1– Response to Journal- Read the journal written below and respond.
“The concept of death has always been a common construct as I have lost friends and family. Several years ago, I lost my grandmother, which took a significant toll on me as we were close. I began to develop the value of time and understand how much it means to me now. A couple of friends I once shared snacks with at school or played in the playground with died before they got a chance to learn to live authentically.
Death awareness helps me to take a look at my life experiences and examine where I have been, where I am, and where I want to be. I consider my past experiences with suicidality and trauma, my current experiences as a holistic mental health provider, and my future promoting health care while having developed relationships and embracing healthy living until I mature. These things remind me of my personal growth and resilience and help me build meaning-making and accept that things that happened to me were not my fault. In the following quote, the word opportunity stuck out to me that death awareness is not just about dying in a literal sense but in the sense of transition.
“Facing death offers us an opportunity to work with everything we have within us and everything we know about the world. If we have been resilient most of our lives, most likely we will cope well with our own dying (Pipher 2020).
I have observed my family from a different perspective since my studies within the psychology field. It certainly has been an eye-opener in understanding that intergenerational patterns of complex trauma can impact how someone lives their life. People from marginalized backgrounds may not have a choice regarding their happiness. I grew up in an environment that was very controlled, and it was hard for me to navigate my identity because of my circumstances. However, when I got away from the circumstances with my mother, subconsciously, I could be myself a little more, but still not to its entirety. I think my experiences and vicarious experiences have humbled me and helped me learn to accept certain things gradually. Fostering emotional growth, I continue to find purpose even in the smallest things.”
In your response, please include the following:
A – Something you are moved by and/or appreciate.
B – Something that reminds you of your own life. (In thinking about your own life here, please avoid writing about what you have just written about the prior week in your own journal writing and search instead for a new association(s).
***Keep in mind the importance of taking care not to analyze, interpret, or be judgmental of the person’s experience or writing. While our in-person interactions can handle these types of missteps, written communications in online work together requires a much greater level of care and attention to detail in how one phrases responses.
2 – Your Sense of Your Own Early Attachment
A – Please reflect on your own sense of the quality, level, and interruptions of and in your own attachment experiences.
B – If available to you, describe a memory from your first years relating to your attachment figures. As well and as you are comfortable doing, please share with us an overall ‘snapshot’ of your early attachment history and ways in which this might have affected your subsequent attachment ‘style’ or patterns.
3- Oneness and Separateness
On page 207 of Oneness and Separateness, Kaplan writes:
“The letdown that comes from realizing that one is not an omnipotent ruler of the universe, and the transition from the illusions of the love affair to the disillusionments of self-awareness are too painful to be blotted out totally…The contrast between the way things were and the way things are now is too stark…to avoid…reconcile{ing] the imperfections of the present with the perfections of the past…”
Although this passage is written in the context of describing an important stage of the child’s development (Mahler’s Rapprochement phase), it can also be applied to the life of the adult. In fact, we can think of this as a stage of life that one will go through again and again, and hopefully in a successful manner, as perhaps the most important psychological task of adulthood is to chip away at the natural narcissistic tendencies of the Child within.
A – Please respond to the above quote as well as the reflections offered on it, by considering your own passages through cycles of disappointment and deflation, and what you have learned from these journeys.
B- Please select two to describe, and then share your overall learnings from each with us.
4- Rapprochement and Narcissism Go over the attachments (five total) on Rapprochement and Narcissism
A – Drawing on your own experience and thinking, the readings from this week, and most especially the material on Rapprochement and the development of narcissism, please share your response to the idea that failures in successfully completing the Rapprochement phase can lead to lifelong struggles with narcissism.
B- You might consider for example, whether:
- This idea makes sense to you.
- If you’ve been in relationship with narcissistic individuals where this hypothesis would seem to hold true.
Consider these and any other areas of discussion, in sharing your thoughts.
5- Writing Assignment
A – For this week’s writing (At least 1 full page), please first consider the variety of hard situations you have lived through in your life. This could be from any phase of your life. It is suggested that you take a few days to just let this simmer, so that the process of writing the paper is even more meaningful for you from having taken this time to consider what you will write about.
You may draw from a particular life event or period during your childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, or you might want to draw one from your life currently. However, you are encouraged not to select a severely difficult event/ situation, so as to avoid any sense of overwhelm.
For this first writing, please describe the situation to us, and let us also know about the nature of your overall relationships with others during this time and relative to this situation.
6- Journal Entry—
Journal writing (At least 1 page): Your ongoing, weekly journal entry, in which you discuss how aspects of your own life may reflect the ideas from this week’s topic and course material, including your current relationship to the age/stage being studied during that week from an imaginal point of view.
Each week’s journal writing needs to be about one page long (double-spaced.)