapists and mental health/counseling professionals with insight into the subject of intimacy and the problems involved in attaining access to the intimacy process in therapy with couples. Given that a large portion of the population of our culture suffers from various forms of intimacy disorder, Intimate Autonomy: Autonomous Intimacy brings a variety of viewpoints of utmost importance to all who are involved in couples therapy. In-depth coverage of various factors related to intimacy and autonomy is provided by this intriguing book. Some of the topics examined include the myth and reality of intimate autonomy in couples relationships, narcissistic vulnerability in marriage, the fear of loneliness as the basic and universal drive motivating intimacy, intimate autonomy as it relates to the Gestalt therapy concept of the "I-Thou" relationship, a comparison of transference in therapy to falling in love, the use of existential reflection with Vietnam veterans in marital therapy to increase meaning awareness, and a clinical guide to the use of a conceptualization of marital intimacy based on the idea of a matrix of four basic characteristics of intimacy. Mental health professionals, pastoral counsellors, clergy, and psychotherapists will find plenty of food-for-thought on the subject of intimacy and autonomy in couples relationships in this fascinating volume.
Intimate Autonomy
Author: Barbara Jo Brothers
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9781560240891
Category : Autonomy (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
This insightful new volume explores the many and varied aspects of the process of intimacy as it relates to autonomy in couples therapy. The nature of intimacy in relationships is explored from a variety of vantage points by experienced therapists with a wide range of backgrounds. This thought-provoking book will provide all therapists and mental health/counseling professionals with insight into the subject of intimacy and the problems involved in attaining access to the intimacy process in therapy with couples. Given that a large portion of the population of our culture suffers from various forms of intimacy disorder, Intimate Autonomy: Autonomous Intimacy brings a variety of viewpoints of utmost importance to all who are involved in couples therapy. In-depth coverage of various factors related to intimacy and autonomy is provided by this intriguing book. Some of the topics examined include the myth and reality of intimate autonomy in couples relationships, narcissistic vulnerability in marriage, the fear of loneliness as the basic and universal drive motivating intimacy, intimate autonomy as it relates to the Gestalt therapy concept of the "I-Thou" relationship, a comparison of transference in therapy to falling in love, the use of existential reflection with Vietnam veterans in marital therapy to increase meaning awareness, and a clinical guide to the use of a conceptualization of marital intimacy based on the idea of a matrix of four basic characteristics of intimacy. Mental health professionals, pastoral counsellors, clergy, and psychotherapists will find plenty of food-for-thought on the subject of intimacy and autonomy in couples relationships in this fascinating volume.
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9781560240891
Category : Autonomy (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
This insightful new volume explores the many and varied aspects of the process of intimacy as it relates to autonomy in couples therapy. The nature of intimacy in relationships is explored from a variety of vantage points by experienced therapists with a wide range of backgrounds. This thought-provoking book will provide all therapists and mental health/counseling professionals with insight into the subject of intimacy and the problems involved in attaining access to the intimacy process in therapy with couples. Given that a large portion of the population of our culture suffers from various forms of intimacy disorder, Intimate Autonomy: Autonomous Intimacy brings a variety of viewpoints of utmost importance to all who are involved in couples therapy. In-depth coverage of various factors related to intimacy and autonomy is provided by this intriguing book. Some of the topics examined include the myth and reality of intimate autonomy in couples relationships, narcissistic vulnerability in marriage, the fear of loneliness as the basic and universal drive motivating intimacy, intimate autonomy as it relates to the Gestalt therapy concept of the "I-Thou" relationship, a comparison of transference in therapy to falling in love, the use of existential reflection with Vietnam veterans in marital therapy to increase meaning awareness, and a clinical guide to the use of a conceptualization of marital intimacy based on the idea of a matrix of four basic characteristics of intimacy. Mental health professionals, pastoral counsellors, clergy, and psychotherapists will find plenty of food-for-thought on the subject of intimacy and autonomy in couples relationships in this fascinating volume.
Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy
Author: Debra J. Mashek
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135632405
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 465
Book Description
This handbook brings together the latest thinking on the scientific study of closeness and intimacy from some of the most active and widely recognized relationship scholars in social and clinical psychology, communication studies, and related disciplines. Each contributing author defines their understanding of the meaning of closeness and intimacy; summarizes existing research and provides an overview of a theoretical framework; presents new ideas, applications, and previously unstated theoretical connections; and provides cross-references to other chapters to further integrate the material. The Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and students from social, clinical, and developmental psychology; family studies; counseling; and communication.
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1135632405
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 465
Book Description
This handbook brings together the latest thinking on the scientific study of closeness and intimacy from some of the most active and widely recognized relationship scholars in social and clinical psychology, communication studies, and related disciplines. Each contributing author defines their understanding of the meaning of closeness and intimacy; summarizes existing research and provides an overview of a theoretical framework; presents new ideas, applications, and previously unstated theoretical connections; and provides cross-references to other chapters to further integrate the material. The Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and students from social, clinical, and developmental psychology; family studies; counseling; and communication.
Consciousness and Loneliness: Theoria and Praxis
Author: Ben Mijuskovic
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004385975
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 517
Book Description
Current research claims loneliness is passively caused by external conditions: environmental, cultural, situational, and even chemical imbalances in the brain and hence avoidable. In this book, the author argues that loneliness is actively constituted by acts of reflexive self-consciousness (Kant) and transcendent intentionality (Husserl) and is, therefore, unavoidable. This work employs a historical, conceptual, and interdisciplinary approach (philosophy, psychology, literature, sociology, etc.) criticizing both psychoanalysis and neuroscience. The book pits materialism, mechanism, determinism, empiricism, phenomenalism, behaviorism, and the neurosciences against dualism, both subjective and objective idealism, rationalism, freedom, phenomenology, and existentialism. It offers a dynamic of loneliness, whose spontaneous subconscious sources undercuts the unconscious of Freud and the “computerism” of the neurosciences by challenging their claims to be predictive sciences. "Mijuscovic demonstrates a psychological framework in which the self is motivated by a fear of loneliness and the desire for intimacy. The author thoroughly substantiates his perspective via a ‘History of Ideas’ format, which engages Plato’s metaphor of ‘the Battle between the Gods and the Giants,’ an allusion to the historical debate between idealists and materialists. Ultimately, these two groups and their allies attempt to address the question: can senseless matter think? The idealists, with whom Mijuscovic identifies, assert the reality of the self, reflexive self-consciousness, and the spontaneity of the mind." -Joshua Marcus Cragle, University of Amsterdam, Journal of Thought, Fall/Winter 2019 "Ben Mijuskovic continues his ambitious life project in this fifth installment of an interdisciplinary series in consciousness and loneliness within philosophical, psychological, and literary discourse. Mijuskovic possesses the unique combination of academic, clinical, and professional experience to cross the aisle between philosophers and therapists. Such a CV emboldens his argument for a return to a metaphysical argument for human consciousness culminating in intrinsic and inevitable loneliness. Embracing this universal reality is the first step to philosophical grounding and psychological wholeness. His methodology, argumentation, and conclusions tend to be highly provocative in the age of contemporary neuroscientific and pharmaceutical predominance." -Michael D. Bobo, Norco College, Philosophy in Review 40.1 (February 2020)
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004385975
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 517
Book Description
Current research claims loneliness is passively caused by external conditions: environmental, cultural, situational, and even chemical imbalances in the brain and hence avoidable. In this book, the author argues that loneliness is actively constituted by acts of reflexive self-consciousness (Kant) and transcendent intentionality (Husserl) and is, therefore, unavoidable. This work employs a historical, conceptual, and interdisciplinary approach (philosophy, psychology, literature, sociology, etc.) criticizing both psychoanalysis and neuroscience. The book pits materialism, mechanism, determinism, empiricism, phenomenalism, behaviorism, and the neurosciences against dualism, both subjective and objective idealism, rationalism, freedom, phenomenology, and existentialism. It offers a dynamic of loneliness, whose spontaneous subconscious sources undercuts the unconscious of Freud and the “computerism” of the neurosciences by challenging their claims to be predictive sciences. "Mijuscovic demonstrates a psychological framework in which the self is motivated by a fear of loneliness and the desire for intimacy. The author thoroughly substantiates his perspective via a ‘History of Ideas’ format, which engages Plato’s metaphor of ‘the Battle between the Gods and the Giants,’ an allusion to the historical debate between idealists and materialists. Ultimately, these two groups and their allies attempt to address the question: can senseless matter think? The idealists, with whom Mijuscovic identifies, assert the reality of the self, reflexive self-consciousness, and the spontaneity of the mind." -Joshua Marcus Cragle, University of Amsterdam, Journal of Thought, Fall/Winter 2019 "Ben Mijuskovic continues his ambitious life project in this fifth installment of an interdisciplinary series in consciousness and loneliness within philosophical, psychological, and literary discourse. Mijuskovic possesses the unique combination of academic, clinical, and professional experience to cross the aisle between philosophers and therapists. Such a CV emboldens his argument for a return to a metaphysical argument for human consciousness culminating in intrinsic and inevitable loneliness. Embracing this universal reality is the first step to philosophical grounding and psychological wholeness. His methodology, argumentation, and conclusions tend to be highly provocative in the age of contemporary neuroscientific and pharmaceutical predominance." -Michael D. Bobo, Norco College, Philosophy in Review 40.1 (February 2020)
The Philosophical Roots of Loneliness and Intimacy
Author: Ben Lazare Mijuskovic
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030906027
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Book Description
Ben Lazare Mijuskovic has spent 40 years researching theories of consciousness in relation to human loneliness, using an interdisciplinary and "history of ideas" approach. In this book, Mijuskovic combines Kant's theory of reflexive self-consciousness with Husserl's transcendent principle of intentionality to describe the distinctive philosophical, psychological, and sociological roots of loneliness and intimacy. He argues that loneliness is innate, unavoidable, and constituted by the structure of self-consciousness itself.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030906027
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Book Description
Ben Lazare Mijuskovic has spent 40 years researching theories of consciousness in relation to human loneliness, using an interdisciplinary and "history of ideas" approach. In this book, Mijuskovic combines Kant's theory of reflexive self-consciousness with Husserl's transcendent principle of intentionality to describe the distinctive philosophical, psychological, and sociological roots of loneliness and intimacy. He argues that loneliness is innate, unavoidable, and constituted by the structure of self-consciousness itself.
Well-Being Writ Large
Author: Barbara Jo Brothers
Publisher: Beyond Words Publishing
ISBN: 1582706999
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576
Book Description
A comprehensive collection of Virginia Satir’s research and teachings around the nature of humanity, author Barbara Jo Brothers has written the first ever tribute to the Mother of Family Therapy’s life-work, capturing the essence of Satir’s groundbreaking philosophies about the human race and the impact human’s have on the Earth. In her career, the “Mother of Family Therapy” Virginia Satir strove to make life work better: for the individual, for families, for the entire world. With a training objective of “becoming more fully human,” Virginia believed that the principles for peace within families could be extrapolated to peace within the “world family.” Having formulated her groundbreaking philosophies from her clinical observations of hundreds of families in multiple countries, Virginia’s practices continue to impact the world at large, spreading peace and understanding. More than just a testament to Virginia’s legacy, Well-Being Writ Large is a window into her thinking—a “biography” of a deeper understanding of the nature of the human being and how that human being might live better in her or his world. Author, licensed clinical social worker, and Virginia scholar Barbara Jo Brothers has painstakingly researched and drawn from Virginia’s works—including books, articles, interviews, and transcribed lectures—personal notes made over the course of Satir’s career, and direct conversations during Brothers’s own extensive residential training to compile the most complete, most essential collection of Virginia Satir’s work.
Publisher: Beyond Words Publishing
ISBN: 1582706999
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576
Book Description
A comprehensive collection of Virginia Satir’s research and teachings around the nature of humanity, author Barbara Jo Brothers has written the first ever tribute to the Mother of Family Therapy’s life-work, capturing the essence of Satir’s groundbreaking philosophies about the human race and the impact human’s have on the Earth. In her career, the “Mother of Family Therapy” Virginia Satir strove to make life work better: for the individual, for families, for the entire world. With a training objective of “becoming more fully human,” Virginia believed that the principles for peace within families could be extrapolated to peace within the “world family.” Having formulated her groundbreaking philosophies from her clinical observations of hundreds of families in multiple countries, Virginia’s practices continue to impact the world at large, spreading peace and understanding. More than just a testament to Virginia’s legacy, Well-Being Writ Large is a window into her thinking—a “biography” of a deeper understanding of the nature of the human being and how that human being might live better in her or his world. Author, licensed clinical social worker, and Virginia scholar Barbara Jo Brothers has painstakingly researched and drawn from Virginia’s works—including books, articles, interviews, and transcribed lectures—personal notes made over the course of Satir’s career, and direct conversations during Brothers’s own extensive residential training to compile the most complete, most essential collection of Virginia Satir’s work.
Theories of Consciousness and the Problem of Evil in the History of Ideas
Author: Ben Lazare Mijuskovic
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031264053
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
In this book, Ben Lazare Mijuskovic uses both an interdisciplinary and History of Ideas approach to discuss four forms of intertwined theories of human consciousness and reflexive self-consciousness (Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel; Schopenhauer’s subconscious irrational Will; Brentano and Husserl’s transcendent intentionality; and Freud’s dynamic ego). Mijuskovic explores these theories within the context of psychological issues, where the discussion is undergirded by the conflict between loneliness and intimacy. He also explores them in the context of ethics, where the dynamic is between the values of good and evil. The book historically traces these issues in both a personal as well as a political framework.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031264053
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
In this book, Ben Lazare Mijuskovic uses both an interdisciplinary and History of Ideas approach to discuss four forms of intertwined theories of human consciousness and reflexive self-consciousness (Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel; Schopenhauer’s subconscious irrational Will; Brentano and Husserl’s transcendent intentionality; and Freud’s dynamic ego). Mijuskovic explores these theories within the context of psychological issues, where the discussion is undergirded by the conflict between loneliness and intimacy. He also explores them in the context of ethics, where the dynamic is between the values of good and evil. The book historically traces these issues in both a personal as well as a political framework.
Couples Connecting
Author: Barbara Jo Brothers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135414890
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
Help clients grow into loving commitment!Making and keeping commitments is more difficult today than ever. About half of all marriages end in divorce, and serial monogamy is not uncommon. Couples Connecting: Prerequisites of Intimacy identifies the cultural and personal attitudes that impede commitment and impair intimacy, and it gives you the therapeutic tools to work with clients who don't know how to build a lasting love.Couples Connecting examines why past theories of self-actualization are now failing. Because our culture emphasizes individualistic values, people do not learn how to create and share bonds with others. Therapists must become developmental partners for clients who need to overcome failures of maturation in order to have successful, loving relationships with their partner. This essential guide offers you practical techniques and case studies, as well the theoretical underpinnings to deal with this crisis of intimacy. Couples Connecting provides specific, insightful studies on overcoming obstacles to genuine commitment, including: identifying patterns of anger in distressed and nondistressed couples ways to help engaged couples overcome the fear of following negative family patterns using family systems theory and psychodynamics to understand developmental issues in marriage suggestions for clinical practice with couples who fear intimacy implications of ten essential factors in intimacyCouples Connecting will help you design and use techniques to promote personal growth and bridge gaps between clients to help couples achieve satisfying and intimate relationships.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135414890
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
Help clients grow into loving commitment!Making and keeping commitments is more difficult today than ever. About half of all marriages end in divorce, and serial monogamy is not uncommon. Couples Connecting: Prerequisites of Intimacy identifies the cultural and personal attitudes that impede commitment and impair intimacy, and it gives you the therapeutic tools to work with clients who don't know how to build a lasting love.Couples Connecting examines why past theories of self-actualization are now failing. Because our culture emphasizes individualistic values, people do not learn how to create and share bonds with others. Therapists must become developmental partners for clients who need to overcome failures of maturation in order to have successful, loving relationships with their partner. This essential guide offers you practical techniques and case studies, as well the theoretical underpinnings to deal with this crisis of intimacy. Couples Connecting provides specific, insightful studies on overcoming obstacles to genuine commitment, including: identifying patterns of anger in distressed and nondistressed couples ways to help engaged couples overcome the fear of following negative family patterns using family systems theory and psychodynamics to understand developmental issues in marriage suggestions for clinical practice with couples who fear intimacy implications of ten essential factors in intimacyCouples Connecting will help you design and use techniques to promote personal growth and bridge gaps between clients to help couples achieve satisfying and intimate relationships.
Addressing Loneliness
Author: Ami Sha'ked
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317684230
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
This is a volume on loneliness and what can be done to address its pain. While most books simply describe loneliness from one author’s point of view, this volume includes a comprehensive review of the literature and employs top researchers in the field discuss their own research findings, conclusions and clinical experience. It explores the relationship between loneliness and sexuality, loneliness and optimism, and parental loneliness during pregnancy and childbirth. It also addresses loneliness throughout the life cycle in children, adolescents, the elderly and disabled, leading to a variety of coping and therapeutic modalities aimed at helping those who suffer from loneliness in its various forms.
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317684230
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
This is a volume on loneliness and what can be done to address its pain. While most books simply describe loneliness from one author’s point of view, this volume includes a comprehensive review of the literature and employs top researchers in the field discuss their own research findings, conclusions and clinical experience. It explores the relationship between loneliness and sexuality, loneliness and optimism, and parental loneliness during pregnancy and childbirth. It also addresses loneliness throughout the life cycle in children, adolescents, the elderly and disabled, leading to a variety of coping and therapeutic modalities aimed at helping those who suffer from loneliness in its various forms.
Relationship Therapy with Same-Sex Couples
Author: Jerry Bigner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317786882
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 205
Book Description
Use new knowledge of the LGBT culture to ably counsel same-sex couples! Relationship Therapy with Same-Sex Couples provides psychologists, therapists, social workers, and counselors with an overview of the array of treatment issues they may face when working with couples from the LGBT community. This book highlights the experiences of therapists who have encountered concerns particular to LGBT clientsespecially those in intimate relationships. This intriguing resource covers clinical issues, sex therapy, special situations, and training issues for helping therapists successfully counsel same-sex couples. Relationship Therapy with Same-Sex Couples explores the therapist’s role in working through universal issues in couples therapysuch as communication problems, infidelity, and decision-makingwith a focus on how therapy should differ for same-sex couples. This important guide also identifies which problems are unique to couples as an aspect of their sexual orientation, including gender role socialization and societal oppression. With this book, you will be able provide appropriate therapy without over- or under-attributing a couple’s problems to their LGBT status. This book shows how experienced therapists have developed methods for working with: gay and lesbian parents heterosexual spouses and ex-spouses couples in HIV serodiscordant relationships lesbian bed death couple and family dynamics supporting transgender and sexual reassignment issues and more! Relationship Therapy with Same-Sex Couples contains several features for you to utilize in your own practice, including the Sexual Orientation Matrix for Supervision (SOMS) to assist supervisors and trainers in preparing supervisees to work with lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients. The book also offers guidelines for heterosexual therapists who plan to work with same-sex couples and how to overcome any residual homophobia or heterosexual guilt. Lastly, this essential sourcebook reviews several articles, book chapters, books, and Web sites that are relevant to same-sex couples and the therapists who work with them.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317786882
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 205
Book Description
Use new knowledge of the LGBT culture to ably counsel same-sex couples! Relationship Therapy with Same-Sex Couples provides psychologists, therapists, social workers, and counselors with an overview of the array of treatment issues they may face when working with couples from the LGBT community. This book highlights the experiences of therapists who have encountered concerns particular to LGBT clientsespecially those in intimate relationships. This intriguing resource covers clinical issues, sex therapy, special situations, and training issues for helping therapists successfully counsel same-sex couples. Relationship Therapy with Same-Sex Couples explores the therapist’s role in working through universal issues in couples therapysuch as communication problems, infidelity, and decision-makingwith a focus on how therapy should differ for same-sex couples. This important guide also identifies which problems are unique to couples as an aspect of their sexual orientation, including gender role socialization and societal oppression. With this book, you will be able provide appropriate therapy without over- or under-attributing a couple’s problems to their LGBT status. This book shows how experienced therapists have developed methods for working with: gay and lesbian parents heterosexual spouses and ex-spouses couples in HIV serodiscordant relationships lesbian bed death couple and family dynamics supporting transgender and sexual reassignment issues and more! Relationship Therapy with Same-Sex Couples contains several features for you to utilize in your own practice, including the Sexual Orientation Matrix for Supervision (SOMS) to assist supervisors and trainers in preparing supervisees to work with lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients. The book also offers guidelines for heterosexual therapists who plan to work with same-sex couples and how to overcome any residual homophobia or heterosexual guilt. Lastly, this essential sourcebook reviews several articles, book chapters, books, and Web sites that are relevant to same-sex couples and the therapists who work with them.
Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature
Author: Ben Lazare Mijuskovic
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1469789337
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Drawing on the fields of psychology, literature, and philosophy, Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature argues that loneliness has been the universal concern of mankind since the Greek myths and dramas, the dialogues of Plato, and the treatises of Aristotle. Author Ben Lazare Mijuskovic, whose insights are culled from both his theoretical studies and his practical experiences, contends that loneliness has constituted a universal theme of Western thought from the Hellenic age into the contemporary period. In Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature, he shows how man has always felt alone and that the meaning of man is loneliness. Presenting both a discussion and a philosophical inquiry into the nature of loneliness, Mijuskovic cites examples from more than one hundred writers on loneliness, including Erich Fromm, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Clark Moustakas, Rollo May, and James Howard in psychology; Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Thomas Wolfe and William Golding in literature; and Descartes, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre in philosophy. Insightful and comprehensive, Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature demonstrates that loneliness is the basic nature of humans and is an unavoidable condition that all must face. European Review, 21:2 (May, 2013), 309-311. Ben Mijuskovic, Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse. 2012). Ben Lazare Mijuskovic offers in his book a very different approach to loneliness. According to him, far from being an occasional or temporary phenomenon, loneliness—or better the fear of loneliness—is the strongest motivational drive in human beings. He argues that “following the replenishment of air, water, nourishment, and sleep, the most insistent and immediate necessity is man desire to escape his loneliness,” to avoid the feeling of existential, human isolation” (p xxx). The Leibnizian image of the monad—as a self-enclosed “windowless” being—gives an acute portrait of this oppressive prison. To support this thesis, Mijuskovic uses an interdisciplinary approach--philosophy, psychology, and literature—through which the “picture of man as continually fighting to escape the quasi-solipsistic prison of his frightening solitude” reverberates. Besides insisting on the primacy of our human concern to struggle with the spectre of loneliness, Mijuskovic has sought to account for the reasons why this is the case. The core of his argumentation relies on a theory of consciousness. In Western thought three dominant models can be distinguished: (a) the self-consciousness or reflexive model; (b) the empirical or behavioral model; and (c) the intentional or phenomenological model. According to the last two models, it is difficult, if not inconceivable, to understand how loneliness is even possible. Only the theory that attributes a reflexive nature to the powers of the mind can adequately explain loneliness. The very constitution of our consciousness determines our confinement. “When a human being successfully ‘reflects’ on his self, reflexively captures his own intrinsically unique situation, he grasps (self-consciously) the nothingness of his existence as a ‘transcendental condition’—universal, necessary (a priori—structuring his entire being-in-the-world. This originary level of recognition is the ground-source for his sensory-cognitive awareness of loneliness” (p. 13). Silvana Mandolesi
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1469789337
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
Drawing on the fields of psychology, literature, and philosophy, Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature argues that loneliness has been the universal concern of mankind since the Greek myths and dramas, the dialogues of Plato, and the treatises of Aristotle. Author Ben Lazare Mijuskovic, whose insights are culled from both his theoretical studies and his practical experiences, contends that loneliness has constituted a universal theme of Western thought from the Hellenic age into the contemporary period. In Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature, he shows how man has always felt alone and that the meaning of man is loneliness. Presenting both a discussion and a philosophical inquiry into the nature of loneliness, Mijuskovic cites examples from more than one hundred writers on loneliness, including Erich Fromm, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Clark Moustakas, Rollo May, and James Howard in psychology; Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Thomas Wolfe and William Golding in literature; and Descartes, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre in philosophy. Insightful and comprehensive, Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature demonstrates that loneliness is the basic nature of humans and is an unavoidable condition that all must face. European Review, 21:2 (May, 2013), 309-311. Ben Mijuskovic, Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse. 2012). Ben Lazare Mijuskovic offers in his book a very different approach to loneliness. According to him, far from being an occasional or temporary phenomenon, loneliness—or better the fear of loneliness—is the strongest motivational drive in human beings. He argues that “following the replenishment of air, water, nourishment, and sleep, the most insistent and immediate necessity is man desire to escape his loneliness,” to avoid the feeling of existential, human isolation” (p xxx). The Leibnizian image of the monad—as a self-enclosed “windowless” being—gives an acute portrait of this oppressive prison. To support this thesis, Mijuskovic uses an interdisciplinary approach--philosophy, psychology, and literature—through which the “picture of man as continually fighting to escape the quasi-solipsistic prison of his frightening solitude” reverberates. Besides insisting on the primacy of our human concern to struggle with the spectre of loneliness, Mijuskovic has sought to account for the reasons why this is the case. The core of his argumentation relies on a theory of consciousness. In Western thought three dominant models can be distinguished: (a) the self-consciousness or reflexive model; (b) the empirical or behavioral model; and (c) the intentional or phenomenological model. According to the last two models, it is difficult, if not inconceivable, to understand how loneliness is even possible. Only the theory that attributes a reflexive nature to the powers of the mind can adequately explain loneliness. The very constitution of our consciousness determines our confinement. “When a human being successfully ‘reflects’ on his self, reflexively captures his own intrinsically unique situation, he grasps (self-consciously) the nothingness of his existence as a ‘transcendental condition’—universal, necessary (a priori—structuring his entire being-in-the-world. This originary level of recognition is the ground-source for his sensory-cognitive awareness of loneliness” (p. 13). Silvana Mandolesi