My first 'model' of the personality was created in 1979 with the completion of my Honours Thesis, Evaluation and Health.
Looking back at this first model now, I would call it mainly a model of 'The Central Ego' -- and a contrast between the different 'ways we can talk to ourselves', i.e, 'think to ourselves', in ways that can have radically different results on both our emotional and behavioral lives...between 'positive internal energy' and 'negative internal energy', between 'functional' or 'adaptive' ways we can relate to ourselves and 'dysfunctional', 'maladaptive', 'neurotic', 'psychotic', and/or otherwise pathological ways we can relate to ourselves...before we even begin to relate to our outside world...My primary influences here were all the 'cognitive' and 'cognitive-behavioral' psychologists that I had directly or indirectly (through books) come in contact with such as: Afred Korzybksi, S.I. Hayakawa, and the mutual field of 'General Semantics' that they were working in, Albert Ellis and Rational-Emotive Therapy, Aaron Beck, George Kelly, Jerome Frank, Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, and the person I was writing this essay for, my University of Waterloo advisor at the time, Donald Meichenbaum, with his freshly published book, Cognitve-Behavior Modification: An Integrative Approach (1977)...At the time, I didn't know how lucky I was to be writing for a man who was in the process of building a very impressive reputation for himself... This quick summary of Dr. Meichenbaum career below came from an interview in April, 2002, by Victor Yalom....
http://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/donald-meichenbaum
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Donald Meichenbaum, PhD is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at the University of Waterloo, and founding member of The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment. He holds the dual distinction of having been voted "one of the ten most influential psychotherapists of the century" (reported in the American Psychologist) and being the most cited psychology researcher at a Canadian university.
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This first DGB model of the personality in 1979, as well as expressing the dominance of my 'rational-empirical' and 'cognitve' approach to psychotherapy at the time also showed the beginnings of my 'humanistic' and 'humanistic-existential' approach to psychotherapy with influences such as Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, Rollo May, and more...The Fritz Perls influence would become much more developed in the 1980s and lead me to Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis, the study of Object Relations, Eric Berne and the study of Transactional Analysis, Jeffrey Masson and The Seduction Theory Controversy, Carl Jung and Jungian Psychology, G.W.Hegel the main philosophical creator of 'dialectic philosophy and psychology' which would lead to the dominant perspective in my thinking, , and from Hegel and the study of Dialectic Philosophy, the study of Western -- and a tidbit of Eastern -- Philosophy in general...
Finally, very very slowly over about 30 years, my latest significant influence by Carl Jung would awaken the 'mythologist' in me which was very much a 'Shadow' of my 1979 personality and would be for some 20 to 30 years after that...I am just starting to 'feel comfortable' with this new, creative element of my personality...as I write now...in 2010....
In 1979, I had not even significantly grasped the essence of the 'dialectic approach' that would in the 2000s stimulate the birth of my major integrative philosophical-psychological perspective and work -- a conglomeration of some 1000 essays or more that are so far strewn in disorganized fashion throughout -- 'Hegel's Hotel'...
I have just now started a derrivative of Hegel's Hotel called -- Freud's Hotel... And there will be probably many more derrivatives coming to spread out all of my work and its myriad of different philosophical and psychological influences...
Hegel's Hotel remains very much a still disorganized work in progress, with hopefully more and more organizational sub-classifications coming in the upcoming months...
My most recent model of the personality combines a 'nuclear family model' of the personality comprised of different internalized, 'compartment-ego-states'; with a larger mythological model of the personality that features elements of Greek and Roman Mythology, as well as Christian and Anti-Christian Mythology/Religion...
It is hard to adequately explain the model without a diagram but try to envision this...
Jesus on The Cross -- The Archetype Image of Our Central Ego -- with the concept-mythological images of 'heaven', 'air', 'romantic fire', 'water', and 'the earth' and 'sensual-sexual fire and the underground' being featured along the different sections on the cross -- 'Heaven' at the top', 'air, sky, and wind' a little further down on the top of the cross...'romantic fire' on the left hand side of the cross, 'water' on the right-hand side of the cross, 'the earth' towards the bottom of the cross, and 'sexual fire and the underground or underworld at the very bottom of the cross....
Now think of the 'light-soul' in the top part of the cross that features 'heaven' (Zeus, Jupitor, God), and the 'dark-soul' in the bottom part of the cross that features sensual- sexual fire and the underground (Dionysus, Satan, Hades, Pluto, Hell...)...
Now think of 'The Id' and 'The Shadow' as representing personality elements on the way to the deepest underground of the personality....And think of the Creative and Destructive Unconscious or Subconscious that respectively reflect images from either our 'Light-Soul' or our 'Dark-Soul'...or a combination of both...
And also on the way to the deepest Underground of our personality we have our 'Transference Templates, Memories, Images, Figures, Scenes, and Complexes'....as well as our 'Genetic Mythological Templates, Archetypes, Symbols, Figures, Scenes, and Complexes'...our Transference Templates and Complexes influenced by our childhood experiences, family dynamics, and upbringing; our Mythological Templates and Archetypes reflecting a much deeper, more archaic, primitive part of our human heritage and history...
Think of all these different factors as potentially 'bombarding internal forces' on our Central Ego -- on our personal, internalized, 'Jesus Christ Archetype' that can either be our 'Master Problem-Solver and Spiritual Self-Healer' or conversely become 'crucified' by the overwhelming barrage of different forces from all areas of the inside of personality, particularly from the deepest Underground of our personality...
In the most successful behavioral functions of our Central Ego -- our Master Spiritual Self-Healer, Problem-Solver, Mediator, Integrator, and Conflict-Resolver -- we put 'Humpty Dumpty back together again...we even reunite God and Satan in a new, creative energetic, functional relationship in which Satan becomes 'the prodigal, estranged and demonic Angel, that is detoxified, healed, and re-welcomed back into heaven...but not a completely 'angelic, God dominated Heaven above the sky'...but rather a new 'integrative, Heaven on earth, a Garden of Eden, with Adam, Eve, and The Snake all living harmoniously together....with both spiritual and sensual-sexual aspects of this relationship as well as rational and romantic components, idealistic and realistic components, and a sense of strong Earth-bound rootedness, stability, and security combining with various ventures into the sky, the water, and the different fires of the personality, contact and withdrawal in all relationships and in all aspects of the psyche, convergence and divergence, separation and union, separating as two...and coming back again as one...in a back and forth, productive, creative cycle..
In effect, our 'Light-Soul' and our 'Dark-Soul' are harmonized into something that may not be 'angelic' but that is a combination of what man essentially is -- a 'Centaur', a combination of both spiritual and sensual-sexual components...part man...and part animal...united harmoniously in the same being....
And this is only one of a thousand potential competing and attracting 'bi-polarities' in man that need to be successfully 'negotiated' and 'integrated' -- or see ourselves as the archetype of Jesus Christ essentially 'crucified on the cross'...
Have I made the essential dynamics of my model and its various components clear?
This is where I stand now on Nov 10th, 2010, at least on an abstractified level, with more of the particular details to follow...some of them I have already outlined in past essays...
Have a good day!
-- dgb, Nov. 10, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
