Exploring Inner Experience

Author: Russell T. Hurlburt
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027252009
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Written for the professional psychologist and philsopher, Exploring Inner Experience shows (a) how DES avoids the traps that destroyed the introspections of the previous century; (b) why DES reports of inner experience should be considered reliable and valid; (c) that DES reports of inner experience are the most accurate that have ever been produced by Western science; and (d) how to use the DES method. This book will be basic reading for all psychologists, philosophers, and students interested in consciousness, as well as anyone (professional or layperson) who is seriously concerned with understanding the human condition or any of its components.

Describing Inner Experience?

Author: Russell Hurlburt
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262263165
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Book Description
A psychologist and a philosopher with opposing viewpoints discuss the extent to which it is possible to report accurately on our own conscious experience, considering both the reliability of introspection in general and the particular self-reported inner experiences of "Melanie," a subject interviewed using the Descriptive Experience Sampling method. Can conscious experience be described accurately? Can we give reliable accounts of our sensory experiences and pains, our inner speech and imagery, our felt emotions? The question is central not only to our humanistic understanding of who we are but also to the burgeoning scientific field of consciousness studies. The two authors of Describing Inner Experience disagree on the answer: Russell Hurlburt, a psychologist, argues that improved methods of introspective reporting make accurate accounts of inner experience possible; Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosopher, believes that any introspective reporting is inevitably prone to error. In this book the two discuss to what extent it is possible to describe our inner experience accurately. Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel recruited a subject, "Melanie," to report on her conscious experience using Hurlburt's Descriptive Experience Sampling method (in which the subject is cued by random beeps to describe her conscious experience). The heart of the book is Melanie's accounts, Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel's interviews with her, and their subsequent discussions while studying the transcripts of the interviews. In this way the authors' dispute about the general reliability of introspective reporting is steadily tempered by specific debates about the extent to which Melanie's particular reports are believable. Transcripts and audio files of the interviews will be available on the MIT Press website. Describing Inner Experience? is not so much a debate as it is a collaboration, with each author seeking to refine his position and to replace partisanship with balanced critical judgment. The result is an illumination of major issues in the study of consciousness—from two sides at once.

Inner Experience and Neuroscience

Author: Donald D. Price
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262017652
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 359

Book Description
A proposal for merging a science of human consciousness with neuroscience and psychology. The study of consciousness has advanced rapidly over the last two decades. And yet there is no clear path to creating models for a direct science of human experience or for integrating its insights with those of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. In Inner Experience and Neuroscience, Donald Price and James Barrell show how a science of human experience can be developed through a strategy that integrates experiential paradigms with methods from the natural sciences. They argue that the accuracy and results of both psychology and neuroscience would benefit from an experiential perspective and methods. Price and Barrell describe phenomenologically based methods for scientific research on human experience, as well as their philosophical underpinnings, and relate these to empirical results associated with such phenomena as pain and suffering, emotions, and volition. They argue that the methods of psychophysics are critical for integrating experiential and natural sciences, describe how qualitative and quantitative methods can be merged, and then apply this approach to the phenomena of pain, placebo responses, and background states of consciousness. In the course of their argument, they draw on empirical results that include qualitative studies, quantitative studies, and neuroimaging studies. Finally, they propose that the integration of experiential and natural science can extend efforts to understand such difficult issues as free will and complex negative emotions including jealousy and greed.

The Inner Experience

Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062245082
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
Now in paperback, revised and redesigned: This is Thomas Merton's last book, in which he draws on both Eastern and Western traditions to explore the hot topic of contemplation/meditation in depth and to show how we can practice true contemplation in everyday life. Never before published except as a series of articles (one per chapter) in an academic journal, this book on contemplation was revised by Merton shortly before his untimely death. The material bridges Merton's early work on Catholic monasticism, mysticism, and contemplation with his later writing on Eastern, especially Buddhist, traditions of meditation and spirituality. This book thus provides a comprehensive understanding of contemplation that draws on the best of Western and Eastern traditions. Merton was still tinkering with this book when he died; it was the book he struggled with most during his career as a writer. But now the Merton Legacy Trust and experts have determined that the book makes such a valuable contribution as his major comprehensive presentation of contemplation that they have allowed its publication.

Investigating Pristine Inner Experience

Author: Russell T. Hurlburt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139499602
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Book Description
You live your entire waking life immersed in your inner experiences (thoughts, feelings, sensations and so on) – private phenomena created by you, just for you, your own way. Despite their intimacy and ubiquity, you probably do not know the characteristics of your own inner phenomena; neither does psychology or consciousness science. Investigating Pristine Inner Experience explores how to apprehend inner experience in high fidelity. This book will transform your view of your own inner experience, awaken you to experiential differences between people and thereby reframe your thinking about psychology and consciousness science, which banned the study of inner experience for most of a century and yet continued to recognize its fundamental importance. The author, a pioneer in using beepers to explore inner experience, draws on his 35 years of studies to provide fascinating and provocative views of everyday inner experience and experience in bulimia, adolescence, the elderly, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, virtuosity and more.

Power

Author: David Clarence McClelland
Publisher: Halsted Press
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 504

Book Description

Countertransference and the Therapist's Inner Experience

Author: Charles J. Gelso
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135595798
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Book Description
Countertransference and the Therapist’s Inner Experience explores the inner world of the psychotherapist and its influences on the relationship between psychotherapist and patient. This relationship is a major element determining the success of psychotherapy, in addition to determining how and to what extent psychotherapy works with each individual patient. Authors Charles J. Gelso and Jeffrey A. Hayes present the history and current status of countertransference, offer a theoretically integrative conception, and focus on how psychotherapists can manage countertransference in a way that benefits the therapeutic process. The book contains completely up-to-date data from existing research findings, and illuminates the universality of countertransference across all psychotherapies and psychotherapists. Contents include: *the operation of countertransference across three predominant theory clusters in psychotherapy; *leading factors involved in the management of countertransference; and *valuable recommendations for psychotherapy practitioners and researchers. Professionals in clinical and counseling psychology, psychiatry, social work, and counseling will benefit from this volume. The book is also appropriate for graduate students in these fields.

Experience of the Inner Worlds

Author: Gareth Knight
Publisher: Skylight Press
ISBN: 1908011033
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
Originally published in 1975, Experience of the Inner Worlds is a classic magical textbook of the Western Mystery Tradition. Covering a wide range of topics within a Christian-oriented Qabalistic framework, Gareth Knight explains the difference between magic and mysticism, natural and revealed religion, monism and theism. He also covers the practicalities, examining methods of inner plane communication, contact with the Masters, the 'consciousness' approach of Carl Jung, the vision of Dante and the archetypal power of the Hebrew alphabet - all within the context of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. The book also contains powerful visualisation exercises and examples of communication with angelic and elemental contacts. While this book can be used as a course of self-instruction, it is also an important modern reference book of magical theory and practice, and has been used for decades by students of Western Qabalah and magic.

Meaning and Void

Author: Eric Klinger
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452901558
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 430

Book Description
In a wide-ranging theory of the way people function, the author shows how their inner lives depend upon and in turn influence their commitments to goals or incentives.

Countertransference and the Therapist's Inner Experience

Author: Charles J. Gelso
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0805860827
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Book Description
Countertransference and the Therapist's Inner Experience explores the inner world of the psychotherapist and its influences on the relationship between psychotherapist and patient. Gelso and Hayes present the history and current status of countertransference, offer a theoretically integrative conception, and focus on how psychotherapists can manage countertransference in a way that benefits the therapeutic process.