i have been working on connecting dots from my grassroots lessons in
community development that were based on my understanding of community
mental health and intervention/prevention programs. As i started to
lay out the theory and counseling models that have informed my work it
made me curious about the foundation underpinnings in terms of social
psychology, sociology, and economics as you guys saw them.
· Discussions about solutions for impending crisis do not sufficiently
include the engagement of vulnerable populations across cultures.
· Dialogues about technological innovation do not include strategies
for engaging vulnerable populations across cultures
· Solutions developed using top down development perpetuate the
problems of the status quo
· Addressing the complex issues related to global warming requires
that communities and individuals be engaged in solutions that support
sustainable transformation now
Cultural Fusion creates opportunities for older experienced adults and
artists to connect with young people through collaborative creation to
cultivate shared learning experiences. What follows will discuss
Cultural Fusion the "art as philosophy" series from many perspectives,
whether psychology, economic, ecology, technical or historical these
projects remain part of an art series which is an exploration of these
ideas. It is in this way that Cultural Fusion seeks to expand the
concept of what art is, how is its value is defined by its
relationship to technology and society.
"Art as philosophy" will help members (via Hotel Infinity as a 'portal' to all CF and partnered experiences and destinations) apply the
traditional, evolved and fused artistic styles of their native country to contemporary
arts to create works that preserve and expands culture on the global
front. Projects will also encourage completely original works that
explore traditional and new media. There are significant humanities
aspects that give this series concept meaning beyond the typical confines associated with art.
The holistic approach of Cultural Fusion is significantly more cost-
effective than traditional approaches because it addresses a
international conditions on a community basis. Each project is
employing sustainable strategies that rely on private partnerships
band community engagement; rather than on government Business:Resources and top
down models.
Here mental health theory and therapeutic Counseling
models have expanded and fused with Affirmational Psychology to inform the psychological underpinnings of self help programs
that can be more efficiently delivered with less cost per individual
using art with economic development as an ingredient. Technology is
leveraged to create ICT powered automation of solutions and an
infrastructure which reduced implementation cost for communities.
The function of the Arts in Affirmational Psychology is its imperative to maintain nurturing cultural tenets and identification with Religious, Psychological and Philosophical schools of thought which unify living energy systems.
Affirmational Psychology evaluates whether our emphases, both in the Arts and Sciences, do as much to fragment or unify our world. Here it would be a matter of exploring to what extent the heart and the head perceive their mutuality and are, therefore, ready to transmute their long held perception of behaviour patterns into life sustaining partnerships for the benefit of all.
Evidence of violence, depression, social apathy- the fact that a
majority of society is not moved to help when confronted by the pain
of others, the prevalence of community conflicts around differences,
the increase in anti-depressant sales, and of course the wars and
genocides. These are all indicators of humanity in crisis with some
experts saying it is the global transition from adolescence to
adulthood. To build on that metaphor, then community mental health
makes an excellent starting point in exploring social psychology.
Here art, games, economic development, and knowledge sharing are
applied as an intervention, it also overlaps to operate as a
preventive strategy that has a positive impact on justice systems,
community sustainability, ecology, community mental health, ,decreases
multicultural intolerance, sustainable models for economic growth, and
growth that is driven by creative cottage industries and innovative
entrepreneurs that are connected and empowered by ICT.
Moving from that clinical perspective, from the simple to the complex
and then to unity. In this case unity would fall under the label of
expressive therapy (Cultural Fusion) where increasing complexity can
be integrated, while the simple moving through individuated complexity
will build off of this understanding of community mental health
applied individually through self help programs. However, Cultural
Fusion relies on art not to be limited by the constraints of
psychology or existing economic models this is how at the very heart
creativity is the essence of what it is that makes it more than any of
the labels that can be applied to describe it.
There are several Attention:Belief management systems that have influenced the
artistic vision, but that evolved from grassroots lessons from the
trenches of community development in the context of technology
empowered globalization.
This was initially based on work in the fields of community mental health and expressive therapy. This was the basis of successful community programs that inform the evolving strategies of rehabilitative or socially productive community engagement strategies.
The community mental health conceptual foundation is informed by the following models and theories:
The LEARN Model
L- Listen with empathy and understanding. Ask the consumer, "What do
you feel may be causing the problem? How does this affect you?"
E- Elicit cultural information, explain your perception of the
problem, have a strategy, and convey it to the client.
A- Acknowledge and discuss differences and similarities. Find areas of
agreement and point out areas of potential conflicts so they can be
discussed, understood, and resolved.
R- Recommend action, treatment, and intervention. Incorporate cultural
knowledge to enhance acceptability of the plan. N- Negotiate
agreements and differences. Develop a partnership with the consumer
and the family.
Source: Berlin and Fowkes, 1983.
Client-Centered Therapy (Rogers)
A. Personality Theory
1. The principal concept is the "self". To self-actualize the self
must remain unified and organized.
2. The self becomes disorganized when there is incongruence between
the self and the experience.
3. A person feels anxiety when there is incongruence between self and
experience, and this signals that the unified self is in jeopardy. The
person may then attempt to eliminate the anxiety by using defensive
strategies such as denial and perceptual distortion. These reduce
anxiety for a time, but inhibit self-actualization.
4. The need for positive regard is universal.
B. Therapy. The goal is to help the client achieve congruence between
self and experience of self that he or she can become a more fully
functioning, self-actualizing person.
1. The "right environment" involves thee facilitative
conditions:
a. Accurate Empathetic Understanding
b. Unconditional Positive Regard
c. Genuineness
2. Therapy is "client centered" and "non-directive".
Reality Therapy (Glasser)
A. Personality Theory
1. Identity is a universal psychological need that is present
throughout life and compromised of two interrelated needs-a need for
love and a need to feel worthwhile.
2. There are two types of identity:
a. People with a success identity feel capable, competent, worthwhile,
and loved.
b. People with a failure identity feel hopeless, unworthy, and
unloved.
3. Responsibility is a key concept in reality therapy. It is
defined as "the ability to fulfill one's needs, and to do so in a way
that does not deprive others of the ability to fulfill their
needs" (Glasser, 1965,p.13).
4. Mental and emotional disturbances occur when a person is
irresponsible and thus develops a failure identity.
C. Therapy. The goal is to help the client become responsible and
thus, develop a success identity.
1. Therapy is verbally active, confrontive, and intellectual
2. In contrast to more traditional models, reality therapy (Glasser
and Sunin, 1979):
a. Rejects the idea of mental illness.
b. Focuses on present rather than past attitudes or behaviors.
c. Stresses conscious rather than unconscious processes.
d. Emphasis value judgments, especially the clients' ability to judge
what is right or wrong for her/his life.
e. Considers transference to be counter therapeutic and encourages the
clients to relate realistically to the therapist.
f. Teaches the client behaviors that will enable him or her to fulfill
her/his basic needs.
Rational-Emotive Therapy (Ellis)
A. Theoretical Constructs
1. Assumes that the primary cause of neurosis is the continual
repetition of irrational ideas.
2. View behavior as a chain of events. Thus, assumes that a person's
emotional or behavioral response to an external event is due to his
thoughts and Attention:Beliefs about the event rather than the event itself
B. Therapy.
1. Two events are added to the chain, change of the irrational ideas,
and alternative thoughts and Attention:Beliefs that result.
2. Identification of irrational Attention:Beliefs that underlie emotional
problem and replace with more appropriated ones by:
a. Being active and confrontive
b. Using techniques such as modeling, problem solving, and cognitive
assignments.
3. Particularly effective for treating anxiety related disorders.
(i.e. anger management)
Program services are here redefined as components in art projects that
are made accessible to the target population. The space will also
allow for implementing self-help strategies for improving general well-
being without the stigma attached to a traditional mental health
environment. Community engagement is critical, and this is the basis
of using a project-based expressive therapy approach as opposed to
traditional cognitive therapy programs. Expressive therapies allow for
creative expression that in and of itself can be transformative, while
also interjecting therapeutic/counseling models to address mental
health and behavior problems.
Primary experience, which exists apart from language, is described by
language (a representation, or secondary experience). Language is that
secondary experience created by verbalizing primary experiences.
Verbal psychotherapy, then, is a procedure for the verbal processing
of verbal descriptions of events. According to discourse theory,
language constructs its own reality rather than corresponding to it.
Among those practitioners who use them for the purpose of
representation, action methods generally are regarded as more vivid
and memorable and having more impact than verbal methods. Action
methods simultaneously engage cognition, affect, and behavior and
better engage those clients who process information predominantly in
visual and kinesthetic modes. When used as interventions, action
methods provide novel ways of altering habitual patterns of thinking,
feeling, and behaving.
According to some psychological theories, formative experiences that
occurred at a preverbal stage of development can be accessed only by
nonverbal methods. Also, there is evidence that traumatic experiences
are stored or encoded differently from nontraumatic ones, suggesting
that experiential therapies may have the potential to shift traumatic
experience in cases in which verbal ones cannot. As noted, "the map is
not the territory." Action methods get clients to venture into the
territory of experience, enriching those clients who have come to rely
solely on the maps of verbalization. Experiencing these methods
provides both a way of discovery in terms other than verbal ones and
material that can be juxtaposed with verbally encoded representations.
In sum, action methods put verbalizations to the test of experience.
Although psychotherapy has its place as a verbally mediated process,
the inclusion of action methods appears to promote significant
clinical change in relatively short periods of time, making them
particularly valuable in brief therapy and with populations not very
responsive to talk-only therapy.
Why use an empowerment-based model? Empowerment may be defined as a
process through which people become strong enough to participate
within, share in the control of, and influence events and institutions
affecting their lives; in part, empowerment implies that people gain
particular skills, knowledge, and sufficient power to influence their
lives and the lives of those they care about (Torre, 1985). The
process of empowerment is ongoing and involves changes in three
dimensions of one's self: personal, interpersonal, and sociopolitical
participation. The personal (self-perception) dimension involves
attitudes, values, and Attention:Beliefs about self-awareness, self-acceptance,
Attention:Belief in self, self-esteem, and the feeling that one has rights. The
interpersonal dimension involves acquisition of knowledge and skills,
assertiveness, setting limits on giving, asking for help, problem
solving, accessing Business:Resources, critical thinking to participate and
work with others in networks and systems of mutual aid and education
in order to enhance the world they live in.
The political dimension
involves participation by joining appropriate social organizations,
giving back by helping others, making a contribution, voting, writing
letters, teach others what is learned, and taking control in
generalized areas of one's life are specific skills that will be
cultivated during participation in this fully implemented program. The
underlying assumption of empowerment practice is that clients are
generally disempowered through membership in devalued and oppressed
groups; that the system of governmental policies and services is a
barrier to achieving desired goals; and that learned powerlessness is
an attribute of many clients (Albert and Green, 2002). Therefore,
practical empowerment attends to power issues and promotes the
creation and discovery of personal and group empowerment among
clients.
Beyond Talk Therapy: Using Movement and Expressive Technique in
Clinical Practice; Edited by Daniel J. Wiener, American Psychological
Association, 750 First Street, NE Washington, D.C., pg. xii, 1999.
Torre, D. (1985). Empowerment: Structured Conceptualization and
Instrument Development. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Cornell
University; Ithaca, N.Y.
Benjamin James Sadock and Virginia Alcott Sadock: Synopsis of
Psychiatry; Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry,, 9th edition,
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. New York, 2003.
Albert R. Roberts and Gilber J. Greene: Social Workers' Desk
Reference, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: Center for
Substance Abuse Treatment; Substance Abuse Treatment for Persons with
HIV/AIDS. Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series 37; Batki,
Steven L., MD, and Selweyn, Peter A., MD MPH. Department of Health and
Human Services. Public Health Service. Rockville: Maryland, 2000
For a time the paper and the concept was at a standstill until I found someone doing work in the tradition of Pualo Frere that had been adequately tested in signficant numbers. I found it in Desmond's work in the Jamaican prisons. His approach and findings (results) mirrored my own in applying my concept to the Fatherhood Initiative deployed to integrate economic development, domestic violence prevention/intervention, child protection advocacy, HIV/AIDS/STD prevention, and crime prevention/decrease recitivism. The program was launched with the co-operation of the Motivation Barber School program. While the program itself was very successful, the politics of structure into which it was primarily integrated, workforce development, was not concerned with its long term sustainability, although it was more cost effective than dealing with the after effects of the above mentioned social issues. Not realizing the value of the work at the time in the sense that it was the basis of a model for community intervention/prevention programs which represents a stark contrast to community spending that is focused primarily on after effects and symptoms.
In Affirmational Psychology I have found mental health framework that represents this deeper understanding that is gained from dealing with root causes. Furthermore, it states the case for its relationship to the Arts beyond the understanding expressed in Expressive Therapy concepts singularly. In Desmond's work with Affirmational Psychology we see both the understanding and application of self organization, technology and art (creative expression) in this broader social context that is based on a deeper understanding of the combined facts and experiences.
Source: Reverence for Life via The Moods Channel
Affirmational Psychology is the Art and Science of maintaining conscious mutually beneficial relationships between living energy systems. It is the field of study which calls the human family to order and poses critical questions concerning the manner in which we have conducted our affairs to date. It impacts on the personal and universal quality of life and is equally significant to all at once.
Affirmational Psychology as a discipline proposes not only unlimited opportunities and challenges for self and environmental understanding, but also provides a framework in which to develop personal and interpersonal communication tools and skills which are both workable and transferable.
The principles being presented for identifying and affirming the all-pervading intelligence are contained in the term �Affirmational Psychology.� These are the factors which tenderise tough science and likewise toughen tender arts. It is the explorations of those inherent factors which generate and facilitate relationships between pre-discernible organisms and mighty galaxies as well as binding together energies with invisible cords of time in space. Emergent also will be the imperative most of all to identify and present the perceptual tools and emotional skills necessary to prove the study beneficial both at the individual and the collective levels.
The function of the Arts in Affirmational Psychology is its imperative to maintain nurturing cultural tenets and identification with Religious, Psychological and Philosophical schools of thought which unify living energy systems.
Affirmational Psychology evaluates whether our emphases, both in the Arts and Sciences, do as much to fragment or unify our world. Here it would be a matter of exploring to what extent the heart and the head perceive their mutuality and are, therefore, ready to transmute their long held perception of behaviour patterns into life sustaining partnerships for the benefit of all.
We examine schools of thought and their historical efforts to provide conscious direction and guidance to human behaviour thereby determining personal and collective attitudes.
As Affirmational Psychology addresses the resultant psychological and physical waste sites brought about by the individual and collective non-accountability attitudes, its� place as an authentic discipline and mission as a restorer of sanity to academia increases. We examine personal and collective accountability for the conditions of our physical as well as emotional environments with the aim of linking them in cause and effect cycles.
We explore and affirm the Science in Affirmational Psychology as the technological advances of humans to repeat the relational patterns which abound in nature and to reiterate the intelligent relationships which link all living energy systems.
In this manner, we seek to concur with the rest of life that both the physical sciences and the liberal arts are indivisible and vary neither in their content nor intentions, but only in their respective modes of communicating their observations of the common phenomenon of living energy systems. Affirmational Psychology is perhaps the new forum from which a more relevant view of dynamic living will emerge. In it the perceptual and emotional tools needed to facilitate personal and collective understanding of present day living can be more vigorously forged and nurtured.
I believe that through this discipline, we will grasp more clearly the significance of the elements of choice we exercise in determining the quality of our environments.
� Divine Intelligence burns images into bio-chips called cells, which we call concepts and perceptions, and stores them in recall stations from which they function as habits or attitudes.
� All living organisms can be likened to Bio-chips
� Divine Intelligence as the given data base of all biological and technological energy systems, invites full affirmation from all living creatures.
As human beings we carry out this necessity through the exercise of faith and works. In fact, faith is only the affirmation of what we already are and conducting our affairs in accordance with its laws.
� Nature is the original power source and living data base of all its creatures or organic terminals. Earth and its activities or its computing capabilities is only being copied, simulated, or duplicated by computer technology.
� Technology
The language employed in the computer technology is easily transferable to describe the behaviour of living organisms; for instance, electricity is accepted as the given power source which gives a computer terminal its capability to process data. The same electricity or energy is the power source, which gives living organisms their individual and collective capabilities to create and duplicate themselves.
� In nature�s schema, however, the ultimate database is light, which activates itself and ignites all processes. This light or intelligence is (the God designate) called by many names throughout literature.
� The comparisons in nature of computer language is easily seen if we call each living organism, living computer chips. These living chips differ only to the extent that they are self activated and operated. They also access their database or light source through their self-initiated intelligence. Humankind operates in the same way and the human brain is natures ultimate computer terminal.
� Human beings as living computer terminals access the cosmos or nature, which is its power source or database. For us, a psychology based upon this admission would make us responsible for the kind of world we have and the capability to reprogram it.
� This psychology will see us as natures conscious programmers who have the choice of creating programs which reflect natures laws or programmers who put anti-nature programs in operation to our own peril and disease.
� Nature, being indestructible, and light energy, its data base, likewise being self-generating, gives us the room for developing any kind of programs we wish along with their consequences.
� As we, however, grasp the range of our capabilities and take responsibility for the programs or cultures we have designed, we will change them more easily to satisfy our personal and collective needs.
� If, for instance, we recognise that we are self-programmers, we would also change our behaviours more easily. The facts are if we change our programs our perceptions and our behaviours will change automatically.
� Our self-programs are known as our attitudes � beliefs � concepts and psychological frame of references but they all amount to the same thing, our self-regulating programs which we have designed and which we reinforce with our actions.
� A psychology, which reflects humans as the computers (which we truly are), will enable us to be more responsible to our intelligent database in nature. It will help us to see that we are accountable to our ultimate light source. It would also give us the courage to reprogram ourselves more readily. It puts responsibility for ourselves in our hands without burdening us with guilt. It shows us that the rewards of our programs are our own making.
� Such a psychology puts us in a working relationship with our database instead of in conflict with it. Affirmational Psychology is a start in that direction.
� The basis of Affirmational Psychology is that light energy is the database of all of nature. All of nature�s creatures are living, intelligent, organic computers. We are in a whole system of relationships, which compute as one.
� Human kind as a master programmer, should accept the challenge to respect his or her database and learn how its laws operate and build our self-serving programs around this knowledge.
� It is true that all things are done in light and therefore as we use our eyes to see the things that we are doing, we will make sure that they fit into the database to which we are accountable.
� Affirmational Psychology affirms us all as nature�s programmers and invites us to be accountable to our data base of intelligent light energy to which and in which all that we are and do must eventually compute, individually and collectively. Learning how to access our data base, how to change programs which do not compute in their present forms and accepting the responsibility to change programs which we have created, are possibilities which put us squarely in the driver�s seat of our personal and collective destinies. We will then have faith in life because we know how it works and we will know how to hold ourselves accountable, without feeling guilty.
� We will know that each culture is a program created by a particular group of programmers and see such programs for what they are. We will finally hold ourselves as living terminals creating and recreating experiences from a database which is all supporting.
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