Judas Priest on a pony. I know that there's not going to be a congress of psychopaths...BTW how weird would that be.... but I'm just going to precast my vote that the author of that mess be prohibited from getting within touching distance of anyone much less psychopaths.
It would amuse me to watch them, like a rabbit hoping near a buzzsaw. Perhaps it is my nature.
I want to ask you about this 'trust' thing. As a feeling. Have you ever felt anything you would describe as "trust"? I can't say for sure, if I feel trust, or if I have before. So I really am asking: "Does anyone feel that?" How could anyone actually 'feel' trust? Maybe it is just an expression people use?
Athena mentioned that whole "abuse" in childhood thing: Maybe I am just unskilled at identify or experiencing various feelings?
I was around someone, a felon, a violent criminal, that I saw as dangerous. Perhaps that was me 'fearful' of this man.
LOL., Not like I am going to "work on it"- I am very much like Athena writes: Very comfortable and good with my own self!! hahaha.
Hope you are well. BTW: "Judas Priest on a pony"! Made me laugh!! Thanks!!
I have never felt trust either. I didn't know that it was a feeling for most people, which is why I couldn't understand why so many people would make very poor decisions when it came to trusting others. It wasn't something that they were choosing to do necessarily, it was an automated process that has to be cognitively interrupted.
WoW!!!! Trust is a feeling that people make decisions on!!!???????
Just that one aspect alone, has likely protected me in countless ways and countless times. Always I thought other people could do the things I have done, traveled and seen things and experience things. But maybe not.
Athena, wouldn't, well, nearly everyone benefit of "interrupting, cognitively, this automated process?"
It seems it would cause endless grief. It would cause people to act foolishly at insane risk levels.
No wonder I have lived such a full life. I had such advantages. I used them all the time, I can tell you!!!
Jun 7, 2023·edited Jun 7, 2023Liked by Athena Walker
Trust is fundamentally an information processing filter, not a feeling - but people don't think about it that way.
People, especially the type that would write a hug-a-psychopath article, often use "trust" and "love" interchangeably. What they mean by "trust" is to have an emotional attachment to someone that gives them the warm fuzzies. When the term is used like that, it does describe a feeling that you, Athena, are not going to be familiar with. This is why the way they talk about trust is confusing.
If we get down to the nitty-gritty, trust is not something anyone can feel because it is the absence of doubt, not the presence of a feeling. Can you feel all of those doubts you are not having?
Trust is an important heuristic which makes it possible to function within society. You go around your life assuming most of the information coming your way from others is true because it would simply take too much time and energy to doubt everything.
Here's where I think psychopaths and NTs have a divide in how they process information.
We are surrounded by an infinite amount of information and our brains are puny. If you start subjecting everything to the utmost scrutiny, you can spend your life wondering if a grain of sand is real.
A psychopath is aware of that inherent uncertainty. You know that people lie or are honestly mistaken all the time. When someone tells you something, even if you assume it is true, you know you're working with a confidence interval that is subject to change.
The problem for NTs is that uncertainty is deeply stressful. You are immune to stress so you don't care. To an NT, however, uncertainty is the embodiment of fear. It is the weird sound that goes bump in the night. I mean, it's probably not a tiger ready to pounce on you, but we're hardwired to err on the side of caution. What if it is? Scary.
For an NT to be able to relax around someone and develop the emotional attachment that gives them the sweet, sweet juice of warm fuzzies they crave, they need to believe that the other person would never lie to them, therefore there is no stressful uncertainty in the relationship. This is why they use "trust" and "love" pretty much interchangeably. This is also why most people have a false binary system of character assessment - someone is either 100% lovely and trustworthy or 100% reprehensible and unreliable. It's a neat binary that saves them a lot of stress and mental energy.
You don't use this binary system for character assessment and you don't have warm fuzzies, so you are lacking in that type of trust.
You do have the other type of trust, where you often assume the words coming out of someone's mouth are correct... it's just that this is not what people usually talk about when they discuss trust.
I have never felt trust. I could get into stories from my childhood about not having trust for people who I was suppose to be trusting but that would take too long. I don't know what other people feel but from relationships I've had I know that trust is a pretty important thing for some people. I'll admit that a couple of times I did something rather sketchy just to see if a woman I was dating actually trusted me like she said. I didn't let anything bad happen and I was amazed at the emotional response "I knew I could trust you" ...yeah I admit that was wrong and probably creepy
I think trust is earned over time. I don’t trust automatically no matter what the circumstances. I have friends who see my views about trust as ‘sad’ or ‘a shame’. Many people trust far too easily in my view. “That’s a policeman in uniform, you can trust him.” Nope, uniform does not equate to trustworthiness. There have been several recent news stories over here about women trusting police officers and it didn’t end well for them. I am capable of trust, I do trust a few people but I can count them on one hand. I view trust very similarly to respect. It’s earned.
hey. Thank you for your very honest post. It is not easy to say you may be wrong or creepy. I don't find it so!! But consider the source!! haha.
To me, you just experimented in relationships you wanted to test in some way. Likely you didn't give it much thought, but decided instantly.
"I knew I could trust you". I didn't know how to process this statement: So I imagine myself saying it!!! Hahaha. Can you imagine those words coming out of your mouth???? hahaha. I'm killing my gut laughing so hard.
I would never say that to anyone at anytime! I said it out loud a couple times to great comedic affect!!
if I cut it in half: "I trust you"- I still start laughing un-controllably. I've certainly never said that to anyone.
How did it work out? Those who knew they could trust you? What happened?
Is it reasonable to assume, those who speak about trust, are mostly, those who have been burned by someone they "trusted"?
Did you find out of those women? (pardon me if this is "too much")
May 31, 2023·edited Jun 1, 2023Liked by Athena Walker
Wilhelm Reich was odd. He thought aliens were stalking him. Had some sort of paranoid disorder. He died in 1957.
He had a bizarre hypothesis about sexual energy - orgon energy, he called it. Orgon energy, he said, gets stuck in specific regions of the body & causes emotional blocks (the amour). So, emotions can be healed by releasing tension in these areas of the body. It's popular with New Agers today, probably because it sounds so easy.
He invented an orgon energy generating machine that was supposed to increase human physical powers. The FDA said, no, that's medical fraud. Reich didn't agree & transported them across state lines anyway & he was jailed.
So, I'm not surprised at all that he had these misconceptions about psychopathy, especially considering that died over 60 years ago. He was a product of the times. No one had any clue about divergent neurology.
Sure looks like it. Did you look up their credentials? They have training in alternative medicine, and they talk about it in a New Age way. They sound a bit airy. No traditional psychology training.
He's not exactly a reliable source. He was reacting to his paranoia of aliens, too afraid to give it careful consideration. Scientists credit evolution, natural selection, and adaptation for the body's design. Lots of evidence for evolution.
What were your conscious (& unconscious) expectations of the machine? The placebo effect is incredibly powerful & it's even greater for machines than for pills.
The only evidence for the theory & the benefits of the machine is anecdotal. Anecdotal evidence is just unverified stories; it’s not evidence. Blinded studies are evidence.
But studies have found no evidence for orgone energy or the machines. Scientists call it pseudo-science (fake science). Reich also claimed the machines gave people the ability to control the weather.
LOL. I'm flattered my opinion on design rates your comment. Good to be found worthy.
But, let me return your kind wishes:
When the spaceships come, I will ask them to make an exception for you.
ON the machine: I was wrong about Orgone.
It likely was a different machine- a colored light & frequency generator.
It focused on my wrists, on my palms side: I experienced what I perceive as a "female orgasm".
I was offered the machine for sale: Insanely expensive at the time.
Yes, there was something about weather control, but not literally, at least not from this practitioner: Carolyn (Griffin?) the Danish beauty. Something about immunity to weather changes or the like?
We lived very near Dr. Bernard Jensen, the pioneer of Iridology. I know Mike Diogo, who is credited in the light book. I was friends with Roger Millet who developed the camera Dr. Jensen used in his practice.
That article is a mess. I thought in some instances it was leaning more towards NPD but reading on its just a mish mash of disorders being forced into an inaccurate framework. Difficult to say anything positive about it at all so I won’t bother. In fact, I think articles like this are plain dangerous if I’m honest.
Changing the subject slightly, I think I remember reading somewhere Athena that an interviewer asked you to go ‘mask off’ during an interview. They couldn’t handle it and asked for you to put the mask back on. Did I dream that or have I read that? Do you have an article that discusses this aspect? Why NT’s can’t handle mask off or an explanation of which NT needs you cater to when wearing the mask. Sorry for the subject change. I was just curious to know how it would feel to talk to you as you are, as opposed to what you would portray in order to make me feel comfortable.
It wasn't an interview, it was a psychotherapist that had been in contact with me. They believed that they would be fine because of their training, but found out that was not the case.
I don't have an article about it because I don't have an interest in violating that person's privacy. It was an interesting occasion, but not something that I think I could write a whole post about without doing so.
I will remind my friend that is going to do a Q&A about being friends with me, and this can certainly be one of the questions that she answers as she will have first hand experience.
However, I am very concerned of the people who post and I interact with on your substack. I can only imagine, but the group who regularly read and post comments? Very diverse group and includes some I might easily offend or cause pain.
Thank God, I have read enough of your previous post and articles, and having had a psychopathic partner, that I know better, thank you for having posted all that you have. I do not know how you can handle reading stuff like this, I could barely do it.
Jun 1, 2023·edited Jun 1, 2023Liked by Athena Walker
Read this again & i think i can answer some of your rhetorical questions. :) I think they mean "heedless,' not 'needless" in the middle of the article. Can't tell what that hanging "their" is, though. They really need a decent editor.
Amour is what Wilhelm Reich called the banding of orgone energy that is blocked. 7 or 8 amours wrap around the body, like around the head and the pelvis (that's why they mentioned the pelvis). And each amour is associated with a certain negative emotion. And yeah, the New Age references you saw were just that.
Theirs power. He speaks about psychopathic character being fixated on keeping power and control to themselves, thus being unable to let other people have some power and control to themselves, because the situation is apparently understood as zero-sum game.
The names are really unfortunate because reasoning of "this character has defenses that create superficial similarity to actual psychopaths (radiating confidence and independenceand yadda yadda) while being at its core a different beast" is just... Yeah. Could avoid it all by different name. Which is why there is a newer terminology - Inspirer character structure. Schizoid was changed into Creator, Oral into Communicator and so on...
Here's the sentence "They fear loss of power and are unable to let others be in theirs,"
OK, it's still an awkward sentence. They fear loss of power and won't share it? Terminology seems to be a frequent obstacle to understanding, no matter what the topic is..
I think the author might have wanted the sentence to sound a bit poetic (helps with being memorable).
Agree on difficulties with terminology and understanding - language is a small miracle, but still an imperfect miracle. I also read somewhere that it is more accurate to say it is a tool of persuasion rather than tool of clarification.
These authors sound sexually repressed. They're better off hiring an escort to play this role than they are at finding someone who's actually like this. I feel sorry for any traumatized persons who are unfortunate enough to run into these predatory ass hats with saviour complexes.
I have known a few women that are super spiritual that slept around a lot. Looking at their biographies that might be what's happened here. They indulged their lusts and now they are pining after the men they used to have in their twenties now they are settled down.
Also, since they used the attractiveness of their twenties to mean people didn't really feed back to them, and made them think the lack of feedback for crappy behaviour was how the world is (they just ditched anyone with "bad vibes"). They generally can't admit fault. So because they can't admit fault they do not learn anything. In order to engage in the most basic learning surely we would have to admit we are not correct in the first place? This basic premise seems to escape a lot of people.
hey, Ellie. "Sexually repressed". What an interesting choice of words!
it does make me wonder as I don't have a working knowledge of what that actually mean in practice or what it would mean to the authors.
Let me venture: You mean, these people seek to use their learning, and degrees and such, to affect their own physical sexual gratification on their "patients" (clients?) at the direct expense of the clients giving them sex?
You mean, they deny their own intent? Which is to sexually abuse or take advantage of others? Under a pretense?
Damn GF. Have I got this right? It appears, you are really calling out these low lifes?
Jun 1, 2023·edited Jun 1, 2023Liked by Athena Walker
It's one of Freud's defenses. Defenses are what we do when we want to hide from our real feelings.
Repression is ignoring reality. If someone is sexually repressed, they deny sexual feelings by ignoring them. But defenses aren't effective because you can't ignore part of your psyche completely. It comes out in unexpected ways.
Repression doesn't address how it comes out. It could be abuse, but abuse is more often the defense of projection rather than that of repression. Repression only ignores it.
Thanks. Most people, but not all, hide from their real feelings. Things they don't want to see get packed away in the unconscious mind. Hiding them is the source of all internal conflict.
Freud thought we'd always be hiding our feelings & we'd never be free the unconscious. But there are tons of techniques to do just that. All mystical paths aim at clearing out the junk - the unconscious - that interferes with the experience of this present moment. Many therapies, especially Jungian shadowwork.
Jung said "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life....” It takes an enormous amount of work & commitment, but it's possible to be free of the psychic unconscious (I don't think it's possible to be free of the unconscious mind that directs our physiological processes, only the psychological processes).
There are 8 other defense mechanisms. The one that's easiest to see is projection. Projection tries to hide feelings by assigning them to someone else.
For example, I used to dislike people who appeared insecure. Why? Because I hated my own insecurity. Had nothing to do with other people. I was reacting to my own self-hatred. When I stopped hiding from my insecurities and accepted them, the lifelong pattern of insecurity disappeared. And now, while I might recognize someone is insecure, it's not my focus and I don't have any reaction to it.
Projection isn't always that simple though. It could have been about something I related to insecurity instead.
Each one of the defenses does something that twists reality. Looking at my old notes:
- Repression avoids reality (not ignore like I thought)
- Regression withdraws from reality (reverts to earlier age)
- Sublimation - redirects to healthier goals - considered by Freudians to be the healthy defense
However, Jung's shadowwork eventually eliminates all defenses, including sublimation. There's no need for defenses when the unconscious is made conscious.
Karen, I told and promised Athena, I would not mess with people on her property. I do not want to feel the business end of her boot as I fly through the night sky wondering where I will land.
Yet, let me say this, with respect to you and Athena, as if we are at a bar talking:
E= MC squared is true but only on a relevant range. At either end it doesn't work.
Freud and Jung are like that. They have a relevant range to some people.
I respect and admire you overcame some things you saw in yourself. Quite commendable, indeed.
Actually, E=mc^2 is a statement of mass/energy equivalence. It tells us that energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed. It applies to everything - not only to a certain range. (I'm a physicist)
My guess is you're trying to say that special relativity doesn't apply to objects that are travelling much slower than the speed of light. But that's not true - it always applies. Relativistic effects at slower speeds are so small they can't be measured. Same with quantum - there's no place where it doesn't apply, but it can be observed & measured only in the subatomic realm.
While I agree that these are merely models of the psyche & that people have different psychologies, everyone sees the world through the biases of their minds. Everyone uses defenses, especially projection. We don't see the world exactly as it is - we interpret it based on what we think we know. That's projection, the primary way people relate to the world. Even when we stop hiding from our feelings, we still see the world through our assumptions about ourselves.
Karen is correct as to what sexual repression is. I made the 'sexually repressed' statement because they were specifically talking about people's bodies in ways that would fit better in an erotica than in a psychology article.
I didn't say they were predatory because I thought they were targeting people for sex in particular, but rather because they seem to be obsessed with the bad boy archetype and are trying to apply it to real life people. I find the sexual undertones to just be a part of a greater fantasy for these authors.
They want the bad boys. They want the goth girls. They want to "fix" them. They want to be the hero of someone else's story. While in fiction this is glamorized, in real life a "hero" is just another breed of abuser.
Brilliant rebuttle of Reich's psychoanalytic theories, which were written around the 1920's and 1930's. I think he was seen as a radical of his time, but all of those theories were written before neuroscience and genetic understanding opened up. The main concern is that these theories are still taught without emphasising the historical time frame they were written in which would put the assertions into context.
ooopppps. Perhaps I was not entirely accurate: I was treated with a machine, a new age machine, in 1990s. I thought it was Orgon: Likely I am mistaken. I held it, like electrodes in my hands and it went through cycles. The practioner was a Danish woman of stunning physical beauty. It could have been anything, I guess. Please accept my apology for my inaccurate post.
Have you considered commenting on this incredibly misguided and inaccurate article; I noticed that there is a comment section. They obviously have no idea what they are talking about—and you are the best person to set them straight!
Unfortunately this particular one was written back in 2018. The only comment on it was left three years ago, and the authors never replied to it. It seems that they aren't monitoring it.
Did you see a link to the article? I didn't. Wilhelm Reich died in 1957, so there's no setting him straight today. But the author is another matter....
Thanks. I thought orgon energy (the banding around the areas of the body) had been discredited. The heart isn't the site of emotional pain & emotions aren't correlated with segments of the body. So the whole hypothesis is messed up. But I guess those who follow it - mostly New Agers, from what I can gather - found their placebo.
After reading this post, one thing is certain to me: the closest one can get to torture Athena is to tie her in a chair and force her to read those cursed texts filled with fan fiction that poses itself as a legitimate psychological article
Judas Priest on a pony. I know that there's not going to be a congress of psychopaths...BTW how weird would that be.... but I'm just going to precast my vote that the author of that mess be prohibited from getting within touching distance of anyone much less psychopaths.
I second that
Hey. From the Congress!! hahaha.
It would amuse me to watch them, like a rabbit hoping near a buzzsaw. Perhaps it is my nature.
I want to ask you about this 'trust' thing. As a feeling. Have you ever felt anything you would describe as "trust"? I can't say for sure, if I feel trust, or if I have before. So I really am asking: "Does anyone feel that?" How could anyone actually 'feel' trust? Maybe it is just an expression people use?
Athena mentioned that whole "abuse" in childhood thing: Maybe I am just unskilled at identify or experiencing various feelings?
I was around someone, a felon, a violent criminal, that I saw as dangerous. Perhaps that was me 'fearful' of this man.
LOL., Not like I am going to "work on it"- I am very much like Athena writes: Very comfortable and good with my own self!! hahaha.
Hope you are well. BTW: "Judas Priest on a pony"! Made me laugh!! Thanks!!
I have never felt trust either. I didn't know that it was a feeling for most people, which is why I couldn't understand why so many people would make very poor decisions when it came to trusting others. It wasn't something that they were choosing to do necessarily, it was an automated process that has to be cognitively interrupted.
WoW!!!! Trust is a feeling that people make decisions on!!!???????
Just that one aspect alone, has likely protected me in countless ways and countless times. Always I thought other people could do the things I have done, traveled and seen things and experience things. But maybe not.
Athena, wouldn't, well, nearly everyone benefit of "interrupting, cognitively, this automated process?"
It seems it would cause endless grief. It would cause people to act foolishly at insane risk levels.
No wonder I have lived such a full life. I had such advantages. I used them all the time, I can tell you!!!
Indeed it is an emotion that people utilize to make their decisions.
Yes, they certainly would benefit from interrupting this process, which is why I always tell people to never give others the benefit of the doubt.
Trust is fundamentally an information processing filter, not a feeling - but people don't think about it that way.
People, especially the type that would write a hug-a-psychopath article, often use "trust" and "love" interchangeably. What they mean by "trust" is to have an emotional attachment to someone that gives them the warm fuzzies. When the term is used like that, it does describe a feeling that you, Athena, are not going to be familiar with. This is why the way they talk about trust is confusing.
If we get down to the nitty-gritty, trust is not something anyone can feel because it is the absence of doubt, not the presence of a feeling. Can you feel all of those doubts you are not having?
Trust is an important heuristic which makes it possible to function within society. You go around your life assuming most of the information coming your way from others is true because it would simply take too much time and energy to doubt everything.
Here's where I think psychopaths and NTs have a divide in how they process information.
We are surrounded by an infinite amount of information and our brains are puny. If you start subjecting everything to the utmost scrutiny, you can spend your life wondering if a grain of sand is real.
A psychopath is aware of that inherent uncertainty. You know that people lie or are honestly mistaken all the time. When someone tells you something, even if you assume it is true, you know you're working with a confidence interval that is subject to change.
The problem for NTs is that uncertainty is deeply stressful. You are immune to stress so you don't care. To an NT, however, uncertainty is the embodiment of fear. It is the weird sound that goes bump in the night. I mean, it's probably not a tiger ready to pounce on you, but we're hardwired to err on the side of caution. What if it is? Scary.
For an NT to be able to relax around someone and develop the emotional attachment that gives them the sweet, sweet juice of warm fuzzies they crave, they need to believe that the other person would never lie to them, therefore there is no stressful uncertainty in the relationship. This is why they use "trust" and "love" pretty much interchangeably. This is also why most people have a false binary system of character assessment - someone is either 100% lovely and trustworthy or 100% reprehensible and unreliable. It's a neat binary that saves them a lot of stress and mental energy.
You don't use this binary system for character assessment and you don't have warm fuzzies, so you are lacking in that type of trust.
You do have the other type of trust, where you often assume the words coming out of someone's mouth are correct... it's just that this is not what people usually talk about when they discuss trust.
That's a very interesting way of considering it, Milen
Excellent and very enjoyable post. You took a lot of time and effort on a difficult topic.
it appears you are onto something on the "binary system" of character assessment.
Also, it makes me laugh to think about it!! Thanks again.
I have never felt trust. I could get into stories from my childhood about not having trust for people who I was suppose to be trusting but that would take too long. I don't know what other people feel but from relationships I've had I know that trust is a pretty important thing for some people. I'll admit that a couple of times I did something rather sketchy just to see if a woman I was dating actually trusted me like she said. I didn't let anything bad happen and I was amazed at the emotional response "I knew I could trust you" ...yeah I admit that was wrong and probably creepy
I think trust is earned over time. I don’t trust automatically no matter what the circumstances. I have friends who see my views about trust as ‘sad’ or ‘a shame’. Many people trust far too easily in my view. “That’s a policeman in uniform, you can trust him.” Nope, uniform does not equate to trustworthiness. There have been several recent news stories over here about women trusting police officers and it didn’t end well for them. I am capable of trust, I do trust a few people but I can count them on one hand. I view trust very similarly to respect. It’s earned.
Agreed
there is a famous bridge in San Diego, CA: Cara Knott Bridge.
She was raped and murdered under that bridge by CHP officer Craig Pryor.
Sadly, we hear stories like that far too often these days.
hey. Thank you for your very honest post. It is not easy to say you may be wrong or creepy. I don't find it so!! But consider the source!! haha.
To me, you just experimented in relationships you wanted to test in some way. Likely you didn't give it much thought, but decided instantly.
"I knew I could trust you". I didn't know how to process this statement: So I imagine myself saying it!!! Hahaha. Can you imagine those words coming out of your mouth???? hahaha. I'm killing my gut laughing so hard.
I would never say that to anyone at anytime! I said it out loud a couple times to great comedic affect!!
if I cut it in half: "I trust you"- I still start laughing un-controllably. I've certainly never said that to anyone.
How did it work out? Those who knew they could trust you? What happened?
Is it reasonable to assume, those who speak about trust, are mostly, those who have been burned by someone they "trusted"?
Did you find out of those women? (pardon me if this is "too much")
It's actually not hard for me to admit to wrong. If you can catch me
Same
you mean in your personal relations and such: If your girlfriend finds you spend the night out with someone else.
"These two people are going to end up murdered in an alleyway."
My favorite sentence.
Excellent
Wilhelm Reich was odd. He thought aliens were stalking him. Had some sort of paranoid disorder. He died in 1957.
He had a bizarre hypothesis about sexual energy - orgon energy, he called it. Orgon energy, he said, gets stuck in specific regions of the body & causes emotional blocks (the amour). So, emotions can be healed by releasing tension in these areas of the body. It's popular with New Agers today, probably because it sounds so easy.
He invented an orgon energy generating machine that was supposed to increase human physical powers. The FDA said, no, that's medical fraud. Reich didn't agree & transported them across state lines anyway & he was jailed.
So, I'm not surprised at all that he had these misconceptions about psychopathy, especially considering that died over 60 years ago. He was a product of the times. No one had any clue about divergent neurology.
This seems to support my notion that this whole article is based on some creepy fantasy that the authors have about psychopaths.
Sure looks like it. Did you look up their credentials? They have training in alternative medicine, and they talk about it in a New Age way. They sound a bit airy. No traditional psychology training.
And yet... they speak about therapist as though they are qualified to train them
I have used one of those machines. They are really quite nice and restful.
My experience was 100% treatments were followed by sexual experiences. So there is that.
Not as certain about aliens, though the evident design of our bodies came from somewhere: Perhaps we are copyright protected by another species?
He's not exactly a reliable source. He was reacting to his paranoia of aliens, too afraid to give it careful consideration. Scientists credit evolution, natural selection, and adaptation for the body's design. Lots of evidence for evolution.
What were your conscious (& unconscious) expectations of the machine? The placebo effect is incredibly powerful & it's even greater for machines than for pills.
The only evidence for the theory & the benefits of the machine is anecdotal. Anecdotal evidence is just unverified stories; it’s not evidence. Blinded studies are evidence.
But studies have found no evidence for orgone energy or the machines. Scientists call it pseudo-science (fake science). Reich also claimed the machines gave people the ability to control the weather.
LOL. I'm flattered my opinion on design rates your comment. Good to be found worthy.
But, let me return your kind wishes:
When the spaceships come, I will ask them to make an exception for you.
ON the machine: I was wrong about Orgone.
It likely was a different machine- a colored light & frequency generator.
It focused on my wrists, on my palms side: I experienced what I perceive as a "female orgasm".
I was offered the machine for sale: Insanely expensive at the time.
Yes, there was something about weather control, but not literally, at least not from this practitioner: Carolyn (Griffin?) the Danish beauty. Something about immunity to weather changes or the like?
We lived very near Dr. Bernard Jensen, the pioneer of Iridology. I know Mike Diogo, who is credited in the light book. I was friends with Roger Millet who developed the camera Dr. Jensen used in his practice.
So, Spaceships then!! haha Keep your bag ready!!
And don't forget your towel.
"My Towel" The only joke about towels, that I know are "crying towels'.
Do I have this right?
It's from Douglas Adam's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Don't panic & don't forget to bring your towel.
That article is a mess. I thought in some instances it was leaning more towards NPD but reading on its just a mish mash of disorders being forced into an inaccurate framework. Difficult to say anything positive about it at all so I won’t bother. In fact, I think articles like this are plain dangerous if I’m honest.
Changing the subject slightly, I think I remember reading somewhere Athena that an interviewer asked you to go ‘mask off’ during an interview. They couldn’t handle it and asked for you to put the mask back on. Did I dream that or have I read that? Do you have an article that discusses this aspect? Why NT’s can’t handle mask off or an explanation of which NT needs you cater to when wearing the mask. Sorry for the subject change. I was just curious to know how it would feel to talk to you as you are, as opposed to what you would portray in order to make me feel comfortable.
It wasn't an interview, it was a psychotherapist that had been in contact with me. They believed that they would be fine because of their training, but found out that was not the case.
I don't have an article about it because I don't have an interest in violating that person's privacy. It was an interesting occasion, but not something that I think I could write a whole post about without doing so.
I will remind my friend that is going to do a Q&A about being friends with me, and this can certainly be one of the questions that she answers as she will have first hand experience.
Completely understand the privacy aspect. Yes, that would be great if your friend could explain a little about that.
Athena, you always amaze me. Thanks again for your work and your posts.
If I say something out of line, please tell me as it is not my intent to offend.
You needn't concern yourself with offending me
-smiles- Mask off?
I am un-concerned of offending you.
However, I am very concerned of the people who post and I interact with on your substack. I can only imagine, but the group who regularly read and post comments? Very diverse group and includes some I might easily offend or cause pain.
Makes sense
Thank God, I have read enough of your previous post and articles, and having had a psychopathic partner, that I know better, thank you for having posted all that you have. I do not know how you can handle reading stuff like this, I could barely do it.
I find it fairly funny
Stupid funny, yes. But irritating that it was being blasted to a large audience, who may, or may not, believe what was being said.
Yes, that is unfortunate
Read this again & i think i can answer some of your rhetorical questions. :) I think they mean "heedless,' not 'needless" in the middle of the article. Can't tell what that hanging "their" is, though. They really need a decent editor.
Amour is what Wilhelm Reich called the banding of orgone energy that is blocked. 7 or 8 amours wrap around the body, like around the head and the pelvis (that's why they mentioned the pelvis). And each amour is associated with a certain negative emotion. And yeah, the New Age references you saw were just that.
Thank you for the clarification
Theirs power. He speaks about psychopathic character being fixated on keeping power and control to themselves, thus being unable to let other people have some power and control to themselves, because the situation is apparently understood as zero-sum game.
The names are really unfortunate because reasoning of "this character has defenses that create superficial similarity to actual psychopaths (radiating confidence and independenceand yadda yadda) while being at its core a different beast" is just... Yeah. Could avoid it all by different name. Which is why there is a newer terminology - Inspirer character structure. Schizoid was changed into Creator, Oral into Communicator and so on...
Here's the sentence "They fear loss of power and are unable to let others be in theirs,"
OK, it's still an awkward sentence. They fear loss of power and won't share it? Terminology seems to be a frequent obstacle to understanding, no matter what the topic is..
I think the author might have wanted the sentence to sound a bit poetic (helps with being memorable).
Agree on difficulties with terminology and understanding - language is a small miracle, but still an imperfect miracle. I also read somewhere that it is more accurate to say it is a tool of persuasion rather than tool of clarification.
It's memorable for being poorly written. Probably not what they were going for.
These authors sound sexually repressed. They're better off hiring an escort to play this role than they are at finding someone who's actually like this. I feel sorry for any traumatized persons who are unfortunate enough to run into these predatory ass hats with saviour complexes.
I agree, it is going to turn out poorly for someone
All just my thoughts.
I have known a few women that are super spiritual that slept around a lot. Looking at their biographies that might be what's happened here. They indulged their lusts and now they are pining after the men they used to have in their twenties now they are settled down.
Also, since they used the attractiveness of their twenties to mean people didn't really feed back to them, and made them think the lack of feedback for crappy behaviour was how the world is (they just ditched anyone with "bad vibes"). They generally can't admit fault. So because they can't admit fault they do not learn anything. In order to engage in the most basic learning surely we would have to admit we are not correct in the first place? This basic premise seems to escape a lot of people.
hey, Ellie. "Sexually repressed". What an interesting choice of words!
it does make me wonder as I don't have a working knowledge of what that actually mean in practice or what it would mean to the authors.
Let me venture: You mean, these people seek to use their learning, and degrees and such, to affect their own physical sexual gratification on their "patients" (clients?) at the direct expense of the clients giving them sex?
You mean, they deny their own intent? Which is to sexually abuse or take advantage of others? Under a pretense?
Damn GF. Have I got this right? It appears, you are really calling out these low lifes?
It's one of Freud's defenses. Defenses are what we do when we want to hide from our real feelings.
Repression is ignoring reality. If someone is sexually repressed, they deny sexual feelings by ignoring them. But defenses aren't effective because you can't ignore part of your psyche completely. It comes out in unexpected ways.
Repression doesn't address how it comes out. It could be abuse, but abuse is more often the defense of projection rather than that of repression. Repression only ignores it.
@Karen: Great work and you really made me smile.
I read a few times: I could understand more if I try - mostly the words and concepts are new to me.
"Hide from our real feelings"- I suppose everyone does this:?: However, it would take a boatload of effort for me to see that in myself.
Either I feel a limited range of feelings, am very good at hiding, or something else.
For some years, I experienced something I called "Global Rage". I had to adopt some skills to avoid consequences. I'm very grateful that I did that.
As to ignoring sexual feelings? that certainly doesn't sound like me.
Thanks again. You seem like a very interesting person.
Thanks. Most people, but not all, hide from their real feelings. Things they don't want to see get packed away in the unconscious mind. Hiding them is the source of all internal conflict.
Freud thought we'd always be hiding our feelings & we'd never be free the unconscious. But there are tons of techniques to do just that. All mystical paths aim at clearing out the junk - the unconscious - that interferes with the experience of this present moment. Many therapies, especially Jungian shadowwork.
Jung said "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life....” It takes an enormous amount of work & commitment, but it's possible to be free of the psychic unconscious (I don't think it's possible to be free of the unconscious mind that directs our physiological processes, only the psychological processes).
There are 8 other defense mechanisms. The one that's easiest to see is projection. Projection tries to hide feelings by assigning them to someone else.
For example, I used to dislike people who appeared insecure. Why? Because I hated my own insecurity. Had nothing to do with other people. I was reacting to my own self-hatred. When I stopped hiding from my insecurities and accepted them, the lifelong pattern of insecurity disappeared. And now, while I might recognize someone is insecure, it's not my focus and I don't have any reaction to it.
Projection isn't always that simple though. It could have been about something I related to insecurity instead.
Each one of the defenses does something that twists reality. Looking at my old notes:
- Repression avoids reality (not ignore like I thought)
- Denial excludes reality (refuses to accept)
- Rationalization redefines reality (makes justifications)
- Reaction formation - reverses reality (someone obsessed with cleaning is really obsessed with dirt)
- Isolation partitions reality (intellectualizing)
- Regression withdraws from reality (reverts to earlier age)
- Sublimation - redirects to healthier goals - considered by Freudians to be the healthy defense
However, Jung's shadowwork eventually eliminates all defenses, including sublimation. There's no need for defenses when the unconscious is made conscious.
Karen, I told and promised Athena, I would not mess with people on her property. I do not want to feel the business end of her boot as I fly through the night sky wondering where I will land.
Yet, let me say this, with respect to you and Athena, as if we are at a bar talking:
E= MC squared is true but only on a relevant range. At either end it doesn't work.
Freud and Jung are like that. They have a relevant range to some people.
I respect and admire you overcame some things you saw in yourself. Quite commendable, indeed.
Actually, E=mc^2 is a statement of mass/energy equivalence. It tells us that energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed. It applies to everything - not only to a certain range. (I'm a physicist)
My guess is you're trying to say that special relativity doesn't apply to objects that are travelling much slower than the speed of light. But that's not true - it always applies. Relativistic effects at slower speeds are so small they can't be measured. Same with quantum - there's no place where it doesn't apply, but it can be observed & measured only in the subatomic realm.
While I agree that these are merely models of the psyche & that people have different psychologies, everyone sees the world through the biases of their minds. Everyone uses defenses, especially projection. We don't see the world exactly as it is - we interpret it based on what we think we know. That's projection, the primary way people relate to the world. Even when we stop hiding from our feelings, we still see the world through our assumptions about ourselves.
Karen is correct as to what sexual repression is. I made the 'sexually repressed' statement because they were specifically talking about people's bodies in ways that would fit better in an erotica than in a psychology article.
I didn't say they were predatory because I thought they were targeting people for sex in particular, but rather because they seem to be obsessed with the bad boy archetype and are trying to apply it to real life people. I find the sexual undertones to just be a part of a greater fantasy for these authors.
They want the bad boys. They want the goth girls. They want to "fix" them. They want to be the hero of someone else's story. While in fiction this is glamorized, in real life a "hero" is just another breed of abuser.
Ellie, thanks for kind post. This is not my most skilled area: I defer to your experience and judgement.
My eyes do light up at your conclusion: "in real life a "hero" is just another breed of abuser."
Very powerful and colorful imagery. Thanks again.
LMAO at your comments, Athena.
Yep, same here!
This is so funny to read 😂
Brilliant rebuttle of Reich's psychoanalytic theories, which were written around the 1920's and 1930's. I think he was seen as a radical of his time, but all of those theories were written before neuroscience and genetic understanding opened up. The main concern is that these theories are still taught without emphasising the historical time frame they were written in which would put the assertions into context.
It seems that they are at least still believed by people that want them to be true, which is unfortunate.
ooopppps. Perhaps I was not entirely accurate: I was treated with a machine, a new age machine, in 1990s. I thought it was Orgon: Likely I am mistaken. I held it, like electrodes in my hands and it went through cycles. The practioner was a Danish woman of stunning physical beauty. It could have been anything, I guess. Please accept my apology for my inaccurate post.
Are they still taught? I thought orgon energy had been discredited.
Have you considered commenting on this incredibly misguided and inaccurate article; I noticed that there is a comment section. They obviously have no idea what they are talking about—and you are the best person to set them straight!
Unfortunately this particular one was written back in 2018. The only comment on it was left three years ago, and the authors never replied to it. It seems that they aren't monitoring it.
Did you see a link to the article? I didn't. Wilhelm Reich died in 1957, so there's no setting him straight today. But the author is another matter....
Here’s the link to the article: https://www.biodynamicbreath.com/events/reichian-character-structures-psychopathic-structure/
Thanks. I thought orgon energy (the banding around the areas of the body) had been discredited. The heart isn't the site of emotional pain & emotions aren't correlated with segments of the body. So the whole hypothesis is messed up. But I guess those who follow it - mostly New Agers, from what I can gather - found their placebo.
Hah! Knew it was going to be a fun one.
your rebuttal was well written, however much the original article was a disaster.
-sincerely, i want eye bleach now from a few of those portions
I will take that eye bleach and also bring the brain bleach.
Thankyou for the post athena. Loved the analogy of hugging the tiger.
“I firmly believe that leashes for children were inspired by a psychopathic child”
HAHA I bet you make people crack up all the time
I have my moments
After reading this post, one thing is certain to me: the closest one can get to torture Athena is to tie her in a chair and force her to read those cursed texts filled with fan fiction that poses itself as a legitimate psychological article
It wouldn't be too effective as I voluntarily do it currently.
Hahaha!! This is REALLY funny!! So true!!