Getting to Know Yourself

I am interested in the psychological aspects of the method of integral upbringing. Psychology has been an applied science for the past 100 years or so. Throughout this time researchers have developed various methods and tests, projective tests, and trainings. Can the experience acquired by materialistic psychology be used in the program of integral upbringing of children?

– It’s interesting that humanity has existed for hundreds of thousands of years, and psychology, the science about man and about what he is, has existed for only a century. Can you imagine how long it took us to even start thinking about who we are? We evolved completely automatically, under the pressure of internal forces, desires, and thoughts, without ever stopping to think, “Why? What for? Who are we? Why were we formed this way? What causes our thoughts, feelings, desires, and aspirations?”

There is a striking, incomprehensible proportion between the hundreds of thousands of years of our development, and the one hundred years of the desire to understand who we are.

Everything flowed so calmly for such a long time. Even the greatest minds were not very interested in this problem, and that is one more piece of evidence that we have only recently begun to recognize ourselves as distinct entities in the world. We are distinct, and the world is distinct, but what is the connection between us and the world?

– But now people’s interest in the questions, “What is the ‘I’?” “How do we interact?” “How can we improve our interactions?” is rising exponentially.

– And the theories about it change at an astounding rate! I imagine the modern psychologist as being a very unstable person.

– This is really so. However, some very interesting tests have been developed. Can children go through those tests in order to get to know themselves better, to understand how they are built and what qualities they have? Or should we not let them go through these tests?

– We have to raise the next generation in a way that will give it the right attitude to life and to itself, so that people can test themselves. It is our obligation, the duty of parents and educators, and in fact, of anyone who cares about children. After all, they are our future! In 15 to 20 years, this generation will be in charge and we will disappear into history. We have to film them, show them films about themselves, and analyze their behavior from various angles, from the perspective of encouragement, defense, approval, and criticism.