The Mysterious Story of the Self

08/24/20 • 41 min

Today I will discuss the nature of the self and try to convince my listeners that beginning a sentence that expresses a psychological fact should not be "I am" but "I do" thereby changing the nature of our selves from nouns to verbs. This small grammatical shift allows us to recognize the enormous difference between judging ourselves and judging our actions or behaviors. Once we judge ourselves as a noun the judgment becomes a permanent attribute of our identity and self. Once we judge our behaviors we have an opportunity to change any aspect of our behavior which we (or others) feel is wrong or harmful. The change from "I am" to "I do" also allows us to challenge the psychiatric nonsense of being lablelled as mentally ill or disordered and living with the belief that our selves are permenantly defective. For example, "I am Schizophrenic" changes to "I behave schizophrenically and I can always learn to behave differently." I will also discuss the relationship of our brain's activities to our understanding of self and selves. To learn more read my book 'Psycho"therapy" and the Stories We live By' www.store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

Previous Episode

The Destructive Myths of Race and Intelligence

I will deconstruct the concepts of race and intelligence and describe how these basically unscientific and invalid concepts have been used to divide and dehumanize human beings and justify the enslavement and murder of millions as well as convince more millions into believing that race, rather than their humanity, is the primary definition of their identities. My guest today will be Dr Chuck Ruby, author of "Smoke and Mirrors: How You Are Being Fooled About Mental Illness" https://chuckruby.com See my book at store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by

Next Episode

The Story of Race in America as told by Isabel Wilkerson

Today I will discuss some of my reactions to Wilkerson's argument that race based on skin color formed the basis of a caste here in America. I will discuss the incredible, mind altering statement that "there are no black peope in Africa.'' I will discuss this from my own vantage point that had my grandparents not left Russia for America I would have most certainly died in a killing field or extermination camp because I belonged to the "Jewish Race." Here in America Judaism is a religion and my race is White. I feel certain this will be the first in a series of podcasts on this vitally important topic. www.store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by