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JamesShrugged

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Hello, my name is James Hughes and I am a 25 year old Psychological Operations Specialist with the US Army from Arkansas. I have been interested in Objectivism for about 4 years now, and am especially interested in the personal development aspects of the philosophy, as opposed to the political. I look forward to talking with you all.

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Welcome James, for personal development I highly recommend the writings of Nathaniel Branden, especially the Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, and How to Raise Your Self-Esteem. Personal development to me means improving my understanding of how the world works as well as how I work.

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Thank you David. I have read "How to Raise your Self-esteem" and "The psychology of Self-esteem" by Dr. Branden, but I was extremely put off by the latter due to the inclusion of the concept of "child-selves." I understand self-acceptance, but not the idea that a person has multiple "selves." I would like to read "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" though. I understand that it was written before Dr. Branden embraced those concepts.

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"The Six Pillars is (I believe) his last book, which sums up all the rest...a very important book. As far as the child-selves that is an interesting point you raise, that I have wondered about many times. whether he believes that different selves are a metaphor or an actual part of your subconscious. I remember in his memoir he talks about his interest in hypnosis and how he hypnotized someone in front of Ayn Rand to show her that it was a real phenomena, and he took she (the patient or subject) reverted back to an earlier age. At any rate, whether he is being metaphorical or not, his main emphasis is what affects your level of self-esteem and how to you improve/maintain it. I hope you like this forum, it is sometimes trash talk, sprinkled with some really smart people and important arguments.

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I'm currently in the process of reading Nathaniel Branden's writings, and I'm going through the 37-week cycle of sentence stems in Six Pillars. I was a bit put off by the "child self" thing, too; it reeked of the "inner child" nonsense that was flying around Santa Cruz while I was living there. I see the "child self" thing as being different, though--and I started getting it when he referred to the "opposite gender self" and others. I think it is a combination of a metaphor and a description of subsets of our personalities. It is presented in a role-playing aspect, especially in some of his exercises.

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Welcome to OL James.

I found Breaking Free a great portal for me.

I am assuming that your pre military training or education was tracking this way.

Are you developing your own theories?

Finally, within your obligations to the military, I would be extremely interested in your evaluation of the "finding" today about the Ford Hood failings.

Adam

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  • 2 weeks later...

Welcome to OL, James,

In your second post you mistakenly refer to the concept of the child-seles as being in The Psychology of Self-Esteem(1970). Rather, it is from the other book that you mentioned, How to Raise Your Self-Esteem.

Each person here probably has preferences for Branden books as different from mine as they are from each other (Hey, what do you expect, we're individualists!). Here's a few of my choices:

Psychology of Self-Esteem, first. I think that its theoretical structure would be more congruent with current concepts in cognitive therapy. However, his therapeutic method of choice, sentence completion, does not seem to follow its theoretical presuppositions (IMHO).

Honoring the Self: Personal Integrity and the Heroic Potentials of Human Nature (1984). Basically, a revision of PSE, but generally the same, in its first half.

The Psychology of Romantic Love(1980), a revision of his earlier NBI course.

Taking Responsibility: Self-Reliance and the Accountable Life(1996).

As an application of Objectivism to daily life, you might find the psychological lectures that were a major part of his NBI course, The Basic Principles of Objectivism(1958-1968)to be useful. This lecture course is still available as a CD set, and is now in print as The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism(2010)Cobden Press, Laissez Faire Books. (Disclosure: I was one of the transcribers preparing the lectures for publication. Obviously, if I did not consider their content to be valuable, I would not have devoted my time to it!).

An interesting evaluation of Nathaniel Branden's contributions to Objectivism (including a discussion of his psychological contributions) is contained in Chris Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical(1995, Pennsylvania Tate University Press), probably the best scholarly critique.

Hope you enjoy the OL forum!

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Thank you, everyone, for your welcomes :) I'll try to answer some of your questions.

Reidy - Psychological Operations is a branch of the military that attempts to influence foreign populations thoughts and actions to be favorable to US positions. In practice we either issue surrender appeals, or attempt to persuade locals to not participate in, and actively oppose insurgency.

Selene - No, I am not developing my own theories; I am still attempting to master Objectivism. As to Ft. Hood, I don't know what decision was made on Jan. 16th.

Again, thanks to all for the warm welcomes, I hope I can contribute to the value provided by the board.

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  • 2 months later...

Thank you, everyone, for your welcomes smile.gif I'll try to answer some of your questions.

Reidy - Psychological Operations is a branch of the military that attempts to influence foreign populations thoughts and actions to be favorable to US positions. In practice we either issue surrender appeals, or attempt to persuade locals to not participate in, and actively oppose insurgency.

Selene - No, I am not developing my own theories; I am still attempting to master Objectivism. As to Ft. Hood, I don't know what decision was made on Jan. 16th.

Again, thanks to all for the warm welcomes, I hope I can contribute to the value provided by the board.

I did psy-ops in Vietnam. As an E-4 I was given an officer's responsibilities. No big deal as I had other more important jobs to do. I did get a Bronze Star for Meritorious Service for that and running medical patrols, which was unusual for someone involved in combat operations too. That was basically a medal for guys in the rear.

--Brant

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Thank you David. I have read "How to Raise your Self-esteem" and "The psychology of Self-esteem" by Dr. Branden, but I was extremely put off by the latter due to the inclusion of the concept of "child-selves." I understand self-acceptance, but not the idea that a person has multiple "selves." I would like to read "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" though. I understand that it was written before Dr. Branden embraced those concepts.

I think "multiple selves" has to do with (1) owning who we once were and understanding how we still are to some extent what we once were. Now this is regression analysis and getting into it if necessary through reactive psychotherapeutic techniques. Consider this a vertical axis. Now, (2) would be contemporaneous existence. Consider this an horizontal axis. Some people can experience themselves differently as people by using altered states of consciousness techniques, which is really great for some types of creative work. For instance, if a guy, you may want to get into the experience of your feminine self, and a woman her masculine self. And it goes on and on to the extent it is valuable to you for whatever reasons. Now, if you don't properly understand the primacy of personal self and orientation and how these other selves are subordinate to the big, dominant YOU, you may end up with Sybil's problems.

--Brant

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Welcome to OL, James. Always good to see another active duty member here ;) I'm an AF comm guy - 17 years. You'll learn lots here, and intelligent discourse abounds. Enjoy!

~ Shane

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