超越自我的視野

對一個傾向指控別人的人來說，他只會看見別人的不是，只要他能超越自我的視野，就會看見自己的不是；不單要討回自己的公道，也對人公道，力求雙方都服膺在公道的客觀價值之下。從自我的世界看公道是十分危險的，因為在自我的世界裡，只會不斷感到冤屈、自義而看不見別人的觀點，甚至做出比那個傷害自己更甚的破壞性行為；要解開不公道的心結，就要跳出自我的世界，尋求更高更善更美的價值，把自己服膺在這些價值下，才會虛懷地放下只從自我世界出發的公道。

黃麗彰，《情緒傷害的醫治》，(香港：突破，2006)，頁120。

做自己，還是做罐頭？

相對於「做自己」，就是「做別人要我做的」。做別人要我做的，就是根據社會期望去做應該做的，我給這樣的行為取了個誇張的代名詞，叫做「做罐頭」。(因為罐頭是工厰生產線上大量製造的產品，每個罐頭產品幾乎一樣，也都安全地成為社會需要的東西)。

…做罐頭，符合了社會的期待，於是成了穩定社會的力量；做自己，同步了內在的流動力量，活出了生命的美麗，也為世界增添色彩。所以，做罐頭很好，做自己也很好。

…為什麼要當罐頭？因為罐頭有其存在的必要，這個社會是設計給罐頭來活的。做罐頭輕鬆很多，因為罐頭的世界可以少掉很多麻，也不必跟旁邊的罐頭解釋太多。 因此，當罐頭可以省掉很多很多對抗社會期望的壓力。省掉這些抵抗的力氣，可以用來好好地「做自己」，於是我開始有空間和力氣，可以靜靜扎實地寫文章，實現當作家的夢想。

…對大部分符合社會期待的人來說，「穩定與安全」是第一優先。所以，冒險不被鼓勵；追求自己的夢想，也常常被警告。因為那些符合社會期待而活的朋友，心裡也有蠢蠢欲動的夢想，如果他們鼓勵我冒險，那他們如何面對不敢實現夢想的自己？所以，那些警告的話，其實是他們在對自己說的，是要阻擋他們自己的；而我，可以擁有自己的聲音，擁有自己的選擇。

…美麗，常常來自於冒險。雖然你我都知道，那個冒險的過程，社會不會為你背書，因而孤單很多，挫折不會少，就看你的人生想實現什麼了！

…做自己，意思是聽從心裡的聲音、實現自己的心、長成自己希望的樣貌。活出自己希望的樣子，是你生命的責任。做自己的路上，常常會孤單，而且要為自己的選擇負責；同時，因為嘗試了，會減少遺憾，於是生命得以更有完整感。

…所以，當心裡的聲音很大的時侯，做自己會很美；當心裡的聲音普通的時候，做一點罐頭，做一點自己，挺好；當心裡的聲音跟社會期待一樣的時候，那就享受做罐頭的輕鬆吧！

黃士鈞，《做自己，還是做罐頭？》，(臺北巿：方智，2012)，頁30-35。

培養自尊心

所謂自專心，就是對自我有積極評價和期望。也就是看得起自己。自尊心作為個人對看我的正面評估，會深刻影響個人對自身有關事件的看法，並給個人的精神面貌打上獨特的烙印。自尊心的真諦在於：實事求是地評估自己，既不會否認自我的任何優點，也不會遮掩自我的任何缺點。

培養自尊心，要注意以下幾點：

1. 真實看自己 --- 既承認自己的優點，也承認自己的缺點，以揚長避短；

2. 積極看自己 --- 相信自我完善的力量，不要過分關注自己的缺點與不足；

3. 長遠看自己 --- 相信自己的發展潛力，相信自己的發展成熟。

一個有自尊心的人，在任何情況下都不會放棄對自我的信念。

岳曉東：《做個A+青少年：積極心理學必修的8堂課》，(香港：香港城巿大學出版社，2008)，頁104。

Four Aspects of Family Life

In my years as a family therapist, I have found that four aspects of family life keep popping up in the troubled families who come to me for help. They are –

• the feeling and ideas on has about himself, which I call self-worth;
• the ways people work out to make meaning with one another, which I call communication;
• the rules people use for how they should feel and act, which eventually develop into what I call the family system; and
• the way people relate to other people and institutions outside the family, which I call the link to society.

No matter what kind of problem first led a family into my office – whether a nagging wife or an unfaithful husband, a delinquent son or a schizophrenic daughter – I soon found that the prescription was the same. To relieve their family pain, some way had to be found to change those four key factors. In all of these troubled families I noticed that –

• self worth was low;
• communication was indirect, vague, and not really honest;
• rules were rigid, inhuman, nonnegotiable, and everlasting; and
• the linking to society was fearful, placating, and blaming.

Fortunately, I have also had the joy of knowing some untroubled and nurturing families – especially in my more recent workshops to help families develop more fully their potential as human beings. In these vital and nurturing families, I consistently see a different pattern –

• self-worth is high;
• communication is direct, clear, specific, and honest;
• rules are flexible, human, appropriate, and subject to change; and
• the linking to society is open and hopeful.

excerpt from: Virginia Satir (1972) Peoplemaking.

pdf: Four Aspects of Family Life

Sexual Desire

         Sexual desire aims at fusion - and is by no means only a physical appetite, the relief of a painful tension. But sexual desire can be stimulated by the anxiety of aloneness, by the wish to conquer or be conquered, by vanity, by the wish to hurt or even to destroy, as much as it can be stimulated by love.

          It seems that sexual desire can easily blend with and be stimulated by any strong emotion, of which love is only one. Because sexual desire is in the minds of most people coupled with the idea of love, they are easily misled to conclude that they love each other when they want each other physically.

          Love can inspire the wish for sexual union; in this case the physical relationship is lacking in greediness, in a wish to conquer or to be conquered, but is blended with tenderness.

          If the desire for physical union is not stimulated by love, if erotic love is not also brotherly love, it never leads to union in more than an orgiastic, transitory sense. Sexual attraction creates, for the moment, the illusion of union, yet without love this "union" leaves strangers as far apart as they were before - sometimes it makes them ashamed of each other, or even makes them hate each other, because when the illusion has gone they feel their estrangement even more markedly than before.

          Tenderness is by no means, as Freud believed, a sublimation of the sexual instinct; it is the direct outcome of brotherly love, and exists in physical as well as in nonphysical forms of love....

excerpt from: Erich Fromm (1956) The Art of Loving.

pdf document: Sexual Desire

Idolatrous Love

  

       

         A form of pseudo-love which is not infrequent and is often experienced as the "great love" is idolatrous love. If a person has not reached the level where he has a sense of identity, of I-ness, rooted in the productive unfolding of his own powers, he tends to "idolize" the loved person. He is alienated from his own powers and projects them into the loved person, who is worshiped  as the summum bonum, the bearer of all love, all light, all bliss. In this process he deprives himself of all sense of strength, loses himself in the loved one instead of finding himself. Since usually no person can, in the long run, live up to the expectations of her (or his) idolatrous worshiper, disappointment is bound to occur, and as a remedy a new idol is sought for, sometimes in an unending circle.

          What is characteristic for this type of idolatrous love is, at the beginning, the intensity and suddenness of the love experience. This idolatrous love is often described as the true, great love; but while it is meant to portray the intensity and depth of love, it only demonstrates the hunger and despair of the idolator...

excerpt from: Erich Fromm(1956) The Art of Loving

pdf document: Idolatrous Love