I don't think Becker's beliefs as expressed here are at odds with modern psychology and clinical therapy; he's merely taken the names of denial and projection and generously redefined them into much broader modes of thinking and behavior.
For example, Hemingway's advice doesn't support a case for denial, but rather a life of acceptance and awareness: to see both traumas and strengths as they are and nothing more, stand at an artistic distance from overwhelming emotion, and put forth your best efforts toward what you value. This is exactly in line with acceptance and commitment therapy. Moreover, in fiction, denial is an artistic flaw: it disrupts the vivid continuous dream of storytelling and alerts the reader to involuntary intrusions of the writer and his human flaws. It seems that Becker is conflating denial with compartmentalizing one's disruptive emotions in order to prioritize meaningful activity.
I'd argue that most people agree with Becker's common sense argument for seeking meaning through a cause greater than one's self. What remains dubious is the surface-level contrarianism.
I don't disagree - I think his philosophy more or less depends on those redefinitions. His work, and Rank's, are interesting, because they almost represent a time when much of the understood vocabulary of psychology was still in its infancy. Sometimes, you can tell it's just one guy (a cultural anthropologist!) making a philosophy of mind for himself in real-time. People in the early seventies liked it, though!
Never heard of Rank - seems like an interesting foil for Freud. And you put a nice point on things in summarizing Becker's stances. More damn fine work 🤝
I don't think Becker's beliefs as expressed here are at odds with modern psychology and clinical therapy; he's merely taken the names of denial and projection and generously redefined them into much broader modes of thinking and behavior.
For example, Hemingway's advice doesn't support a case for denial, but rather a life of acceptance and awareness: to see both traumas and strengths as they are and nothing more, stand at an artistic distance from overwhelming emotion, and put forth your best efforts toward what you value. This is exactly in line with acceptance and commitment therapy. Moreover, in fiction, denial is an artistic flaw: it disrupts the vivid continuous dream of storytelling and alerts the reader to involuntary intrusions of the writer and his human flaws. It seems that Becker is conflating denial with compartmentalizing one's disruptive emotions in order to prioritize meaningful activity.
I'd argue that most people agree with Becker's common sense argument for seeking meaning through a cause greater than one's self. What remains dubious is the surface-level contrarianism.
I don't disagree - I think his philosophy more or less depends on those redefinitions. His work, and Rank's, are interesting, because they almost represent a time when much of the understood vocabulary of psychology was still in its infancy. Sometimes, you can tell it's just one guy (a cultural anthropologist!) making a philosophy of mind for himself in real-time. People in the early seventies liked it, though!
Never heard of Rank - seems like an interesting foil for Freud. And you put a nice point on things in summarizing Becker's stances. More damn fine work 🤝
You are a fine man, with a remarkable talent for understanding the most arcane abstractions.