World and Self in Ageing and Psychosis

1984 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Erling Eng
Keyword(s):  
Life Span ◽  
Depth Psychology ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Vanishing Point ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Body

AbstractThrough the twofold meaning of nature for man-rhythmically-of which he is a part and from which he is apart, the situations of psychosis and of ageing "cross over." In both are manifested the imperious sway of that nature of which we are a part: in the earlier half of life-largely-as psychosis, in the latter half of life through ageing. It is in the midst of the life-span, with the transition from predominant instinctuality to awareness of its recession, that psychosis and ageing are disclosed as complementary perspectives, the vanishing point of the former toward the bodily birth of the individual, that of the latter toward the death of the individual body. Together they intimate the possibility of an individuality which can encompass the human meanings of both. In psychosis and ageing alike, the sway of that nature of which we are a part is coupled with a heightened awareness of our own nature as apart, in the former instance passively, with an accent on one's helplessness as mechanical mind, in the latter with the realization of one's own active part over and apart from the body. In psychosis the self is overwhelmed by that nature of which its body is a part as the latter's complexion is mediated by the world. In ageing the presence of the self stands out more clearly from the ebbing instinctuality with which it was earlier alloyed. To the negative defusion of instinctuality and individuality in psychosis corresponds the possibility of a positive separation in ageing. If in psychosis, "uprightness" (Straus), "eccentricity" (Plessner), "being in the world over and beyond the world" (Binswanger), has been early flawed, ageing enables individuality to emerge in relief from the detritus of imperfect projects. "When gods die they become men, when men die they become gods." (Heraclitus). While bodily membership in nature pervades emerging individuality in the first half of life, self-assumption of responsibility emerges with the discovery of ebbing instinctuality in the middle of life. The body as a hinge between nature of which we are a part and nature from which we are apart, and whose ambiguity (Merleau-Ponty) is rhythmically reflective of the world and of self, now becomes apparent. With this the possibility of a "depth psychology" is reached, that is, a reopening of the archives of one's history for a commemorative rereading (Freud, Jung). This moment of discovery, traditionally conveyed in the analogical imagery of late summer and the Mediterranean experience of noon and afternoon, recurs throughout the opus of Freud, from his "Gradiva" essay ( 1906), through "The Uncanny" ( 1919) to his "A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis" (1936), with undertones both of psychotic derealization and of the purifying ordeal of ageing.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua S. Walden
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The book’s epilogue explores the place of musical portraiture in the context of posthumous depictions of the deceased, and in relation to the so-called posthuman condition, which describes contemporary changes in the relationship of the individual with such aspects of life as technology and the body. It first examines Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo to view how Bernard Herrmann’s score relates to issues of portraiture and the depiction of the identity of the deceased. It then considers the work of cyborg composer-artist Neil Harbisson, who has aimed, through the use of new capabilities of hybridity between the body and technology, to convey something akin to visual likeness in his series of Sound Portraits. The epilogue shows how an examination of contemporary views of posthumous and posthuman identities helps to illuminate the ways music represents the self throughout the genre of musical portraiture.

scholarly journals Próbowanie świata i siebie – Montaigne i Gombrowicz

Wielogłos ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 85-122
Author(s):  
Marian Bielecki
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World

[Rehearsing the World and the Self – Montaigne and Gombrowicz] The article discusses intertextual, intellectual and poetological relations between Michel de Montaigne’s Essais and Witold Gombrowicz’s autobiographical project. The author shows that the Polish writer was inspired by the French classic’s open poetics and his concept of processual and interactional subject. Gombrowicz was also interested in more specific matters present in Montaigne’s work: philosophical praise of the body, criticism of scholasticism, opposition of the private to the public.

scholarly journals KONSEP DIRI SEORANG DA'I

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 207
Author(s):  
Noormawanti, Iswati
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
The Core ◽  
Self Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Entire Complex ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Beliefs And Attitudes

The concept of self is an understanding of the attitude of the individual towards himself so that it results in the interaction of two or more people. Self-concept is a factor that communicates with others. The concept of self is the views and attitudes of individuals towards themselves, characteristics and individual and self-motivation. The self-view includes not only individual strengths but also weaknesses and even failures. This self-concept is psychological, social and physical. Self-concept is our views and feelings about ourselves, which include physical, psychological and social aspects. The concept of self is not just a descriptive picture, but also an assessment of ourselves, including what we think and how we feel. Anita Taylor defines self-concept as "all you think and feel about you, the entire complex of beliefs and attitudes you hold abaout yourself '. Human behavior is a product of their interpretation of the world around them through social interaction. Behavior is often a choice as a feasible thing to do based on how it defines the existing situation. The definition they give to other people, situations, objects and even themselves determines their behavior. So it is individuals who are considered active to regulate and determine their own behavior and environment. While the core of the individual is consciousness (consciousness). self-development depends on communication with others, which shape or influence themselves

scholarly journals Transpersonal Psychology And The Self-Field: An Overview Of The Works Of Jungian Analyst Erich Neumann

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Steven Herrman
Keyword(s):  
Transpersonal Psychology ◽  
Depth Psychology ◽  
The Self ◽  
Collective Unconscious ◽  
Structural Diagram ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
The Voice

In this essay the author gives a concise overview of the use of the word transpersonal in the life and writings of the Israeli Jungian analyst, Erich Neumann, who was born in Berlin Germany in 1905 and lived from 1934 until his untimely death, in 1960, in Tel Aviv. The paper provides readers with an overview of the correspondence that took place between Neumann and Jung from 1934-1959 and traces the way in which the word transpersonal was used in their mutual efforts to map out the terrain of the human psyche. What is made clear in the paper is that while Jung remained within the epistemological limits of empirical psychology in his theory of the collective unconscious, Neumann attempted to extend Jung’s epistemology into metaphysical territory, and in so doing he charted out a structural diagram of the psyche that extends beyond the archetypal field, to what he called the Self-field. The Self-field, Neumann argued, is a necessary postulate to include it in any complete inventory of depth-psychology that attempts to reach a new Weltanschauung. His attempts to extend Jung’s hypothesis of the Self into transpersonal territory began in his 1948 Eranos lecture in Ascona, Switzerland, “Mystical Man”. His calling from the Self led Neumann to venture forth a postulate of what he called a “New Ethic” for the field of depth-psychology as a whole. A distinction is made between the personal and archetypal shadow and evil, and the “Voice” Neumann refers to as part of the Transpersonal Self. The essay concludes saying it is tragic Neumann died at so young an age of 55, before he could formulate further how his Ethic related to his metaphysic. Neumann was the first Jungian analyst to present the world with a truly transpersonal theory of the Self that the author sees as essential reading for any transpersonal pedagogue who attempts to place Jungians in the history of the Integral movement. KEYWORDS Mystical man, numinous, Godhead, transpersonal, field-knowledge, Voice, Self-field, Wholeness, New Ethic, archetypal shadow, evil.

Light Dance

Leonardo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-91
Author(s):  
Seth Riskin
Keyword(s):  
Simple Approach ◽  
The Body ◽  
Speed Of Light ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Room Light ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
Surrounding Space ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Body ◽  
Movement Expression

The author discusses the origin and meaning of his Light Dance artwork. The simple approach—placing a source of light on the body and thereby manipulating the illumination of the surrounding space through body movements—alters the viewer’s perception of space and time. Architecture appears malleable as the performer affects the size, shape and speed of light forms that reach from the body to the boundaries of the room. Light, in this perceptual environment, is not a mere transmitter of information between the invariant material surroundings and the eye of the viewer; light is a space-defining extension of the performer’s body that transposes movement expression from the individual body to the shared space. An inversion of subjective and objective “spaces” is realized in the experience of Light Dance wherein the prevailing conceptual hierarchy of light and vision is overcome.

Siloism, the Self, and Total Revolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Barr-Melej
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
The Self ◽  
Line Of Sight ◽  
Public Morality ◽  
The World ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Libertarian Socialism

This chapter shifts the book’s line of sight away from hippismo and toward the esoteric counterculture of Siloism and the group of Chilean Siloists called Poder Joven (Young Power). The chapter unpacks Siloism’s call for young people to focus their youthful energy inward, peer deeply into their own psyches, experience fully the connection between mind and body, and realize socialismo libertario, or libertarian socialism. Such undertakings would effectively transform the individual, his or her immediate surroundings, and the world. These and other aspects of Siloist thought and practice raised quite a ruckus among those pledged to protect culture and public morality, thus motivating authorities to repress what many identified as Poder Joven’s depravity.

Louise Bourgeois’s Melancholy Objects to be Used

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-164
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Object Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenal Experience ◽  
Mental Process ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Louise Bourgeois ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Individual

Over a decade before the French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois underwent psychoanalysis in New York (1952–1985), her work mined territories of psyche, body, home, and exile. Bourgeois’s papers from 1940 onward reveal that she shared Freud’s description of neurotics, hysterics, and artists as suffering from reminiscences. Scottish psychoanalyst W. R. D. Fairbairn identified the last of these in 1943 as “war neuroses,” just six years before Bourgeois debuted her first mature sculptures. These abstract “personages” served as melancholy surrogates for lost objects, the friends and family Bourgeois left in 1938 in Occupied France. In the 1960s, she further reduced the body to ambivalent amalgams of part-objects made from plaster and latex, suggesting swollen nodes, skin, and sex organs. Of particular interest are two papers published by Fairbairn in 1938 that extend the inner world of the individual to the field of object relations via the transposition of the symbolically “restored object.” Fairbairn conceived the radical notion of restitution, the mental process of repairing damage in the artist’s inner object world. These principles resonate with Bourgeois’s métier and a postwar sculptural aesthetic that probed the phenomenal experience of anxiety, exile, and psychoanalysis on the Self and others.

Maurice

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-153
Author(s):  
Finn Fordham
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Homosexual Orientation ◽  
The World ◽  
Resonant Term ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Edward Carpenter

As a queer bildungsroman, Maurice has a particular way of managing the relation between the body and the soul. Forster's exploration of the queer relationship between body and soul took place at a time when there was a battle over the nature of the soul, often defensive against materialism: concepts of identity and selfhood were undergoing radical contestations and the word 'soul' is a resonant term in modernist novels. How did emerging discourses, such as those of Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, and many others, about homosexual orientation relate to these contemporary discourses around the self? The chapter focuses on two passages about body and soul, whose textual genesis reveals problems of phrasing, as Forster’s unprecedented investigation of sexuality takes him to the edge of identity. It then examines how certain spaces, such as windows and thresholds, become symbolic zones of transgressive encounters between inner and outer, soul and body. It concludes by showing how Forster avoids drawing up any consistent ‘doctrine’ of body and soul. As a work of fiction in which different visions of the world come into conflict with each other, Maurice is a unique and vital witness of transforming discourses about homosexuality in the early twentieth century.

Self, Indian theories of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.S. Rukmani
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Spiritual Energy ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Ultimate Principle ◽  
Ultimate Nature

Hindu thought traces its different conceptions of the self to the earliest extant Vedic sources composed in the Sanskrit language. The words commonly used in Hindu thought and religion for the self are jīva (life), ātman (breath), jīvātman (life-breath), puruṣa (the essence that lies in the body), and kṣetrajña (one who knows the body). Each of these words was the culmination of a process of inquiry with the purpose of discovering the ultimate nature of the self. By the end of the ancient period, the personal self was regarded as something eternal which becomes connected to a body in order to exhaust the good and bad karma it has accumulated in its many lives. This self was supposed to be able to regain its purity by following different spiritual paths by means of which it can escape from the circle of births and deaths forever. There is one more important development in the ancient and classical period. The conception of Brahman as both immanent and transcendent led to Brahman being identified with the personal self. The habit of thought that tried to relate every aspect of the individual with its counterpart in the universe (Ṛg Veda X. 16) had already prepared the background for this identification process. When the ultimate principle in the subjective and objective spheres had arrived at their respective ends in the discovery of the ātman and Brahman, it was easy to equate the two as being the same spiritual ‘energy’ that informs both the outer world and the inner self. This equation had important implications for later philosophical growth. The above conceptions of the self-identity question find expression in the six systems of Hindu thought. These are known as āstikadarśanas or ways of seeing the self without rejecting the authority of the Vedas. Often, one system or the other may not explicitly state their allegiance to the Vedas, but unlike Buddhism or Jainism, they did not openly repudiate Vedic authority. Thus they were āstikadarśanas as opposed to the others who were nāstikadarśanas. The word darśana for philosophy is also significant if one realizes that philosophy does not end with only an intellectual knowing of one’s self-identity but also culminates in realizing it and truly becoming it.

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