Beyond Psychology: An Introduction to Metapsychology, 3rd Edition
Author
Frank A. Gerbode
Publisher
Inst for Research in Metapsychology
5 Review Copies Left
This book lays the foundation for a way of helping another person to improve rapidly and profoundly the quality of her life. This approach is unique in that it is both directive and non-judgmental. It provides guidance, yet allows the person being helped to reach her own understandings and make her own judgments without receiving interpretations, approval, or disapproval. Since anyone can stand to improve the quality of her life in some way, anyone can benefit from the techniques discussed in this book. Nevertheless, at present, these methods are directed toward people who are of average or above-average mental stability and who are not severely disturbed or psychotic. They are not psychotherapy and are no substitute for therapeutic intervention in severe cases. I hope that one day ways will be found of applying the principles of metapsychology to the task of helping these very needy people. Meanwhile, the techniques discussed herein can help the vast majority.
Like any other general subject of study, metapsychology is not committed to a specific method, although methods exist as applications of metapsychology, nor to a fixed belief system, although theories exist within the subject of metapsychology. It picks up where psychology, as the science of behavior, leaves off. Hence the name "meta-psychology" has the correct connotation of being a study that goes "beyond" psychology -- beyond the study of behavior to the study of that which behaves -- the person himself -- and the person's perceptual, conceptual, and creative activity, as distinguished from the actions of his body. In this sense, "metapsychology" restores the original meaning of "psychology" as "the study of the psyche, or spirit", and the applications of metapsychology reflect the perennial common goal of therapies, religions, and traditional philosophies, whether one calls this goal the attainment of sanity, of enlightenment, of happiness, of wisdom, or of salvation.
Throughout this book, I will be constantly consulting experiences that I believe we all have in common, as the basis for the points I am going to make. By consulting his own experience, the reader can verify or falsify for himself each of these points. I have assisted this process by including occasional brief exercises. These exercises will greatly enhance the reader's understanding and will allow each reader to verify for himself the points made in the book. My only claim for acceptance of the ideas I am presenting is the assumption that different people have a great deal in common in what they experience and the way in which they experience it. This interpersonal commonality of experience is the fundamental truth that the metapsychological approach provides.
It took me many years of thinking and exploring a variety of different fields to arrive, eventually, at the conviction that this approach was best. Along the way, many different people and schools of thought have influenced my thinking.
Reviews
No reviews have been posted for this book yet. If you'd like to review this book, log in to your reviewer account or sign up for a reviewer account today!
