'Hegel's Hotel: GAP-DGB Philosophy-Psychology started out as my Honors Thesis in Psychology, called 'Evaluation and Health', written 30 years ago, in 1979.
'Evaluation and Health' became both the primary foundation and the primary stimulus for all my research and theorizing afterward -- what in effect has now become 'Hegel's Hotel' -- a network of some 30 to 50 evolving online blog sites which I began writing in 2006, and am still going.
In between now (2009) and then (1979), was an essay that I started writing in around 1981 which was called: 'Conflict in The Personality: A Critique of the Adlerian Assumption of Unity in the Personality'.
By 1981, after having graduated with my Honors degree in psychology from the University of Waterloo, I landed on the doorstep of both The Adlerian Institute of Ontario, which was run at the time through OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) and which was right across the street and partly connected to the University of Toronto (while at the same time also connected to The Adlerian Institute of Chicago. Also by 1981, I had become involved with The Gestalt Institute of Toronto which, when I first showed up there, was on Markham Street behind The Brunswick House in downtown Toronto, and which moved shortly thereafter down the street to a house on Cecil Street. (Currently, The Gestalt Institute of Toronto is on Carlton Street, on the east side of downtown Toronto.)
Being exposed to two different schools of psychology -- Adlerian Psychology and Gestalt Therapy, of which The Adlerian Institute was by far the more formal of the two, being taught in standard classrooms, while The Gestalt Institute was much less formal, seemingly almost a continuation of the 1960s and early 1970s -- a Fritz Perls, Esalon, Big Sur, California type environment with everyone sitting around on pillows waiting to do 'hot seat' work -- I couldn't help but start to become aware of the different content of psychological theory and the different style of psychotherapy.
Adlerian Psychology was a product mainly of 'cognitive-rational-emotive' philosophy of which Albert Ellis would be influenced by Adler and take this brand and branch of psychotherapy even further in a 'cognitive-rational-emotive' therapy, even calling his brand of psychotherapy 'Rational-Emotive Therapy' which harks back to an ancient Greek philosopher, Epictetus: 'Man is not disturbed by things but by the way he perceives them.'
In contrast, Gestalt Therapy was much more a product of 'romantic' and 'humanistic-existential' than Adlerian Philosophy which was much more a product of 'Enlightenment Philosophy' while both Adlerian Psychology (Adler) and Gestalt Therapy (Fritz Perls) were influenced by having first studied Freud and practised 'Psychoanalysis'. Then the two -- Adler and years later Perls -- both split from Psychoanalysis and created their own respective 'schools' of psychology and psychotherapy.
The difference between Adler and Perls was similar to the difference between Thales and Anaximander or the difference between Spinoza and Hegel.
Thales, the Ancient, and indeed, oldest Greek and Western Philosopher was a 'monist' (the idea of everything originating in one 'cause' and/or being 'united as one whole'). Thales believed that all life originated with 'water' whereas another monist, Anaximenes, believed that all life started with 'air'.
We have here in the controversy and opposition between the ideas and theories of two of the oldest Greek philosophers, the beginning of what would be articulated about 2300 years plus in the 'dialectic theory' of Hegel the idea of contrast, opposition and the eventual 'synthesis' or 'integration' of these 'oppositional playoffs' -- i.e., in this case, the oppositional theoretical playoff between 'water' and 'air' being the first 'life substance'.
However, between Thales and Anaximenes, you have two other Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers that show up on the scene and further 'muddy' the 'theory of the origin of life'.
Anaximander, the second oldest Greek philosopher, can be viewed as the oldest Greek and Western dialectic philosopher because Anaximander was the first Greek-Western philosopher to start philosophizing about the 'opposites in life'.
Indeed, Anaximander had a very intriguing -- primitive but sophisticated -- 'mythological philosophy' that still works (with some interpretive translation) to this day.
Anaximander had a very interesting theory of 'The Apeiron' which I will translate as either 'Chaos' or 'The Background' or 'The Shadows' or 'The Universe'.
This is a modern DGB-Jungian-Gestalt 2009 version of Anaximander's Apeiron Theory, the original of which is over 2500 years old.
Probably of most relevance here is 'Ego, Hunger, and Aggression' (Fritz Perls, 1947, 1969). Perls in turn was influenced by Salomo Friedlaender's book, and theory of, 'Creative Indifference' (and 'polar differentiation'), 1918.
Well, back between 550BC and 600BC, Anaxamander offered up the first theory of 'polar differentiation'. Paraphrasing and translating at least partly into modern day language, 'The Apeiron' might be viewed again as either 'Chaos', 'The Great Unknown', 'The Universe', 'The Shadows', or 'The Great Backdrop Preceding Polar Differentiation'.
Then things split into opposites and compete with each other, trying to 'dominate' and 'overpower' each other. One opposite comes out of this 'polar conflict' as the dominant polarity and takes the limelight in the process, while the other opposite polarity is marginalized, suppressed, oftentimes repressed and oppressed, and recedes back into the background -- The Apeiron -- to regroup. Here the marginalized opposite, re-energizes, gains power, compensates for previous mistakes and ineptitude, mutates...and comes back from The Shadows into The Limelight to fight another battle with its 'Opposite Polarity' -- its more 'Dominant Half'.
However, having regained power and energy from The Shadows (i.e., The Apeiron), having evolved, compensated, and mutated, the previously marginalized and defeated oppositional polarity comes back stronger than ever, perhaps surprising the dominant power with its new found strength and energy, and overpowers the dominant polarity which may have burnt itself out in the limelight, losing power in the process.
'Polar power' ebbs and flows like the cyclical behavior of the tides, 'what goes up must come down', overthrown by a re-energizing force coming out of the Shadows, and taking over what once it lost and now has regained. Now the previously stronger polarity must retreat to the Shadows, the background, the Apeiron, to regain energy, regain power, compensate, mutate, and continue the 'polar swing of polar power' from strong to balanced to weak to balanced to strong again...and repeat -- in a nutshell, a combined interaction between an individual and group 'Will to Power' on the one hand, and a 'Will to Democratic-Dialectic, Homeostatic Balance and Egalitarianism' on the other hand.
That is my 'modernized' version of Anaxamander's more primitive but exceedingly wise and insightful theory of 'The Apeiron'. (Just watch the UFC for a while and tell me if you don't see this kind of thing happening. Same with the 'changing of the guards' relative to political parties coming in, and going out, of favor. And as Heraclitus would add later -- as well as one of the earliest Chinese philosophers (Lao tse?) -- opposites not only compete, they are also attracted to each other, need each other, and 'dialectically unite' in 'temporary harmonious, homeostatic balance'. Until something, or someone, upsets this homeostatic balance and then the whole process of 'competition' (the 'will to power and overpower') vs. 'attraction' (the 'will to dialectically and integratively and/or sexually unite' until 'individuation' pulls these attracting biological and psychological forces apart again and the whole process continues to evolve in a pattern of 'union', 'individuation', 'union', 'individuation'...always aiming to a different and/or better 'homeostatic, dialectic, power-based and/or democratic, balance'.
That which you just read above is DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Economics-Biology...summarizing 2600 years of Western Dialectic Philosophy, starting with Anaxamander and Heraclitus, most clearly stated by Hegel, and passing onward in different more healthy and/or pathological renditions through Napoleon, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Nietzsche, Hitler, Freud, Jung, Adler, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...and now DGB Philosophy-Psychology...
Thus, GAP-DGB Philosophy -- the 'GAP' at one point standing for 'Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic' and the 'DGB(N)' standing for 'Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations' -- started out as a very 'Enlightenment-oriented, rational-empirical, humanistic' approach to life, philosophy, and psychology but something happened on the way to The Forum...DGB Philosophy met Gestalt Therapy, then Freud and Psychoanalysis, then Jungian Psychology, then Hegel, then Nietzsche, then Schopenhauer, then Anaxamander, Heraclitus, and Lao Tse, ....and now DGB Philosophy has a much more 'unpredictable edge' to it that encompasses much of what has happened in Western Philosophy after Enlightenment Philosophy gave way to Romantic Philosophy and then Humanistic-Existentialism, followed by the 'Power Deconstructionism' of Foucault and Derrida...
Today, DGB Philosophy-Psychology may be classified as a: 'Romantic-Enlightenment-Dialectic-Democratic-Humanistic-Existential-Homeostatic-Balance Philosophy-Psychology'. It recognizes an ongoing and evolving 'dualistic and dialectic struggle in man's nature and behavior' between 'unique individuation' and 'social union', and between 'power' and 'attraction'.
And somewhere in the midst of all of man's 'good and bad will', his and her 'unpredictability', and 'colossal stupidity and self-destructiveness, man searches for some unique and/or collective combination of: 1. 'personal excellence', 'personal meaning', 'congruence', and 'good faith' (Nietzsche, Sartre, Frankl); 2. the 'release of biological and psychological impulses and drives (Freud); 3. ethical restraint and balance (Kant, Freud); 4. a 'will to power and/or individual superiority' (Nietzsche, Adler); 5. a 'will to narcissism, greed, egotism, hedonism (Hobbes, Machiavelli, Schopenhauer, Freud...); 6. a 'will to rootedness, stability, safety, and security (Erich Fromm); 7. a will to 'excitement', 'growth', 'change', and 'new stimuli' (Nietzsche); 8. a 'will to creativity' and 'artistic self-revelation' (Erich Fromm); 9. a 'will to reason' (The Enlightenment); 10. a will to passion, love, nature and romance, the 'here and now' (Spinoza, Rousseau, Goethe, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Perls...); 11. a 'will to transcendence' in trying to make sense of all this, sometimes with the addition of a 'higher power' (God); and 12. 'a will to homeostatic balance' between all these different dialectic biological, psychological, philosophical, religious, political, economic, and legal struggles (Lao Tse, Heraclitus, Friedlaender, Cannon, Perls).
Did I miss anything?
-- dgb, August 7th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
--
That is where DGB Philosophy stands
