So I completed the Positive Psychology course on Coursera with Barbara Fredericton just now. I feel a great sense of accomplishment and a bit more confidence to start the offline Counselling studies tomorrow. Tomorrow is our first lesson and I feel prepared – which is rare. I guess as we grow up we need to feel more prepared? I used to risk and wait for the boost of energy in the last minute preparations but now I really want to relax while studying. I want to make time for it, take time while doing it and be really good in counselling once I get to practice. I have learned a lot about new psychology academics during this course. I learned about new trends. I also learned a little bit about practice of counselling and psychotherapy in business, schools, personal coaching and in academic research area too. It gives me a good starting point to learn about the reality of the new profession too. I am trying not to think about all the other things I need to learn and my craving to learn it ALL!:) All the books I want to read, online courses I want to take. About http://www.ippanetwork.org/. About http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/. I feel excited about finally, after years and years, going back to my childhood dream of helping others by supporting them emotionally. When I was younger I really wanted to be a psychotherapist but I simply did not dare to claim the dream. Today I know that we have many voices in our head but only we get to choose which one to believe and follow. I choose to listen to the one that empowers me to walk another mile, work harder and achieve more satisfaction from the fact that I do something I really believe in. And the trust is that: as the world is moving towards tech and we increasingly move away from human contact (don’t get me wrong, I do not criticise tech at all, just state the obvious) we also start to feel a bit confused. Things change with dramatic speed. Our generation, in my humble option, is the first one that holds the key to the solution of inter-generational gap. The very same generation faces a huge challenge of social web, self-driving cars and AI. What is left then but to dive into how our brains, bodies and emotions feel about all this and how those of us who are more involved in tech can help others manage their worries, fears, inconsistencies? To me it’s almost a natural step in my own self-development – a path I cannot not take. So I am really excited about my Counselling Degree. It is going to be hard – just doing this online course was not easy. I was falling asleep tired after my usual daily tasks, but I took it easy and continued. Even if a bit harder than back in my student times (we had so much time then!) I think I am still benefitting from this educational path much more because I am benefitting from my conscious motivation: I can see clearly what I am aiming for at the end of those four years. With this in mind, I find it symbolically significant that I start this new academic adventure with the subject of positive psychology and new, very suitable definition of love – the micro-moments of connection between people that shape our positive resonance and lead to better overall health and well being!

1. DRIVEN, EXCITED, VITALITY: Incentive/resource focussed – wanting, pursuing, achieving, consuming – activating
2. ANGER, ANXIETY, DISGUST: Threat-focussed – protection and safety seeking – activating/inhibiting
3. CONTENT, SAFE, CONNECTED: non-wanting, affiliative-focussed – safeness – kindness – soothing

Today was all about Freud. It’s nice to be back with him and refresh my knowledge about psychoanalysis but I am not sure how deep my practice should be. I think I will find out during my Foundation course?

In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, establishing its central role in the analytic process. Freud’s redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the underlying mechanisms of repression. On this basis Freud elaborated his theory of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure comprising id, ego and super-ego. Freud postulated the existence of libido, an energy with which mental processes and structures are invested and which generates erotic attachments, and a death drive, the source of compulsive repetition, hate, aggression and neurotic guilt. In his later work Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture.

Though in overall decline as a diagnostic and clinical practice, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and across the humanities.

Transference is a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is “the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person’s childhood”. Another definition is “the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object”. Still another definition is “a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person … for the original object of the repressed impulses”.Transference (German: Übertragung) was first described by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for better understanding of the patient’s feelings.