Negative and Positive Freedom

Beloveds: 

I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday:What does the 4th of July mean to me? It means the promise of human freedom from tyranny and oppression, the freedom of conscience, the freedom of self-expression, the freedom to imagine and create to the fullest potential of my highest aspirations, and the protection of our civil and human rights. What does it mean to you? Love, light and shadow, Jalaledin

Contextualizing some of these sentiments, far more eloquently, is Dr. Saba Mahmood, Associate Professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, in her insightful analysis Politics of Piety - The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject:

"Negative freedom refers to the absence of external obstacles to self-guided choice and action, whether imposed by the state, corporations, or private individuals. Positive freedom, on the other hand, is understood as the capacity to realize an autonomous will, one generally fashioned in accord with the dictates of "universal reason" or "self-interest," and hence unencumbered by the weight of custom, transcendental will, and tradition. In short, positive freedom might be best described as the capacity for self-mastery and self-government, and negative freedom as the absence of restraints of various kinds on one's ability to act as one wants. It is important to note that the idea of self-realization itself is not an invention of the liberal tradition but has existed historically in a variety of forms, such as the Platonic notion of self-mastery over one's passions, or the more religious notion of realizing oneself through self-transformation, present in Buddhism and a variety of mystical traditions, including Islam and Christianity." (2012, pp. 10-11).

Reparative therapy fails to change sexual orientation, period!

Beloveds:

On June 20, the following story appeared in the Washington Post. This is clear testimony that there is no therapy that can change one's sexual orientation.

"Talk about a one-man culture war.

The president of Exodus International, Alan Chambers, issued a series of apologies and explanations this week about plans to shut down the organization, which for 37 years has worked with Christians dealing with same-sex attraction.

Chambers has been under fire from both Christians who say he has not been vocal enough about their belief that homosexual behavior is unacceptable sin, as well as from gay rights activists who point to stories of deep harm done by so-called Exodus’ ‘reparative therapies’ said to turn gay people straight. He says the mission of the organization no longer fits what he says he now knows about God, and the demands of a “messy,” changing culture.

In an apology to the gay community, Chambers noted that he “cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex” and marriage but added that he will no longer “fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek.”

Chambers, who says he and his wife Leslie “are more in love than we’ve ever have been” but admits to still being attracted to men, said in a nearly hour-long talk Wednesday at the organization’s 38th annual conference that he and Exodus leaders came to the conclusion that God was calling them to shut down the ministry."

It is clearly time for all of us to accept that sexual orientation is not a choice. We need to accept that and honor all those who have been struggling to be who they are naturally and love whom they wish to love.

Love, light and shadow,
Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT, PhD

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FREUD!

Beloveds:

 

Its Freud's birthday today! I totally enjoyed my visit to the Freud Museum in London a few years ago. Hope some of you get an opportunity to visit. Freud's gift to us was the connection of our dreams to the Unconscious. Whatever we may think about Freud, he did leave us in the therapeutic field with some very enduring concepts such as counter transference and defense mechanisms. The following is an excerpt from the Writer's Almanac sent to me by a friend this morning:

It's also the birthday of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (books by this author), born in 1856 in Freiburg, Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic). He's usually associated with Vienna, where he lived from the age of four until the Germans occupied it in 1938. He moved to London, where he died of throat cancer in 1939.

 People tend to hold very strong opinions on Freud, pro or con, but most agree that his theories completely transformed the study of psychology. He had many pupils in the early 20th century; notable among them were Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, and both of them eventually broke with Freud. Adler believed that aggression, rather than sex, was the primary motivator of the human animal, and insecurity over their perceived failings is what caused people to act out; Adler, not Freud, coined the term "inferiority complex."

While he wasn't too upset by the loss of Adler, Freud viewed Carl Jung as his natural successor, his "crown prince." He was bright, ambitious, and Protestant, which eased Freud's worries that psychoanalysis would be seen as a "Jewish matter." But ultimately Freud, an atheist, couldn't go along with Jung's increasing focus on myth, mysticism, and the "collective unconscious" that he believed was common to all humans. Freud, trained in neurology, was a believer only in the tenets of scientific inquiry, with its mechanisms to check for reliability and validity. Religion had none of these mechanisms, and therefore he saw it as completely useless. Their letters to each other became tense, even hostile. Jung wrote to Freud: "Your technique of treating your pupils like patients is a blunder. In that way you produce either slavish sons or impudent puppies. ... I am objective enough to see through your little trick." Freud reacted to the break with his star pupil by becoming increasingly protective of his work.

 In 1933, Albert Einstein was invited by the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation to exchange ideas about war with a "thinker of his choice," and although he didn't believe in psychoanalysis, he chose Freud, opening his letter with "I greatly admire your passion to ascertain the truth — a passion that has come to dominate all else in your thinking."

Freud responded: "I expected you to choose a problem lying on the borderland of the knowable, as it stands today, a theme which each of us, physicist and psychologist, might approach from his own angle, to meet at last on common ground, though setting out from different premises. Thus the question which you put me — what is to be done to rid mankind of the war menace? — took me by surprise. ... But then I realized that you did not raise the question in your capacity of scientist or physicist, but as a lover of his fellow men." After a long discussion of aggression, he concluded: "How long have we to wait before the rest of men turn pacifist? Impossible to say, and yet perhaps our hope that these two factors — man's cultural disposition and a well-founded dread of the form that future wars will take — may serve to put an end to war in the near future, is not chimerical. But by what ways or byways this will come about, we cannot guess. Meanwhile we may rest on the assurance that whatever makes for cultural development is working also against war."

Their exchange was published as a pamphlet, "Why War?" in 1933, but by then, Hitler had risen to power, and the first German edition only numbered 2,000 copies.
Freud wrote several books, including The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905), and Civilization and Its Discontents (1930).

A PLACE TO STAND

Beloveds:

Just finished reading A Place to Stand, the autobiography of Jimmy Santiago Baca, a young illiterate Chicano who goes to prison to serve a five year sentence in New Mexico and emerges as a poet! His memoir is itself a literary masterpiece giving us a window into the brutality of American prison life which can kill the spirit and diminish the human soul. It details how he discovered his essential self  during periods of solitary confinement and started the process of individuation by refusing to work because his application to take classes to learn to read and write was denied! Check the video in the video bar!

It is a testament not only to the human spirit but also to what I describe as the call of the imaginal self!

Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: he learned to read and write and unearthed a voracious passion for poetry.  During a fateful conflict with another inmate, Jimmy was shaken by the voices of Neruda and Lorca, and made a choice that would alter his destiny.    Instead of becoming a hardened criminal, he emerged from prison a writer. Baca sent three of his poems to Denise Levertov, the poetry editor of Mother Jones.  The poems were published and became part of  Immigrants in Our Own Land,  published in 1979, the year he was released from prison. He earned his GED later that same year. He is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award and for his memoir A Place to Stand the prestigious International Award. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award. The national award recognizes one GED graduate a year who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service and social welfare. 

   Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. His themes include American Southwest barrios, addiction, injustice, education, community, love and beyond. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country.  

   In 2005 he created Cedar Tree Inc., a nonprofit foundation that works to give people of all walks of life the opportunity to become educated and improve their lives. 

Please visit www.jimmysantiagobaca.com

Love, light and shadow,
Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT, Ph.D

Community Psychology for At-Risk Populations

Beloveds:
I have posted an article titled "Taking Therapy to the Streets: Wraparound's Response to James Hillman" at www.academia.edu. This text provides an overview of a community-based mental health treatment planning process for at risk youth and their families. This is the model in which I have been engaged for almost 12 years. My intention is to write a book on the topic and situate it within the field of community psychology which impacts the two lower quadrants of social and cultural psychology as well as the upper right quadrant of self psychology for the individual client.

You can download this article at www.academia.edu
Love, light and shadow,
Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT, Ph.D

Angst about Aging

Beloveds:

Having studied the literature on Aging for the requisite CEUs (Continuing Education Units) for renewal of my state licensure in marriage and family therapy, I noticed the absence of any discussion about community psychology. It is just assumed that as we age in California, there will always be a social safety net for the baby boomers. But the public discourse about making cuts in entitlements tells another story. For those of us who are single and have no children, what will the aging process look like in the next 20 years, especially if there are major cuts in medicare and social security?

From an integral perspective, I think we can expect more angst about aging in the next two decades. We can expect higher levels of Depression in the aging population, despite the optimistic narratives about successful aging. Living in a culture that values youth over the elderly, is there reason for optimism in the future for our aging populations? I understand that in Europe, Canada and Japan, the elderly are more resigned to the aging process, given the assurance of a social safety net. What must aging be like for those who live in societies that have no promise of a social safety net? The Chinese and Indians have much cause for concern in this area, not to mention all the undocumented residents in the USA and elsewhere.

Clearly, the greater need for self-care and personal responsibility for self-sufficiency will be the cause of much angst, if the societies in which we live do not guarantee reliable social safety nets. From an integral perspective, those of us who are aging will need to take full responsibility for our physical, mental and financial health.

Love, light and shadow,
Dr. Jalaledin Ebrahim, LMFT

Lil JaXe's story is an amazing example of how to heal the voice. To overcome his stuttering, this Canadian boy from Toronto found a new form in which his voice mattered. Years of speech therapy did not work. He is now a popular rap artist whose voice is heard and appreciated by thousands!