Culture Descriptive Psychology

Remaining at One’s Post

Hachikō (1923-1935) was a Japanese Akita dog remembered and celebrated for his outstanding expression of loyalty. He developed the habit of picking up his master, Hidesaburō Ueno, every day at the train station after Ueno returned from work. When Ueno died, Hachi continued to wait for him at the station for the following nine years until Hachi himself died (Wikipedia). There is a statue of Hachikō near the Shibuya Station in Tokyo, and there are movies made about him. Hachi…

Continue reading

Descriptive Psychology metaphysics Popular Culture

No Longer Chance

Alain Badiou on Love. Badiou takes the recognition of difference to be an essential feature of love, the recognition of two different subjects, different points of view on reality, and the subsequent construction of a new reality based on that difference. Such a difference is, in every case, new. That is why love that is real is always of interest to the whole of humanity, however humble, however hidden, that love might seem on the…

Continue reading

Descriptive Psychology Writing

Mammen: Choice Category

What is a Choice Category within Jens Mammen’s framework? In my understanding, a Choice Category is tied to two other concepts. On one hand, it is tied to the concept of identity and, on the other hand, it is tied to self-reference. You could think of identity and self-reference as two sides of the same coin. And that coin is the category of Choice (Mammen, 2016). “… two people are perceiving one and the same object through…

Continue reading

Descriptive Psychology history of psychology philosophical psychology William James

You Do not Stand Alone

Reflections on: Natsoulas, T. (2005). The Varieties of Religious Experience considered from the perspective of James’s account of the stream of consciousness. In R. D. Ellis & N. Newton (Eds.), Consciousness & Emotion: Agency, Conscious Choice, and Selective Perception (pp. 303-325). John Benjamins Publishing. In a brief address, published in Psychological Review in 1943, E. L. Thorndike attempts to acknowledge the contributions of William James to psychology. On the  first page of the article, he claims that the…

Continue reading

Descriptive Psychology metaphysics philosophical psychology

Interview with Raymond Bergner

Dr. Raymond Bergner is a Professor of Psychology in the Clinical and Counseling Psychology Program at Illinois State University. He received his PhD in 1973 from University of Colorado – Boulder, where he joined the movement known as ‘Descriptive Psychology’ (for an introduction to this framework, see Bergner, 2010). He has been a member of the Editorial Board of Advances in Descriptive Psychology (volumes 1-10) and the President of the Society for Descriptive Psychology (1984-2004).…

Continue reading