Anna Brinkman's Archive

General Thoughts on Psychology…

8 Commentsby   |  05.02.11  |  The Schools of Psychology (Part IV)

I feel like this post may be more just spilling the thoughts of my mind than writing about a specific subject, but now that we are nearing the end of our time in this class I looked back on the theories that we have learned about. Psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanisitic, exisistential, etc. And within each of those big categories, there are smaller ones to choose from. What makes someone choose what approach to take in therapy? I do not plan on being a counselor, but for those of you who are, I am curious as to what one you identify with and why? I feel like each of the theories have positive and negative attributes. It is interesting to see how something as simple as the background of your family and how you grew up can influence how you approach therapy. Each approach seems to build off oof the other and it makes me wonder about the future and how much each theory we know now will grow and what new approaches we will see in the future.

Free Will (not the Rush song)

4 Commentsby   |  03.21.11  |  Pre-Renaissance (Part I)

Ok, I know the song does not really have a lot to do with William James and his view of free will, I just thought it would be a nice intro. The idea of free will has always been interesting to me, especially as a Christian because of the whole choices or the will of God thing that pops up so often. I like how obvious it seems when James says that because you can choose to believe in free will then it is true. I feel like having free will is something that God has blessed us with. I do not think God’s goal in making us was to have us run down the path he set out for us with no decisions involved. We were given a brain and the ability to make decisions, so it is obvious we are supposed to use it for something, right?

God is Dead

3 Commentsby   |  02.21.11  |  Renaissance/Premodern (Part II)

I was hoping the title would catch your attention, becasuse it certainly did mine. This is perhaps the best known statements made by Friedrich Nietzsche. When I first saw the caption I was like wow…what is his problem? I know he is an existentialist, but really? As I read on I realized what he meant by it, and it was quite profound. When he said this, he was speaking about the influences of European society and how they had become so secular and far from God that they more or less “killed” Him because God was a symbol of values and upholding righteousness and Nietzsche was seeing values being tossed out the window all around him.

Nietzsche’s view of God being a symbol of values showed how important keeping the God “alive” in society would be and without God there would be no objective truth or universal perspective. Perspectives would be individualized and we could only rely on our own perspectives. This introduces the concept of perspectivism, which says all ideas come from particular perspectives. That implys that no way of seeing things is actually true and that is how one of Nietzsche’s contributions to the existentialist view came about.

Plato and Aristotle: The Relationship of Teacher and Student

11 Commentsby   |  02.02.11  |  Pre-Renaissance (Part I)

I love seeing how much views differed and how rapidly they changed in the times of Plato and Aristotle. When I look at where the world is right now as far as developing new theories on things and new discoveries and inventions and it all seems like it is pretty stagnant. Seeing Plato descending from Socrates with these new views and then Aristotle coming off of that and developing a whole new perspective on life, souls, etc is encouraging.

I really love to look at the teacher/student relationship Plato and Aristotle had with each other and see how different their views are. I feel that today there is more encouragement towards accepting other people’s opinions with a blind eye rather than taking their opinions and forming ones of your own. Not to say that being inquisitive is frowned upon, but it seems that the goals of philosphers in the times of Plato and Aristotle were to grow in their knowledge of the world (both physical and nonphysical) whether it agreed or disagreed with those around them.

Taking Plato’s belief in reason and the mind “remembering” things and then comparing that to Aristotle’s view that the mind gains knowledge through experience–they look really different. It is really encouraging to see that different views can arise between teacher and pupil and yet both be accepted by different worldviews. For example, I can relate the mind remembering things to the Buddhist view of reicarnation whereas the mind gaining knowledge through experience is a very post modern Christian point of view.

Each of these philosophers brought new and refreshing ideas to the table which I think should be encouraging to people today to not just blindly accept the views of those bigger than us, but to morph them and make them make sense to us and how we see the world.

Anna Brinkman's Comment Archive

  1. Anna Brinkman on Roger's Therapeutic Relationship Qualities
    11:20 pm, 05.02.11

    I, too, agree with you on this! I think that the three qualities are essential to establishing the type of client-therapist relationship that Rogerian Therapy is seeking. If the client is expected to spill their guts, they must first have a basis to trust the genuineness of the therapist. I wouldn’t want to open up to someone who I knew nothing about and felt judged by. Empathy and unconditional positive regard play a major part in trust.

  2. Anna Brinkman on The Unconscious
    11:15 pm, 05.02.11

    I think that sometimes Freud’s ridiculous-ness overshadows some good findings he made. The unconscious really is an interesting thing to study. The fact that it isn’t concrete and there aren’t simple answers to questions about it is what is intriguing. The unconscious probably plays a much bigger role in our lives than some of the anti-Freudians care to believe.

    I don’t know that objective data will ever be able to measure the dynamics of the unconscious because the unconscious is subjective. I don’t feel that it can be interpreted easily, nor to the extent to which it goes (if that makes any sense..maybe vastness is a better word).

  3. Anna Brinkman on Rogers - realistic & modern
    11:11 pm, 05.02.11

    I like that you brought up genuineness and that it is something that should be easy to do for a compassionate person. I think in being genuine, like Rogers suggests, is important because how effective can you be when you half-heartedly try to help?

  4. Anna Brinkman on Facial Features and Aggression
    10:46 pm, 03.21.11

    I’m glad you brought this up, because I was a bit skeptical about this whole idea as well. It is weird being told over and over our whole lives not to judge by looks, but then this study completely contradicts that…I don’t like it!

  5. Anna Brinkman on Darwin
    10:40 pm, 03.21.11

    I’m glad that you wrote about Darwin’s influence on psychology, because I feel like his theory of evolution is such a big deal that it overshadows the rest of his achievements. It is interesting to see the competition and values we have that can be traced back to behavioral theories explained by him long ago. The similarities seem so simple that animals can do it and at the same time we form them into complex situations in other aspects of our lives.

  6. Anna Brinkman on religion and psychology
    10:36 pm, 03.21.11

    Your question about people being designed to believe differently is a really good question. Compared (biologically) to all the other species in the world it seems that we as human beings are tied together by similarities. Our brains are, more or less, wired the same. So how is it that we are designed to believe differently? Religion is such a great example of the vast differences that are caused by society, upbringing, location, and even the way we are designed.

  7. Anna Brinkman on Spencer's views on Social Darwinism and laissez-faire policy
    10:31 pm, 03.21.11

    I think seeing how extreme this view is helps to show a change in thinking not only in different societies, but especially in different times. I feel like that was kind of a prominent view of the day (…I may be wrong there…) and it is so different today. I, too, am bothered by Spencer’s view on this. I think that your last sentence really sums up my view on it as well.

  8. Anna Brinkman on Jean Jacques Rousseau says what?
    10:40 pm, 02.21.11

    Brady I would love to talk more about this with you! It is really interesting and I really like your views on it because I can tell they are well thought out. And I also have to thank you, because reading your views on it helped me to understand mine!

  9. Anna Brinkman on Jean- Jacques Rousseau
    10:39 pm, 02.21.11

    I really like the last comment “one only needs to be aware of what is wrong to understand what is right.” I think that sums up Rousseau’s life really well. He saw the wrongs committed around him and the effects they had and took them and ran. He created really great concepts for children despite what he had been given.

  10. Anna Brinkman on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Resilience
    10:35 pm, 02.21.11

    I think that that is a really cool connection that Rousseau had. He really did have a tumultuous childhood, and so often in the present day we hear of people experiencing similar fates and coming out on the negative end of things. I think implementing his ideas on developing moral character through emotional well being and accomplishing self mastery would be a really great way to structure a learning environment. I think he was onto something….!