Humanistic Psychology: Getting Started, Lecture 3

Great, you give a "wings" and a structure to our mind, Professor!

To spread my wings on the winds of the world that's why I do everything.

This video made a profound insight click for me! Perhaps, I’ll be a little vulnerable and open up in this public form. I have struggled with drug addiction and I have sought much treatment(rehab, counseling, medications). But none of this has seemed to be effective for very long. Often when I asked or when I was asked “why do you use drugs?” The answers applied were of this nature: because you have a genetic predisposition, because you’re trying to escape your feelings of depression, why the depression? Perhaps again, a predisposition and a current lack of serotonin. Have some Zoloft, etc. But when I really reflect and consider why I use drugs it’s because it provides a sense adventure and new experience, it gives a beautiful coloring to my subjective experience, it makes everything seem to be full of magic and meaning. I wasn’t really trying to escape but rather discover! I used because I sought meaning and capacity to appreciate and even transcend common experience. And to be honest, to a considerable extent, drugs to provide these things temporarily. The problem is that you can’t simply manufacture meaning and passion without devastating consequences. So now instead of drugs I reach for Nietzsche, Jung, Maslow, etc. I seek deeper connectivity with others. I think the fact that modern psychology misses the “animating spirit” of what we really want in a study of the human psyche it provides us with, perhaps true, but lifeless answers. Perhaps, this is why treatment for drug addiction is so ineffective overall. The real spirit and nature of the problem is being lost for mechanistic, objective answers. Simple objective answers are nice and all but something like drug addiction is a deeply complex subjective problem. Small wonder why a naturalistic scientific approach to the problem is failing utterly and unfortunately, costing so many lives.

Very good stuff, Eric. Biology is only a small comoponent among many that explains how or why we operate.

Eric Dodson is the biggest gangsta in Georgia