SELF-TRANSCENDENCE

GOALS of Self-Transcendence:

1. PERSONAL LIBERATION

• to free our selves from limiting aspects of our personalities (ego or false self)
• to create an awareness of limits imposed by personality

WHY?

• in efforts to adapt to our social worlds, we move away from out true selves ( we play mind games)
• we develop a mask; we can become obsessive and compulsive to defend our selves

• studies show that even if people feel happy they are often unknowingly constrained (self-deception); through this a false consciousness can develop ---> we can begin to believe our own lies --> we may over identify with a couple of aspects of our personality

HOW? ---ENNEAGRAM THEORY to transform

• use enneagram to identify the traps set by our ego
• to bring awareness and spiritual dimensions in life
• to give hope and direction

2. SEARCH FOR MEANING

• to find greater meaning in our lives
• to get beyond ego and overcome self to reach happiness
• to help stop from feeling apathetic, bored, depressed, fatalistic

HOW? Viktor Frankl-existential psychologist

1. THE ENNEAGRAM: A PATH TO PERSONAL LIBERATION

WHAT IS IT?

• a system of transformational/spiritual psychology that uses a geometric symbol to represent nine basic personality types and their interrelationships
• from "ennea"- Greek meaning nine and "gram" meaning graph
• symbol begins with a circle- around the circle are 9 equidistant points- each representing a number
• a person can be a 1,2,3,4,5,6.7.8 or 9
• no number is better than any other

ORIGINS

• from Islamic Sufi in 14th and 15th C-Pythagoras
• current developers= D Riso
• TRIADS
• INSTINCTIVE TRIAD ---8--9--- 1
• THE THINKING TRIAD--- 7 --6--5
• THE FEELING TRIAD ---2---3---4

HOW DID YOUR TYPE DEVELOP?

• beginning in childhood, we emphasize one faculty over the other two
• the triad with your personality type represents the overall way you consciously and unconsciously adapted to family and world
• a combination of biology and experience

THE WINGS

• no one is a pure personality type
• personality is a unique blend of basic type and one or two adjacent types

2. MEANING-Viktor Frankl -existential psychologist

• Viktor Frankl-the North American Dream has been material
• people may have means to live but no meaning to live for
• money, success, good social can not guarantee happiness
• the "what for?" question- may not come until later in life
• traveling in fast lane to....where?
• Frankl claims deep within every person is an innate need to find meaning in life "the will-to-meaning"

The Three Dimensions of Life

1. The somatic or physical

2. The mental

3. The spiritual

• Frankl believes there has been an overemphasis in psychology on the mind and body to exclusion of spiritual
• spirituality is what makes us distinctively human
• when will-to-meaning is blocked we experience existential frustration--> neurosis

Collective neurosis symptoms

• planlessness-living day-to-day without enthusiasm
• fatalistic attitude-helplessness
• immersing one's self in crowd conformity-dislike of difference

How to Find and Create Meaning

• meaning can be found anywhere-rich or poor, beauty or ugliness, young old
• we are all challenged in different ways and can not impose meaning on another
• some find happiness by feeding appetites-narcissism
• Frankl suggests forgetting about self and placing meaning outside with a FUTURE orientation
• one begins to see a gap between what "is" and what "ought" to be
• the gap between what one "is" and what one "ought" to be
• The gap produces a healthy tension to motivate

MEANING FROM WORK, LOVE AND SUFFERING

Work

• we can express creativity, fulfill potential, a cause
• -we can forget self-preoccupation-a mission

Love

• experience another's uniqueness-forget self- look to simple things

Suffering

• we can transfer the hardship to personal victory

Source: Mastering Human Relations 3rd Edition, A Falikowski, 2002. Pearson Education

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