Amy McLean's Archive

I am a Harry Potter fanatic and finally had the chance to see the movie this weekend. It killed me to not go to the midnight showing, but being the procrastinator I am, I hadn’t finished my research paper. Anyway, as I was watching it, I began to think of how many characters in the movie are said to be “mad” which prompted me to do some browsing on connections between Harry Potter and mental illness. In doing so, I found a website that states that Harry Potter is not just a magical fairytale, but rather an extended metaphor about mental illness and the institutionalization of children. While I don’t agree with the blogger’s theory, he presented many interesting ways that Freud’s ideas could be applied to Harry’s life.

The central idea is that Hogwarts is a mental institution and that “every major event in the books is a fantasy/delusional version of the experiences that a child would encounter in the course of being institutionalized and forcibly treated for mental illness.” The real world is the world with the Dursely’s and the wizarding world is simply part of Harry’s imagination. His violent encounters with Dudley are what got Harry sent to the mental instition/Hogwarts rather than his magical talents.

To me, his strongest and most interesting point was about Freud’s family romance. Family romance is a fantasy in which a child imagines that their birth parents are not actual, but adoptive parents. Typically, the fantasy parents are noble, or a higher social class than the real parents. Harry fits the mold exactly. He believes that the Dursely’s are not his real parents, but adopted parents and that his real parents are well-known wizards, famous for their great bravery and love in protecting him. Interesting, isn’t it?

I’ll post the link so that ya’ll can read the original blog for yourselves. He presents loose, but interesting ideas about the series. What do ya’ll make of his ideas?

http://freedomainradio.com/BOARD/forums/t/27506.aspx?PageIndex=1

Little Albert Song

My favorite part of this section was looking at the personal life of the psychologist and seeing how it may have affected the ideas that they formed. I think one where there is a strong connection is Watson. The book talked about how his mother was very religious and that the nurse that she employed to care for Watson would tell him that the devil lurked in the dark. The nurse’s story said that if Watson were to go out walking during the night, the devil would come out of the darkness and take him off to Hell. To Watson’s mother this was fine because it was good to be scared of the devil. This was terrifying for Watson and resulted in a life-long phobia of the dark. While he admitted that this phobia lead to a study of instinctual fear of the dark in children, I think it can also be seen in his study of Little Albert. Just like Albert associated a loud noise with the rabbit, Watson associated the devil with the dark. Above is a video about Little Albert. I was actually looking for a video of something else and came across this gem. Give it a listen.

As I read over William James’ “maxims to follow in order to develop good habits and develop good ones” I found myself thinking that they seemed like common sense and wondering how they applied to addictions. James believed that instinctive behavior is modifiable by experience and thus habits are formed. The five ways to form good habit/ break the bad are as follows: surround yourself in a good environment, do not lapse, go all out- do not start slowly, do not talk about it- be about it, and make yourself keep at forming good habits/ breaking bad habits even when it is hard.
To me these seemed like they would go hand in hand with breaking addictions. However when I looked further into 12-step programs, they were not as similar as I would have thought. The APA says that there are 6 basic elements to all 12-step programs: admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction, recognizing a greater power that can give strength, examining past errors with the help of a sponsor, making amends for these errors, learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior, and helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions.
The steps that James was lacking had much to do with the emotional side of altering ones behavior while the 12-step programs focused more on emotion and less on behavioral steps to quitting. It would be interesting to me to know how effective James’ method was in regard to battling addiction in comparison to 12-step programs. It is my opinion that without the focus on behavioral modifications, at least in the beginning, the program would not be as successful.

I found the evolutionary psychologists’ view of love and how one picks a mate very interesting. I disagree with this viewpoint, but I think it is mostly because I do not want to believe that it is true. I want to believe that I am with the person I am with because I like their personality and heart, not their genes. To me, that idea seems so selfish. It seems that if the only reason we are attracted to someone and love them is to give our kids a better shot at survival, then love becomes self-serving. This goes against everything I have ever been taught about a husband/wife relationship.

Also what does this say for couples that marry, have normal, healthy, children and then divorce? Their genes have matched up and done their job of producing healthy offspring. Does the divorce not matter since the union has done the duty of producing healthy children? Along the same lines, what about the couples that have disabled children yet stay together and work through the hard times as a family? If this couple was attracted to one another because of genetics, theoretically there should be no disability to begin with.

It is my personal viewpoint, like others that mentioned this in class, that there are different personality types that we best mesh with and that you can find a good partnership within that range. Again, most of my disagreement on this issue comes from hoping it is not true. I feel like love is a give is a gift, and if I were predestined to give that love to a certain person, it would not be as special.

While some views that Locke held were way off the mark (such as having your children sleep on hard beds, rather than soft to toughen them up) many seem like common sense to me. I find it interesting that he was actually introducing a new way of thinking concerning education. Locke believes that learning should be enjoyable and if this is so, children will want to learn outside of the classroom. Children only dislike school and like playing because they are not forced to play, and they are forced to go to school. Again, common sense. When I was young, my parents always made reading seem like so much fun. I picked out books and we read as a family. This was always a favorite activity of mine. It was only later when I was required to read for Accelerated Reader that I began to think of reading as a chore.

While I agree that making learning enjoyable is the ideal when teaching students, I also can see how this could be counterproductive. Part of Locke’s idea is that you should never force a child to learn. What do you do when a child gets frustrated because he cannot master a task? Without my parents encouragement to keep on trying even when I was frustrated, I would have never mastered fractions, spelling, etc. It is my belief that if you do not force (I think a better word is encourage) some children to learn, they may never develop to their potential.

I was searching for videos and thought this guy was funny. What a singer!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpCK0V48tCc

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such thing there is no law. Ephesians 5:22-23

When we were discussing Aristotle’s Golden Mean in class my mind immediately wandered to the Fruit of the Spirit. We touched on how early Christians incorporated Greek philosophers thoughts into religion and I think this is an example of where they may have seen a fit. There is such a correlation between what Ephesians says about a Spirit filled life and what Aristotle says a life is lived by the principle of the Golden Mean.

‘Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility’ versus ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.’

The Greeks put great emphasis on self-control. Aristotle believed that character was revealed by what prevailed- a person’s reason or his appetite to be in excess. This, to me, seems like a Christian struggling to live a Spirit led life while resisting the temptations of Satan (maybe like an “appetite”.) When one becomes prideful they are in excess of the virtue, humility, and thus sinning. The person has let their appetite control them.

I just found this to be an interesting connection worth sharing.