1.21. Name Changes: From GAP Psychology To Gap Psychology To Gap Philosophy to DGBN-Gap Philosophy

Where did the name ‘Gap’ come from in Gap Psychology and Gap Philosophy and how did it evolve just recently into 'DGB' Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...?

Back in the early 1980s, after graduating from the University of Waterloo with an Honours B.A. in psychology, I hooked up with two different ‘schools’ of psychology: 1. The Gestalt Institute of Toronto; and 2. The Adlerian Institute of Ontario. Moving back and forth between the two schools of psychology, I became aware of contrasts in the two different perspectives, and was trying to make sense of these contrasts — to ‘integrate’ them. One was espousing more of a ‘cognitive’ approach (Adlerian Psychology) while the other one was espousing more of a ‘gut-level, emotional’ approach (Gestalt Therapy). One was espousing more of a ‘unity in the personality’ model of the human psyche (Adlerian Psychology) while the other one -- while still espousing a 'wholistic' model of the human personality -- was at the same time recognizing and integrating into their model the idea of ‘polariities and conflict in the personality’. Thus, although not using these exact terms, Gestalt Therapy was espousing the Hegelian idea -- in a partly similar fashion to Freud and Jung -- that the human personality was always going through a process of 'dialectical evolution' which consisted of the Hegelian stages of: 1. 'thesis' (which Gestalt Therapy often labelled as 'topdog'); 2. 'anti-thesis' (which Gestalt Therapy often labelled as 'underdog'); and 'synthesis' (which Perls could have created a term like the 'central ego' to describe both that part of the personality that does the 'dialectical mediation or integration work' and also that part of the personality that contains the resulting syntheis between 'topdog' and 'underdog' integration -- but Perls chose to reduce the Freudian three-part model of the personality ('superego', 'id', and 'ego') to simply two parts (topdog and underdog). Instead, the idea of 'central or mediating ego' is more or less assumed within Gestalt Therapy. One way or the other, Gestalt Therapy refers alternatively to such therapeutically designed processes as 'hot seat and empty chair' work, and 'Gestalt Therapy in general' as ways to help facilitate the personality's natural tendency towards 'self-psychotherapy' (Perls called it 'organismic self-regulation) which tends to become interrupted by 'pathological forms of social conditioning' (social rewards and/or punishments and/or the imagination of them) that stops the personality's process of 'dialectical-self-psychotherapy' (my term, not theirs) from happening the way it normally should and would without the interference. The main point I wish to make here is that Freud, Jung, and Perls all more or less -- in slighty different fashions -- incorporated and internalized into the human personality these two Hegelian ideas which Hegel did not give a name to (at least that I am aware of) -- 'dialectical evolution' and 'dialectical wholism'.

Thus, what Hegel basically was calling 'social psychotherapy' -- i.e. 'social-cultural-historical-philosphical dialectical evolution and wholism' -- Freud, Jung, and Perls internalized into the human personlity to form a process of 'human dialectical self-psychotherapy' that mirrored (or visa versa, meaning that the psychological term 'projection' is very important here -- man 'projecting his internal world outwards into the realm of culture') what was socially, culturally, historically, and philosophically happening on the broader spectrum of human dialectical evolution. There is one more essential point to be made here: specifically, the 'gap' between Hegel and Freud was 'bridged' in Nietzsche's underrated but classic first book -- The Birth of Tragedy. In this book, in which Nietzsche distinguished the difference between a 'Dionysian' and 'Appollonian' view of life -- and the tragic struggle between them in the human personality -- Nietszche basically 'put gravel down on the road' and then Freud 'paved the rest of the way' with the birth of Psychoanalysis. It should also be noted that Schopenhauer -- who had a significant influence on Nietzsche -- played an important part in this 'bridging' process between philosophy and psychology as well. Schopenhauer's 'Dionysian' (below the neck) masterpiece -- The World as Representation and Will -- provided (along with Kierkegaard) a perfect 'counter-balance' to Hegel's more 'Apollonian' (above the neck) masterpiece -- The Phenomenology of Mind(Spirit). Schopenhauer's book and philosophy showed man the nastier, unadulterated, narcissistic, basic instinct ('Thomas Hobbes', 'Lord of the Flies') part of his personality and psyche -- the narcissistic-hedonistic-Dionysian side of 'human nature' -- that Freud conceptualized as the 'id' and later the 'death instinct (as a significant part of the id)', which made up an impossible to ignore one third of the triumvarate human psyche (superego--id-ego).

Now what I just wrote in the last paragraph is a totally updated version of what I was only vaguely beginnning to see in the early 1980s. At that time, by the end of the 1980s, I only knew that I had three schools of psychology that were more or less equally influencing my psychological-and-soon-to-be-philosophical outlook. It seemed only natural to use the first three letters of these three schools of psychology 'G' (Gestalt Therapy), 'A' (Adlerian Therapy), and 'P' (Psychoanalysis) to label this evolving psychological-philosophical outlook.

However, there was another way of looking at what I was doing which was also becoming more and more apparent to me. I was 'bridging the gaps' between philosophical stuctures (and processes). In the 1970s, I wrote my Honours Thesis with the aim of bridging the gaps between General Semantics, Cognitive Therapy, and Humanism. I consider this work as having been at least a partly successful venture with two limitations: 1. it was very dry (written from the neck up in typically 'Apollonian' style); and 2. in this sense, it lacked a good understanding of the feeling, the passion, the sensuality, the sexuality, the narcissism, the hedonism, the egotism, the basic instinct, the intoxication, the obsession, the compulsion, the addiction, the romanticism that I would start to find -- first at the Gestalt Institute -- and then, in the writings of Freud, Perls, Jung, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer primarily. Which is not to say that I can't still get into the habit of writing from the 'neck up' (in very controlled Appollonian style) -- it is just that my writing is generally better when I let more of the Dionysian (Pisces) side of my personality out, and with it, more of my unrestrained feelings and impulses. (Not all of them but more of them. That is something I generally find very difficult to do. It opens up a vulnerability within me that I am generally reluctant to share with my girlfriend of 7 years and my closest friends -- -- if or when I get to see them -- let alone, the world at large.) As this project is ideally, partly an exercise in self-exploration and self-psychotherapy, much of the ultimate success or failure of this project may rest on what side of the fence -- my Appollonian and/or my Dionysian side -- that I choose to jump down to.

We all have psychological-philosophical-political-interpretive-evaluative-ontological-teleological-humanistic- existential 'gaps' in our personalities -- as well as there obviously being the same and different types of gaps between ourselves and the rest of the world (individually and/or collectively). This became much of the focus of Gap Philosophy in the 1990s as it evolved from GAP Psychology in the 1980s. The further evolution from Gap Philosophy to DGB Philosophy has been a very recent ones as I attempt to focus more on the solutions to the philosophical and psychological problems that were themselves more of the focus in the 1980s and 1990s.

'DGB Philosophy' is partly a narccisistic name -- it reflecting the initials of my name.

However, it also underscores the evolution from Gap Philosophy to 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy.

Furthermore, when you add an 'N' to the name, you also get two further ideas that are important to me.

1. 'Democratic-(Dialectic)-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'; and
2. 'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism'.
3. This is why you will often see me sign my essays, DGBN.
   

Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Superman — a rope over an abyss. A dangerous going-across. A dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back… — Friedrich Nietzsche

DGBN, Aug 11th, 2006.