Maybe this is the “regression in the service of the ego” that ego psychologists aligned with Freud often have identified (Hartman, 1958).
At this point, Brush Joy brings us back to the fundamental distinction to be drawn between an objectivist and constructivist perspective on “reality.” Joy (Joy, 1979, p. 2) opts for a constructivist perspective:
“The difference between the awful insanity and the creative glory is nothing more than the recognition that belief systems are only belief systems and not realities. At this level of consciousness, we can create anything we desire, and once we realize that we live only in an idea level of existence that is not based on any intrinsic realness, we may consider the possibility that there are options to our experience and expression of reality. The questioning process brings us naturally, easily and inevitably to the threshold of higher states of consciousness.”
The leveraging of transcendence is fully evident in Joy’s proposal that we engage a “beginner’s mind” when discerning what is actually “real.” We should not only re-enter our world without a pre-existing frame of mind (Kuhn’s paradigm) but also with a focus on that which is particularly important for us.
Conclusions
We are living in a VUCA-Plus world that requires us to focus on our “ultimate concern.” (Tillich,1957/2001) We are to transform the VUCA-Plus conditions on behalf of this concern. Transcendence is not for the “faint of Heart” and must be used to leverage those changes in perspective and practice that are the essence of Peter Vaill’s “learning as a way of being” (Vaill, 1996)
Armand Nicholi (2002) envisioned Sigmund Freud struggling with the theology of C. S. Lewis. I wonder what Nicholi would have to say about the approach Sigmund Freud take when emersed in a dialogue with either Brugh Joy or Peter Vaill. And would the perspective of either Joy or Vaill enrich the life coaching that Dr. Freud is providing Daniel?
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