Olm the Water King
across the universe
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- Aug 12, 2014
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Why the Self Is Empty: Toward a Historically Situated Psychology by Philip Cushman, California School of Professional Psychology, Berkeley/Alameda
May 1990 - American Psychology
. . .
The Emergence of the Empty Self
Many authors have described how the bounded, masterful self has slowly and unevenly emerged in Western history. This is a self that has specific psychological boundaries, and internal locus of control, and a wish to manipulate the external world for its own personal ends. I believe that in the post-World War II era in the United States, there are indications that the present configuration of the bounded, masterful self is the empty self. By this I mean that our terrain has shaped a self that experiences a significant absence of community, tradition, and shared meaning. It experiences these social absences and their consequences "interiorly" as a lack of personal conviction and worth, and it embodies the absences as a chronic, undifferentiated emotional hunger. The post-World War II self thus yearns to acquire and consume as an unconscious way of compensating for what has been lost: It is empty.
One can see evidence of the empty self in current psychological discourse about narcissism and borderline states, the popular culture's emphasis on consuming, political advertising strategies that emphasize soothing and charisma instead of critical thought, and a nationwide difficulty in maintaining personal relationships. Broad historical forces such as industrialization, urbanization, and secularism have shaped the modern era. They have influenced the predominant psychological philosophy of our time, self-contained individualism; constructed the current configuration of the bounded self, the empty self; and developed the professions that I believe are most responsible for filling and healing the empty self, advertising and psychotherapy. Thus, the ideologies, subjects, and businesses of modern psychology have historical antecedents, economic constituents, and political consequences. They do not float suspended in time and space: They have a context.
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Thoughts?