Purpose:

 

This is the Blog of–– The Black Watch: The Journal of Unconscious Psychology and Self-Psychoanalysis. Please visit the journal itself, at:

 

www.thejournalofunconsciouspsychology.com

 

for the greatest possible detail and full measure of depth regarding the following issues. The purpose of this blog is to provide a public entryway into two vital new fields: Self-Psychoanalysis, and, Depth-Neuroscience.  These two fields of study will yield practical measures most specific, allowing the reader to realize new and striking possibilities within the province of their personal mental construction, and, offer a theoretical nexus around which mental illness and health can be objectively assessed.

 

From the journal site:

 

Purpose and intended audience:

 

The direction of psychological science and practice as it exists today, is that of pluralism.  Drugs, and a plethora of theoretical approaches and techniques, leave both the therapist and the patient in a difficult spot.  Even within the narrow confines of psychoanalysis, a divergence of opinion and an ever-increasing theoretical proliferation leaves one breathless.  As a function of our free market, it seems as if psychology itself, is now a product to be assessed by the consumer, and judged on the merits of its appealing and unappealing qualities.  Add to this subjective morass, the highly objective contributions of cognitive neuroscience and we have a confusion bearing down upon us from all fronts.  The purpose of this journal, is to serve as an integrative and objective informational source aimed squarely at four audiences:

 

1.  Professional therapists who wish to conduct a searching and invasive self-analysis so as to isolate the counter-transference in their work, and, remove the last vestiges of neurotic influence within themselves.

 

2.  Patients who wish to heal themselves, in some cases, without the use of drugs.

 

3.  SSRI withdrawal subjects.  Those who have undergone, or are considering SSRI withdrawal.

 

4.  Creative individuals and artists who will benefit from some specific points, concepts and ideas, so as to improve and augment their creative function.

 

All theory which is not useful and demonstrable in practice––is farce.  Unfortunately, the human truths which form our actual motivations and reasons for the manifest behaviors we “mysteriously” display, are so often ugly and disturbing.  Hence the “mystery”––which is but a wish: the wish not to see these things.  For the reason that we will be directly and unashamedly locating, deriving and looking upon unconscious content, which all good taste keeps hidden/unconscious, it is clear that the politically correct has no place in these discussions––whatsoever.  This journal will detail specific techniques and unconscious content in order to bring those unpleasant pathogenic elements into the light of consciousness, and remove debilitating symptoms.  The reason this is possible is simple: unconscious content is objective and specific.  There is no pretty wiggle room here…none.

 

The unfortunate result of the modern adjustment and softening of specific unconscious and conscious truth alike, is clear: confusion.  The new DSM-5, the diagnostic manual for mental illness is not based on scientific fact, a view echoed by even those who are deeply intertwined with the existing system––

 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/05/the-scientific-backlash-against-the-dsm.html

 

With this in mind, an objective method of diagnosis for mental conditions is needed, a method which does not discard valuable lessons learned, such as the thousands of years science has used the term hysteria, a term both ancient and useful, now so well defined as a specific etiological psychodynamic of opposing wishes (Freud, 1915, pp. 180-185)…suddenly, discarded to no good end (Feinstein, 2011).  It is clear, that effective treatment requires the usage of terms which reflect the internal scientifically demonstrable psychological dynamics of each illness.  This is why I will be using terms based in long proven metapsychological theory, as this theory has demonstrated itself again and again to be accurate––insomuch as it has been curing disorders such as obsessional neurosis (OCD), anxiety-hysteria (phobia), and conversion-hysteria for more than 100 years.  The next step in objective scientific diagnosis of mental illness is in defining the quantitative dynamic of the various conditions.  Such a method would not be vulnerable to human influences and the contamination of monetary or political factors, offering reliable diagnosis of each condition in cases where no human expert is available, and, a reliable second opinion in cases where expert diagnosis is at hand, and perhaps, even detail the type of unconscious content which is exerting its pathogenic influence:  The Quantitative Unconscious––is the nexus I propose, around which the objective definition and diagnosis of mental illness will be accomplished, as well as, the exposure of the unconscious typology responsible for each particular case of pathology.

 

So this journal is to be an informational source, rich in background and psychological theory, that will detail new techniques and ideas leading to advancement in the understanding and practical application of unconscious psychology, and self-psychoanalysis.  As the field of self-psychoanalysis is a new one, these efforts will begin by outlining my method of self-psychoanalysis: Native Psychoanalysis, which will be the first new idea to find expression in these “pages.”  As objective demonstration of these processes and therapeutic assessments is primary, the journal will have a second focus of equal measure and import, in guiding the way toward a unified methodology determining the psychodynamically valid quantitative assessment of mental functioning: The Quantitative Unconscious.  Put plainly, the journal will have two foci: the therapeutic, theoretical and practical understanding of self-psychoanalysis, or, Native Psychoanalysis (Norman, 2011)––and––to serve as a theoretical platform and forum for the idea of The Quantitative Unconscious (Norman, 2013), and other specific neuroscience which will aid in objective diagnosis, and demonstration of metapsychological dynamism in a quantitative context.

 

It is my intention to use every means possible to aid in this expression, and gain the ear of a wide audience needful of these ideas.  Please read through some of the journal and see for yourself: there is meaning held out in every possible way–––analysis of myth and meaning, song and story, parable and humor, in short:  Some part of this will be accessible to you, and I wish to encourage you to explore its pages, and discover what of hope and health lies beneath and below, a spark once hidden, borne out from within our eye––for all bright things are found here, below and beneath, a silver spark rises up to meet our eye, and find light itself, may yet fill the hollow places, for hope is but a brightness, a silver spark to gather within–––our Black Watch.

 

––Rich Norman

 

References:

 

Feinstein, A. (2011). Conversion disorder: Advances in our understanding.

Canadian Medical Association Journal,

(183) 8, 915-920.

doi:10.1503/cmaj.110490

 

Freud, S. (1914-1916). The standard edition of the complete

psychological works of Sigmund Freud volume fourteen:

On the history of the psycho-analytic movement,

Papers on metapsychology, and other works.

London: Hogarth Press.

 

Norman, R. (2011). The tangible self. O’Brien, OR.:

Standing Dead Publications.

 

Norman, R. (2013).  The Quantitative Unconscious: A Psychoanalytic

Perturbation-Theoretic Approach to the Complexity of Neuronal

Systems in the Neuroses.   The Black Watch: The Journal of

Unconscious  Psychology and Self-Psychoanalysis.