The European soul

Europe, and in particular the European identity, will have to be one of the essential aspects of tomorrow's education. Language teaching must be strengthened, exchanges developed, but, above all, we must make an effort to know each other.     

The self and the soul

This paper explores the elusive and esoteric concepts of self and soul. After examining the psychological concept of self, as differentiated from ego, the authors present a unified theory of psychological, psychoanalytical and spiritual conceptualizations in light of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. We suggest that understanding the self system (whether in object relations, intersubjective or interpersonal terms) is enhanced by the framework found in the Jewish mystical literature.     

The living well of our soul

Bright flooding sunlight, fresh cut flowers in generous crystal vases, and pristine clean shelves of philosophical and psychological books in several languages welcome the visitor to Liliane Frey-Rohn's upper-story modern apartment in Zürich. Even for as amateurish a photographer as our editor, it was hard to take a bad picture of her clear features—with her luminous hair, intimate eyes and warmly curious smile. This was a young, cosmopolitan woman of 88, with a classical education and dedication to the twin ideals of scholarship and the birthing of the new consciousness of her culture. She was very pleased with the recent publication in English of her book, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Psychological Approach to His Life and Work, and was happy to talk about its evolution through her studies and close association with Carl Jung     

Pastoral counseling: In search of a new paradigm

Contemporary pastoral counseling includes three paradigmatic elements: the image of the counselor as priest; the location of the human problem at the organismic-environmental interface; and the diagnosis of the human problem as alienation from self and others. These assumptions ought to be supplemented by the image of the counselor as prophet, by location of the human problemalso at the interface of the self and the ultimate, and by a diagnosis of the human problem as alienation from transcendence. To be adequate as a response to the total human situation, pastoral counseling theory must be expanded to include consideration of the transcendent dimension of human existence, and pastoral counseling method and technique must be modified to overcome alienation from the ultimate by facilitating the actualization of transcendence.His article is a revision of the keynote address he presented to the American Association of Pastoral Counselors at their annual meeting in May 1976.     

In search of a new paradigm for cultural psychology

It is my privilege to be invited to write a response to K.S. Yang's reply to my critique of the methodology he used in his empirical research on individual modernity in Taiwan (Hwang, 2003). Yang's reply consists of three parts: The first part provides a quick overview of the methodology used in his individual traditionality and modernity (T/M) research in Taiwan. The second part presents his reply to my methodological criticisms. The third part is a plea for more and better individual T/M research in Asia. My response consists of three corresponding sections, although I will concentrate on the second part of Yang's text.     

Racism as a passion of the soul

Racism, in its various manifestations (e.g., philetism, ethnophiletism, racial segregation, racial discrimination, racial extermination) – as a mere sentiment or conviction as well as a systematic and organized ideology or politics in its origin – is a spiritual tendency of fallen human nature. The purpose of this systematic-dogmatic reflection is to prove from the perspective of Orthodox theology that this harmful propensity of the human race is a direct consequence of original sin and particular passions created in the soul. Racism has extended to the present day on a wider social level, and its only cure is mainly ascetic-spiritual in nature. This spiritual therapy should be performed through and by all the means the church has at its disposal to erase the stigmata of humankind’s primitive negation and ultimate distance from God.     

Salvaging the self in a world without soul: William James's The Principles of psychology

This article explores William James's transformation of the religious soul into the secular self in The Principles of Psychology. Although James's views on the self are familiar to many historians of psychology, the article places his treatment of the self within the broader social and cultural context of a secularizing, industrializing society. There were palpable tensions and anxieties that accompanied the cultural shift, and these are particularly transparent in James's Principles. James attempted the project of secularizing the soul in order to promote a natural science of the mind but with marked ambivalence for the project, because it left out some of the moral and metaphysical questions of great interest to him.     

探究群体中的个体心灵--群体心理学与极端信仰

网上检索中无意间看到一段话,“不借助于个体心理学,也许不能彻底明白有人为何要杀人如麻;没有群体心理学,则人们永远无法理解,为何仍会有那么多人认为他不但做得正确,并且伟大无比。”这段话一下子把我打动留住了。因为我曾有过一段“认为自己不但做得正确,并且伟大无比”的经历。打开一看,原来是一篇书评,评法国心理学家塞奇·莫斯科维奇的群体心理学著作《群氓的时代》(江苏人民出版社2003年汉译精品新世纪版),于是找到了书并阅读。我曾是一名“法轮功”团体的成员,如果用褒意倾向的语言说,是信念极为坚定的一员,用贬意倾向的语言说,是痴…     

The search for agents in a causal gap

This study used a reversal experiment within a participant's frame of reference as a tool for studying human agency. Twenty-seven participants were given a sentence reading task, asked to formulate a rule for choosing which sentence to read, and instructed to fbollow and break the rule in an FBFB or BFBF sequence. Despite the difficulty they had in formulating an unambiguous rule, 23 participants both broke and followed the rule, and 20 broke it with a mutually exclusive opposite. There was evidence that a participant's genetic heritage, learning history, and rule, the experimental task, and the instructions were in no case sufficient to control the sentences he or she read. There was evidence of two causal gaps, one before and one after a participant's choice, and positive evidence of participants' systematic control over the sentences read in reversal experiments.