Psychology Identify and Choices Essay

You need to respond to this posting. Here too, you need to tell me what you learned from doing the exercise ( Do the “more or Less Inventory” (page 18) What did you learn? Please make sure you use 5 years rather than 10 because of your young age).for this week. I do not need your responses to the items in the “more or less inventory” I only need you to tell me your reaction. Therefore, you will post your results.

Remember, because of your young age, use 5 years instead of 10 for the exercise.

The first session is the concept of identity, self-discovery and search for the person you are or could be. The seminal article by Carl Rogers is a very important one and perhaps may encourage you to reflect on this very important topic.

One aspect of identity, which was perhaps less highlighted in the book, but I want to underscore is the view that identity, more than a “discovery” is an act of commitment, of choosing, of becoming the person you want to be rather than the person you passively accept to be. The writers in the book make a very good case for the necessary confrontation with “ways of being in the world” that are less that authentic; that is, with ways of being in which you blindly follow the “group”; whether this group is your circle of friends, your social group, or any other ideology handed down to you and UN-reflectively accepted by you. A very important first step as you reflect on this concept of identity is to understand that who you are is ultimately based on the values you hold and on the courage you display in setting-aside pretenses or excuses, and affirm your choices in the world. This of course is not new and we all know Socrates famous dictum “Know Yourself”, to that, and to the purpose of this class, we want to add the second part “Be Yourself”. We will be coming back to this very simple concept, again and again throughout this course.

Many years ago, I was treating a very smart young man who had overcome a series of family of origin issues, bad choices he had made during his adolescent years, and drug/alcohol addiction. He had come a long way, but he had one major issue still haunting him; he felt very helpless regarding certain sexual “addiction” he had. He was happily married and had two beautiful sons, but every so often he needed to go to a prostitute (this was in Spain) and act towards her in very sadistic ways, devaluing her and using very rough sex with her. Typically, he would feel very sorry afterwards and always made a commitment to “I will not do this again”, which he broke repeatedly. I tried every conceivable behavioral approach, every “cognitive” therapy technique, every possible “Psycho-analytic insight” but that would work only temporarily and ultimately fail, and I did not know what else to do. Then one day, while discussing identity and choice in one of our sessions, a thought occur to me and I said to him: “I don’t want you to do anything else, except when you go to the prostitute, I want you to think if that behavior is consistent with the man you say you want to be”. I did not see him for almost a month since he had cancelled a couple of sessions, but when he finally came to see me he said: -“Doc I am very upset at you”, “why?” I replied. The he said,” I did as you suggested, and when I was with the prostitute, I could not get it up. I was very angry at myself so I went the next day, and the same thing happened to me”. I then asked him” Can you perform with your wife?” _”Of course” he said. To what I added to a grin in my face “are you able to see why you can’t perform with the prostitute and yet you can with you wife?” He understood a very important lesson for his life, and up to the moment I last saw him, he never again had “the irresistible impulse”. He had become much more of a free man by asserting his values in the face of his “weakness”, and stopped giving excuses why he “could not do it”

This of course is not to deny the sometimes formidable difficulties we have to face; the point however remains the same: we always choose. The person who says I can’t quit smoking, which by the way next to cocaine is one of the hardest addiction a person can have, he/she is also saying I rather not stop smoking and avoid the anxiety and anguish associated with quitting.

Those of you familiar with Alcoholic Anonymous or with the writing s of St Paul, who speaks of “when I’m weak, then I am strong as the power of God rests upon me”..may be able to see an important connection (this by the way is common in various religious traditions as they focus on these kinds of human experiences). It is the commitment to your chosen values in spite of your “obvious” difficulties that will make the difference in your life. The military has a sort of same tradition in saying like “NO guts no glory” or the old Army paratroopers “All the Way” or the Marines “Semper Fi”. They describe the determination in the face of difficulties, pain or suffering.

Like my patient, we may have many areas of issues in our lives we pay lip service to, but we are not willing to do, to affirm and to accept. Those could be big issues or small ones, the size does not matter; it is the principle. You may believe (or think you believe) that living a healthy life-style is important, but when it comes to exercise you rather skip it because “I am too busy” and you rather eat the extra fries with your Burger than sweat at the Gym. Your behavior says otherwise; you may want to be fit, but you love more the pleasure of the moment than the ongoing commitment that a life of fitness entails. We may use all kinds of excuses why we cannot do this or that, and hide behind our social conventions and facades. Often the problem has its roots in psychological ignorance (we do not know ourselves) or existential cowardice (we know BUT we fear). Sometimes we do not have clarity regarding our “real values” or those values are not articulated in our lives in such a way that they are readily available to our consciousness when we need them. So part of this journey is clarifying those values for ourselves, and then we begin the work of fashioning our identity based on those values, step by step, as we exist in our everyday world. There is much more to say about this topic, but it is necessary you read those articles and THINK of their implications for your lives.

The Existentialists particularly the French Sartre spoke of our Façade as “Bad Faith” and insisted in a radical freedom. To be a person means to be free and even in the act of not choosing we are choosing, except by default. This is also living an authentic life. It may not be the most glamorous or popular, but it will be the most valid and real. At the end of the day as you look at yourself in your mirror or in the incessant custom of the “selfie”, you must ask this question: does my life reflect my true self? I choose my life, my values and my way of life by not so much by what I say but by the actions I take in my day to day life.

There is a lot more I have to say about this topic, but this is good for now. I would like for you to reflect on your life, the choices you are making and the path you are choosing in your excuses you are giving to yourself for not doing what you know you need to do. Try to think this way

book Psychology and Personal Growth

Goud Nelson H and Arkof Abe (Ed.) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..

Allyn & Bacon , 2009, 8th Edition.

ISBN: -13: 978-0-205-62675-5