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  #11  
Old December 6th, 2004, 10:43 AM
Henry Stein Henry Stein is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Manu, thank you for the helpful overview of Stern's ideas. I know very little about Otto Kaus, other than what Edward Hoffman mentions in "The Drive for Self." Otto was a physician who eventually moved to Hollywood, California with his wife Gina. Apparently, she was an author and screenwriter, making it possible for Adler, during his trips to Los Angeles in the 1930's, to take on several Hollywood starlets as his patients.
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  #12  
Old December 6th, 2004, 02:14 PM
Trevor Hjertaas Trevor Hjertaas is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Manu,

What would be a fuller definition of "angst" if anxiety is only one aspect of it?

Trevor Hjertaas, Psy. D.
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  #13  
Old December 6th, 2004, 05:13 PM
Manu Jaaskelainen Manu Jaaskelainen is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Trevor, perhaps someone with some background in German would be a more proper person to comment on this issue, but I make an attempt. In the first place, some dictionaries (e.g. Chaplin) are using "anxiety" synonymously with "Angst". However, many years ago a german social psychologist, Hofstätter, commented on the translation of David Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd" that a proper translation of the title of this book would be "Die Ängstliche Masse", not "Die Einsame Masse". His arguments ran. if I remember his comments correctly after so many years, like this: the word "lonely" brings to americans negative feelings that are associated with Angst and fear, while for germans the word "Einsamkeit" is not necessarily a negatively loaded word. It may refer to certain romantic ideas connected with conceptions like "the lonely genius", like Martin Luther who was during a certain period of his life very "einsam". However, like many other archetypal heroes, he overcame this "hibernation-period" more strong, more creative, and more powerful than he had ever been. According to Hofstätter, being alone is a psychological state that brings, for americans, different associations, possibly for historical reasons. The usage contexts for the words are also different. "Anxious to do something" is a positive thing, while there are no equivalent uses in German for the word "Angst". I checked also the Encyclopaedia of Psychology by Eysenck, Arnold and Meili, but even this reference-book contains nothing concerning the differences between European and American uses of the word. It seems to me that there is an agreement that the word "Angst" must be translated "anxiety". However, I have some difficulties using them as synonyms. Maybe I experience this way only because I have defective knowledge of the languages. I think that it is possible to agree about the denotative meaning of words, but it is more difficult to make agreements concerning the connotative meaning - more subtle shades and nuances of the meaning, associations etc.
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  #14  
Old December 7th, 2004, 04:38 PM
Manu Jaaskelainen Manu Jaaskelainen is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Trevor, I would like to add some more technical details on the anxiety-issue: Semantic differential was developed in 1950'ies by Osgood, Tannenbaum & Suci, and in Germany by P.R.Hofstätter. It was a method for studies concerning the (pragmatic) meaning of words. Hofstätter found three factors: positive outward orientation, negative outward orientation, and inward orientation. Osgood found also three factors, but they were different: potency, activity, and evaluation (good-bad). - According to Hofstätter, the profiles he found in a german and in american test-group for the word "Angst", for germans, and "anxiety" for the USA group, were not similar. However, for the US-group the words "anxiety" and "loneliness" were near each other. - Trevor asked what the definition for anxiety should be if it is not "anxiety". Good question. I am not sure we can define all possible intensional meanings of the words. What we with certainty can define, are the extensional meanings of the words. Here (defining the intensional meanings) I would look at the contexts of the words (where the words appear?) and the usage (in what situations are we using the words). I find that the word "Angst" has a more existential dimension than "anxiety". When Sören Kierkegaard is using the word "Ångest", the Danish equivalent of Angst, I find it a little bit difficult to translate it "anxiety". "Anxiety seems to me (I may be wrong) a more mundane concept that refers to some concrete existing situation, while Kierkegaard's "Ångest" refers to a purely existential feeling, before the infinite abyss of the riddle of life, death and God. - Or how do you feel? Am I definitely wrong?
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  #15  
Old December 8th, 2004, 02:32 PM
George Neeson George Neeson is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Manu I had always carried the notion that "Angst" had an aggressive feeling to it, and was not to be equated to passive suffering but more to an angry type of response to suffering. Would that me a misapprehension on my part? I really enjoy the German language. It has subtleties that English does not carry.
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  #16  
Old December 8th, 2004, 03:42 PM
Trevor Hjertaas Trevor Hjertaas is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Manu,

Thank you for your assistance, it was most helpful. I have always had an interest in existentialism, but must rely on English translations of various works.

Trevor Hjertaas.
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  #17  
Old December 8th, 2004, 05:20 PM
Manu Jaaskelainen Manu Jaaskelainen is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

George, about the possible aggressiveness of the concept of Angst: here we would badly need some intelligent person who has complete knowledge of the German. This interpretation is new to me, but not completely alien if I reflect on it. I think on the painting of the norwegian artist Edward Munch. His famous painting "The Cry" has an air of aggression, but it is also an expression of a most intensive suffering, Angst. Usually suffering tends to elicit aggression afterwards. One of the milder forms is lying, especially when a client wants to lie to the professional person or educator, and thus humiliate him/her.
Trevor: about existentialism. There is an element of existentialist philosophy in Adlerian psychology, if I have understood correctly what I have studied. Adler says that we have the freedom to choice, but also the responsibility in our choices. There is nothing that "determines" our choices. This a task of life that we must perform ourselves. This duty may sometimes elicit Angst (or anxiety?).
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  #18  
Old December 10th, 2004, 09:43 AM
Rita Schaad Rita Schaad is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Manu, Trevor, George

Skipping around the various threads of discussions (yes George, still an avid reader of the 'From the ground up'....) I'm prompted to comment on your interpretations of 'Angst'.
With all the connotations of "ängstlich" - being scared, being fearful and anxious, anticipating some unknown (negative) event, the "Angst", when 'tuned up' a pitch, would turn into 'horror'. Maybe that's when the agressivness comes in.
Although I haven't got a clue what this book "The Lonley Crowd" is about, the translation of "ängstlich" seems not logical. But when I think of '"angstvoll" (or 'bang' or 'beklommen') a feeling comes up about being unsure and left out in the cold - lonely.
What I sense form the initial subject mentioned of the "Angstlügen" in children, then that "Angst" means partly fear (of punishment) but it also tells a tale about a 'no-trust' in adults and carers to help guiding them between the rights and wrongs of their behaviour in to better choices and ways of conduct. Angst here is an uncertainty (anxiety) where defense mechanisms got to go up.
I can very well imagine, that if these mechanisms work, a child could adopt them as valid tricks/technics to get through life and would also become very proficient at it and soon the line between self protection and deception will be blurred.

Rita Schaad
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  #19  
Old December 10th, 2004, 11:59 AM
Manu Jaaskelainen Manu Jaaskelainen is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters III-V (Neurotic Traits, Dreams & Jung)

Thank you, Rita, for your valuable valuable comments. The German translation of the "Lonely Crowd" was "Die einsame Masse". I am not quite sure how serius Hofstätter was when he propsed the translation "Die ängstliche Masse". His idea was not based on logic, only on the semantic profiles of these two words. Your interpretations of Stern's theory is what Stern himself means with his idea of "Lügenkeime". First you are afraid or anxious, then you solve your problem telling small lies, then bigger lies, and you end up gradually adopting a lifestyle that is based on lies, if you continue to be successful.
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  #20  
Old December 10th, 2004, 03:27 PM
Manu Jaaskelainen Manu Jaaskelainen is offline
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Default Re: Discussion of CCWAA, Volume 3, Chapters VI & VII (Sexuality, Repression, & Protest)

These two papers were presented for the first time in Freud's Society in 1911. For the background of these two articles, see Hoffman's biography of Adler, Chapter 5, especially pp. 70 - 72. The hostility against Adler was growing, but Adler was seemingly unaware of this, as some of his comments reveal. Freud was not blind to the fact that Adler's theories would lead to a diminuation of the importance of the sexual theory. And that was something he was not ready to accept. There were no compromises in this issue. Adler discussed in depth his conceptions of the masculine protest, as Freud had wished. Adler did not understand that in this way Freud collected more evidence and ammunition against him. Studying these two papers, the reader is placed in the midst of history, in the auditorium of The College of Physicians in Vienna and its highly vibrating and tense atmosphere.

Last edited by Manu Jaaskelainen; December 10th, 2004 at 03:40 PM.. Reason: Small addition
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