Man: jealousy (love) 
woman:
jealousy (self-pity).
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GLOSSARY
This glossary is a shortened copy of the one on my website Discover Your Mind.
The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings on this page.
Sub - headings |
The term ‘abreaction’ was first thought up by ancient Greek dramatists to describe the purging or cathartic effect that the release of emotion gives. Abreaction is actually a flow of different emotions, and it takes several forms. The overall effect is to release anxiety from the subconscious mind. |
| Changes of Terminology | |
| Definitions | |
| Tables |
What I have found is that some particular emotions are linked together to form four kinds of invariable sequence, which are ways in which the unconscious mind operates. These sequences link together positive emotions with negative ones, or happiness with unhappiness. I give the name ‘abreaction’ to these sequences. The two main ones are the abreaction of guilt and the abreaction of pride. The first sequence links excitement to guilt and resentment, and the second one links sorrow and sadness to bitterness.
The abreaction of guilt is the
sequence :
Narcissism leads to jealousy ; then jealousy leads to guilt ;
then guilt leads to resentment.
The abreaction of pride is the
sequence :
Jealousy leads to narcissism ; then narcissism leads to pride ;
then pride leads to bitterness.
These abreactions flow in a
dialectical way – thesis, antithesis, and then synthesis.
For example, in the abreaction of guilt :
Initially narcissism and jealousy produce excitement, and then we
end up with the guilt and resentment that oppose it. Finally we
have the steady state of detachment when the contents of the
excitement and the resentment phases no longer interest us.
Social Abreaction is just the extension of the sequences of abreaction to society as a whole, and they produce what I call laws of social change. The morality of an age determines what is good and evil, and these ideas form the content of social abreaction. The intensity of these abreactions depend on the rate of social change : the faster the change the greater are the effects of abreaction.
The first law of social change is the abreaction of guilt : it starts from a catharsis , which often contains left-wing or progressive views, but always ends in a right-wing backlash of resentment. Politically the resentment generates Conservative, even Fascist, attitudes.
The second law of social change is the abreaction of pride : it starts from sorrow and ends in bitterness. This abreaction usually ends in forms of Nazism, such as police death squads, the Stalinist political show-trials of the 1930s, and political or sectarian genocide. Bitterness is always worse than resentment. So Nazism is always worse than Fascism.
For an in-depth analysis, read the articles on Abreaction.
The physical body that is seen with the physical eye is only one part of human structure. The person capable of extra-sensory perception can see other ‘bodies’ that are associated with the physical one : these are the emotional body and the mental body and the causal body. As a complex they are called the astral bodies of the person ; they are the vehicles for consciousness in higher planes of reality where there is no need to have a physical body
All matter exists in states of vibratory motion or energy. Each body has its own frequency of vibration. The matter of the physical body vibrates at the lowest rate, and the matter of the causal body (the home of the soul) at the highest rate. The other two bodies fit in-between. The vibrations from all the bodies fill the same space, like a radio spectrum.
Extra-sensory perception means nothing more than that the person has developed the ability to respond to these higher frequencies. Like any other ability, it is just a question of training.
For more details, see astral bodies-1, and astral bodies-2, and sources of confusion.
The astral bodies of a person radiate energy which can be observed by extra-sensory perception. This energy field of a person can freely interact with the energy field of another person when they are close enough together, allowing the direct transmission of emotion from each to the other. The most important situation where this occurs, from the psychological perspective, is that between parent and infant – whilst being nursed the infant is constantly absorbing the parent’s emotions (both conscious and subconscious ones).
Energy centres in the astral / etheric body of a person. The kind of energy concerned is psychic energy, or energy that is utilised through will power or emotional moods. The chakras are associated with particular nerve plexuses in the physical body.
The psychological model that I use most of the time is a static one. This has three levels of activity: conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. However, when I need to describe agency I use a dynamic model.
Static model : consciousness is a state of being that has three modes, those of will, mind and feeling. Therefore, for me, consciousness is not the same as mind (and neither is mind identical to the brain). This model is for understanding how the various factors of consciousness relate together, in ways that are independent of agency.
Dynamic model : consciousness is a state of being that can act as a channel for agency. This model is for understanding the purpose of consciousness. Consciousness contains an agent, the ego, that can make choices.
Self-consciousness implies that agency is internal to the state of being, as in people and some of the higher animals. When consciousness has no aspect of self, as in insects and plants, then agency is external and utilises instinct (for example, such agency may be a group mind, and so consciousness would be a group consciousness).
Functional model : consciousness is a state of being that constructs a paradigm of reality from the results of awareness. This model describes what consciousness does. Awareness is that aspect of mind by which the agent develops consciousness.
The mechanism of this construction is thought. Thought is a sequence of awareness states, or thought is the activity of awareness. The content of thought can be images or words. Images are either images of something or an image of nothing (mental silence). Attention or concentration is the means of emphasising some states of awareness rather than other ones.
I use the term ‘dialectical ’ in the Hegelian sense. It represents a movement of thought through three stages. First there is the opening idea, the thesis ; then thought switches to the opposite conception, the antithesis. Finally both stages are blended together in the third stage, the synthesis. In moral ideas, if the thesis is a concept of goodness then the antithesis is a concept of badness. If the thesis represents some badness, the antithesis is that of some goodness. The synthesis is the resolution of the conflict.
This is the personality ; it is the conscious aspect of the person, and excludes the subconscious and unconscious minds. It is agency, or the agent of consciousness. The ego has to make choices, and these produce effects. So the realm of the ego is the realm of cause and effect. See also Consciousness.
A person can either act on his desires, using his will, or else follow his emotional responses. When he is focusing on his emotions, then his current state of consciousness has two main factors to it : a particular belief about some aspect of life, together with an emotional mood that is generated as the response to that belief. When the belief is not a conscious one, I call it an unconscous idea, whilst the mood is the emotional dynamic that maintains the influence of that particular belief or unconscious idea. The intensity of the state of consciousness depends upon the intensity of the mood.
When the mood is active, then the particular belief (whether conscious or unconscious) is active as well. When a different mood becomes active, so the belief changes to a different one, corresponding to the new mood. If the person no longer attaches any importance to a particular belief, then the corresponding emotional mood ceases to have any power over him. The mood loses its intensity.
The process of making value judgements depends upon the psychological mechanisms of projection and introjection. Equanimity is the state of mind attained when the person ceases to make value judgements, and hence ceases to use projection and introjection. However, equanimity is extremely difficult to attain. The most effective way of stopping projection and introjection, at least temporarily, is to step outside of all value systems. The traditional Buddhist method of doing this is to practise mindfulness.
Existentialism
This is the way of exploring the meaning of relationships as the person experiences them now, without regard to past or future. The person explores relationships from within his own individuality. For comparison, a psychological relationship is anchored in the past because of limitations produced by subconscious determinism.
An existential perspective means how relationships are understood now. A psychological perspective means why such relationships are as they are.
Intellect
This has two parts : rationality and intuition.
These two parts work together in conceptual analysis, that is, when we try to analyse something, when we think about concepts and their meanings. Conceptual analysis can be split into three modes:
There are several forms of determinism : some are rigid (such as the social class that a person is born into), whilst others can be more variable (such as the effects of childhood conditioning). The Indian term ‘karma’ is ideal as a general-purpose term.
Overall, karma is the effects of a person's behaviours, actions, and thinking. The most important way to understand the concept of karma is that it is the effects of the fixed ideas, beliefs and attitudes that the person carries with him through life (and lifetimes!) : these aspects of character help to generate a person’s actions and behaviours.
Karma has two forms, relative
and dialectical.
One form relates to the person's behaviour and fixed beliefs (that
is, beliefs which have formed his character) ; whatever the
person does produces an effect. This form is a relative one, and
includes everything that is not caused by abreaction.
The other form relates to the mental processes, particularly to the subconscious mind ; when this is active, the person's mental states oscillate in a dialectical way. Abreaction is the source of this dialectical form of karma.
Mind
I use this term partly to denote intellect, and partly to denote the way that it helps to give rise to desires and emotions.
This is a technique derived from Buddhist meditation that can be used to neutralise the power of desires and emotions. It is an essential component of the practice of self-awareness. It consists in watching states of mind instead of evaluating them or acting on them. Perception is switched into neutral mode, so that no values are projected or introjected. See equanimity. The cessation of judgement means that any state of mind, including madness, can be entered and experienced, without becoming engulfed by that state of mind.
The standard way of formulating mindfulness in a concise manner is :
in the seeing, only the seen,
in the hearing, only the heard,
in the touching, only the touch,
in the smelling, only the smell,
in the tasting, only the taste.
Hence no evaluation is made of sensory impressions.
Morals and Ethics
A distinction needs to be made between moral rules that are adhered to because of the person’s social conditioning and moral rules that are accepted through free personal choice. I call ‘morality’ those rules that are a part of a person’s social conditioning ; these rules are subject to erosion from stress during periods of social change or in times of sorrow. ‘Ethics’ is the term that I use for the acceptance of rules through free choice and understanding. Another way to put this difference is:
Morality implies ideas of right and wrong based on social conditioning.
Ethics implies ideas of right and wrong based on critical reflection.
Motivation and Drives
Motivation is the reason for following aims and desires. It is either the desire to experience something . or . the desire to achieve something, and takes the form of two drives (a drive is the energy component of motivation).
Primary motivation is egoistical and occurs through the desire to satisfy needs. This is the egoistical or ‘outer’ drive, since it relates to the influences on the ego of external factors ; these are usually materialism and social relationships that involve dependency, status or power.
Secondary motivation comes from the person’s ideals of ‘the good life’; this is an ‘inner’ (or soul) drive since it focuses on spiritual influences that usually originate from the soul. Although the soul generates the inner drive, it is the ego that controls the expression of it. This control is exercised through the ego’s ideals. Only when the primary motivation is fulfilled will the soul drive become pre-eminent.
Projection & Introjection
Projection means that we imagine that our own virtues and vices and attitudes are embodied in other people. We see in other people what is in ourself. This psychological stratagem is particularly noticeable with regard to our vices. We try to escape from our faults by denying them ; we see them only as aspects of other people – it is always other people that are the source of conflict.
Introjection is the complementary process. We emulate the virtues (and vices) in the people that we admire. We incorporate into ourself the attitudes of people that are significant to us. Our own idealised image of ourself can also act as a source for introjection : we can use such an image as an object from which we can introject virtues that we need. It is through introjection that a child absorbs the values of the parents.
[ An in-depth analysis of projection and introjection is given on my sites The Strange World of Emotion and Discover Your Mind.]
My use of ‘soul ’ is equivalent to the term ‘higher self ’. Soul is the source of spiritual idealisms, and it is ‘the silent watcher ’. Another common name is ‘the witness’. The soul is a ‘higher self ’ to the ego (this should not be confused with the creation by an ego of an idealised ‘self ’). The soul acts as a guide to the ego, trying to steer it through the confusion of a human life. The ego reincarnates (though in a complicated manner), but the soul does not.
Spirituality
For me, spirituality does not necessarily equate to religiosity. A religious person can also be spiritual, but a spiritual person does not have to be religious. A religious perspective is a self-sufficient belief system containing all acceptable values and meanings within it. It is a belief system that has boundaries around it, since the world of the subconscious mind is excluded from it. A spiritual perspective can be more open and flexible. I view spirituality as the attempt to live in harmony with life. This view entails the necessity to aim for harmony in all of one’s personal relationships and situations.
Emotions are partly derived from ideas or mental concepts that influence us below the level of normal consciousness. The mental concept that is associated with an emotion actually creates the boundaries of that emotion. If the mental concept changes, the emotion does not change ; instead, it fades away and a different emotion arises, one that fits the current mental concept. To work out the underlying concept, the overall theme or motif of the emotion needs to be considered, that is, what the emotion is trying to express.
Emotions are not unique to any particular individual, so the ideas or concepts that underlie them come from the unconscious mind. Since the concepts are unconscious they are extremely difficult to identify. The concept is normally unconscious, so I call it an unconscious concept or an unconscious idea. The first article on Emotion contains a list of some important unconscious ideas and their associated emotions.
Changes of .Terminology |
from article "Abreaction"
Up till now the terms ‘catharsis’ and ‘abreaction’ have been more or less synonymous. Since I need a new word to label some invariable emotional sequences, I have separated these two terms.
I name the invariable sequences ‘abreaction’ , and restrict the term ‘catharsis’ to the stage of excitement that begins just one particular sequence. Catharsis is now simply the first stage in the abreaction of guilt.
Definitions . etc |
from article "Nature of Emotion"
I use the term ‘subconscious mind
’ for what is personal to the individual,
and the term ‘unconscious mind ’ for what is general to humanity.
Desire is the activity of will
directed into a mental concept.
Emotion is the activity of
feeling directed into a mental concept.
An emotion is an unconscious idea powered by either a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling.
Some emotions have an additional complexity : they are compound and consist of two simpler emotions. The factors do not exert their influence simultaneously ; only one is dominant at any particular time. I use the term mode to indicate which factor is being dominant at that time, that is, to indicate the manner in which the compound emotion is being experienced.
A summary of the factors of some important emotions is :
Guilt = self-pity + self-hate.
Pride = vanity + hatred of other people.
Narcissism = love + vanity.
Jealousy = love + self-pity.
Anxiety = fear + vanity.
Paranoia = fear + pride (mode of vanity).
Resentment = guilt + idealism.
Bitterness = pride + idealism
G.E. Moore summarised a certain perspective in philosophy derived from Immanuel Kant
... just as, by reflection on our perceptual and sensory experience, we become aware of the distinction between truth and falsehood,so it is by reflection on our experience of feeling and willing that we become aware of ethical distinctions.
from article "Abreaction"
A psycho-analysis is the method of intentionally removing anxiety from the subconscious mind.
The meaning of anxiety is that
it eliminates complacency.
The purpose of anxiety is that it facilitates change.
For the sake of brevity I write of the abreaction of guilt, pride, etc, whereas in fact it is the anxiety attached to these emotions that is abreacted.
from article "Transference", on my website Discover Your Mind
The three parts of bonding, of the ‘transference’ situation, are imprinting, identification, and true transference. The emotion is always jealousy.
Identification reveals aspects of character (‘what I am ’ ).
Transference reveals aspects of identity (‘who I am ’ ).
Transference itself can be split up into two broad factors, one focusing on sexuality and the other focusing on authority. Each parent is a source of both factors.
from article "Nature of Emotion"
Table 1 . Compound Emotions
Guilt = self-pity + self-hate.
Pride = vanity + hatred of other people.Narcissism = love + vanity.
Jealousy = love + self-pity.Resentment = guilt + idealism.
Bitterness = pride + idealismRepentance = regret + guilt (mode of self-pity).
Sadness = regret + jealousy (mode of self-pity).Paranoia = fear + pride (mode of vanity).
Anxiety = fear + vanity.
Table 2 . Unconscious Ideas
| The motif of guilt and pride is punishment / humiliation |
| Guilt is self-punishment |
| self-pity mode implies life is punishment. | |
| self-hate mode implies I deserve punishment. |
| Pride is punishment / humiliation of other people. |
| vanity mode implies you are inferior to me. | |
| hate mode implies I despise you / I will punish you. |
| The motif of jealousy and narcissism is responsibility |
| Jealousy is social responsibility. |
| self-pity mode implies I need a reward (from other people). | |
| love mode implies I reward other people. |
| Narcissism is self-responsibility. |
| vanity mode implies I will do it my way. | |
| love mode implies I do not depend on anyone. |
| The motif of self-pity and vanity is help | ||
| Self-pity implies I need help. | ||
| Vanity implies I do not need any help. | ||
| The motif of anger and fear is domination | ||
| Anger implies I need to dominate other people | ||
| Fear implies the world is dominating me. | ||
| The motif of love and hate is identity | ||
| Love implies I am the same as everyone else. | ||
| Hate implies I am different from everyone else. | ||
| The motif of resentment and bitterness is disgust | ||
| Resentment implies people are repulsive. | ||
| Bitterness implies life is repulsive. | ||
| The motif of paranoia is the betrayal of trust | ||
| Paranoia implies I trust no one. | ||
| The motif of anxiety is a sense of oppression by one’s conscience or by other people | ||
| fear mode implies do as you are told / control yourself. | ||
| vanity mode implies I am uneasy in the presence of other people. | ||
| The motif of manic depression is victimisation | ||
| depression mode implies I am a victim. | ||
| mania mode implies I help victims. | ||
| The motif of guilt-based depression is self-denigration | ||
| Depression implies I am a sinner. | ||
| The motif of depression based on self-pity is equity or fairness | ||
| Depression implies there is no equity, no fairness in life. | ||
from article "Acquiring Attitudes", on my website Discover Your Mind
Table 3 . Identity, Character & Passion
Identity is the set
consisting of . ‘I
’ + beliefs, ideals and needs, moods, goals, and behaviour, together
with attitudes focused on sexuality and authority.
Identity
= ‘who I am’.
Character is the set consisting
of . ‘I ’ + will, standards,
and traits, together with attitudes focused on temperament and
personal stature.
Character
= ‘what I am’.
Passion is the set consisting of
. ‘I ’ + primary and
secondary motivations.
Passion
= the drives of the person.
from article "Structure of Sexual Response", on my website Discover Your Mind
Table 4. Direction of Love Flow
a). When I am experiencing
jealous love the masculine in me is dominating the feminine in a
woman.
The flow of love is from man to woman.
Man: jealousy (love)
b). When I am experiencing
narcissistic love the feminine in me is responding to the
feminine in a woman.
The flow of love is from man to woman.
Man: Narcissism (love)
c). With a woman of strong will
the masculine in me responds to the masculine in the woman.
The flow of love is from woman to man.
Man: narcissism (vanity)
woman: narcissism (love).
d). When a woman satisfies my
need for social approval, the masculine in me is dominated by the
feminine in the woman.
The flow of love is from woman to man.
Man: jealousy (self-pity)
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Copyright
© 2003 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved
The copyright is mine, and the article is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.
Ian Heath
London, UKwww.confusion.discover-your-mind.co.uk/index.htm
e-mail address:
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