It's All How You Look At It

What psychodynamic theory do you adhere to?

Object Relations? Self-Psychology? Jungian? Cognitive Behavioral? Freudian? Individual Psychology? Attachment Theory?

it doesn't really make a lot of difference, and yet, all the difference. Each theory has it's own way of looking at things. Each theory emphasizes different aspects. An aspect understood in one way, under a certain heading in one theory, may be understood slightly differently in another theory perhaps as a different heading.

And then comes the way that you think or conceive of that theory. Depending on the value different terms have for you, meaning, how you were taught, what definitions and implications they have, you may think of one thing in one way, and another person in an opposite way, yet, when you really dig deep, you may find that you are talking about exactly the same thing.

And then there is the whole other aspect, of how different cultures look at things. From one culture to the next, we understand one another in ways that we do not understand ourselves. We can look at someone from an entirely different culture, construct and language and that does not hinder our ability to class them according to our own constructs.

Perhaps the differnce of the new culture is the reason that we attempt to change that indivdual. perhaps through "teaching" what we are really doing is altering that individual in such a way that it's easier for us to class them and conceive of them.

Ethnologist and Anthropologist have been making this error for centuries. Asking question over and over again, not thinking for a moment that perhaps their translators had as little ability to comprehend what they were saying as the person they were translating it to... and asking until the scientist had found an answer suitable to be classed within their own narrow understanding.

The point is, that for example, if someone that believed strongly in the universality of Freudian theory, attempted to understand the Id, Ego and superego, and devleopmental stage impacts upon a tribal community in Africa that had never had contact with Whites, they could impose their system of beliefs upon that culture, and draw all manner of conclusions as to the inferiority, lack of development, or lack of stage progression... and then draw all manner of conclusions from those conclusions... whereas the truth may be, that the psychology of one from another environment may be such that none of your systems hold true... and to truly understand them, perhaps you can use "your" system as a basis, and then construct a new system, that hold's "truth" for the indigenous culture and by assuming equality and yet allowing for difference, learn something entirely new and profitable to you, that could have some profound insights and hint at hereto unknown possible strengths and avenues of exploration within your own culture (?).

If our goal is to arrive at some form of truth, we can not allow ourselves to make this error in judgement. If we are to observe "reality" then we can never assume that we know what reality is, merely, what it has been.

If you hold the idea, that man is made of living differentiated cells, made up of molecules, made up of atoms, made up of subatomic particles, all created moments after the big bang (that is, if you subscribe to such a theory), then, you should assume the equality of all living beings, on a level beyond your comprehension. the information from certain beings, may not be of a form that is useful or even meaningful to you, but it is just as wise, and old, and real as you... and parts of that creature could become a part of you... and if you are within a distance where you are breathing the same air, it is definitely true that the separation of "you" and "them" is only possible, due to a particular point in time.


All of this is to say, regardless of how, what, where, who... it's all a matter of how you look at it. So, instead of looking for any particular thing. We should concern ourselves with seeing, coming to, becoming aware, or, realizing, speaking and being engaged in, the process of truth, regardless of who we are, where we are, or what we are doing. Because what is, "is" but what we think of it, has to potential to either "be" or "not", and we should be very, very cognizant of that. And that isn't dependent on how you look at it. It simply "is".