Psychology

Much of Robert Assagioli biography was not known until his death since he felt that it was not right to focus on him as a person. However, from some of his publications and information from his workmates, we can deduce that Roberto was born in Italy in 1888. He was the son Elana Kaula who remarried Dr. Alessandro Emmanuelle Assagioli after the death of her husband in 1890. This explains how Roberto got his last name.

Much of his childhood time was spent in art, music and literature but he had specific interest in beauty and music. This laid a solid foundation for his psychosynthesis theory. Also, his interest in philosophy was boosted by his mother who had studied theosophy .The main languages which were spoken in his home area were Italian, English and French. However, through his curiosity and the desire to learn, Roberto was later conversant with Greek, Latin, German, Russian and Sanskrit (Sorensen, Birkholm, n.d). He had a burning desire to write in such a way that by the time he was turning fifteen, he had actually published an article entitled Unconscious wishes and conscious work.

 Later at the age of 21, he finished a doctoral dissertation by the title La Psicosintesi which brought about a new approach to psychology which focused on human growth and their experiences. At around the same time, Roberto was done with a critical article which focused on psychoanalysis as well as the difference between psychoanalysis and psycho-synthesis. However, he criticized psychoanalysis on the basis that it focused much on the pathological side of the psyche while neglecting what strengthens that which is healthy.

In 1910, Roberto had completed his studies where he had obtained some formal training in psychiatry. He went ahead to open up the psychoanalytic practice in Italy where he continued to develop much of his psychology work and by 1911, he had formulated much of the concepts which were to be applied in Psycho-synthesis. This took much of his time. Roberto was a member of the Freud Society of Zurich who was deeply involved in the study of psychoanalysis. He is also the founder member of a study group which consisted of 19 other members who sought to understand the human psyche. While conducting studies on the psychoanalysis, he simultaneously participated in the development of psychosynthesis. He also communicated his ideas and concepts to other places until the emergence of the First World War which brought a temporary halt to his work (Sorensen, Birkholm, n.d). This was due to the fact that he concentrated on treating people and being a psychiatrist during the World War 1.
After the war, he focused on psychosynthesis where he went ahead to open the first institute in Rome by the name Istituto di Cultura e Terapia Psichica .The institute is behind the publishing of the book called A New Method of Treatment Psychosynthesis. In the institute, he gave some lectures which gave a theoretical basis for the work with opposites. In his psychosynthesis theory, he believed that for every action, there must be a reaction and the task at hand was only to unite the reaction with the action. In his theory, he explained that human potential have possibility both in the transpersonal and the spiritual dimensions. Roberto was of the opinion that psychosynthesis does not give a metaphysical explanation of much of the mysteries around since it only leads to the door and stops there. His psychosynthesis theory was aimed at creating a synthesis between individuals and society rather than subdividing them into subunits. At one time, he was arrested but the imprisonment did him better  than harm since he spent much of his prison time investigating about the inner areas of consciousness and writing about several experiences (Sorensen, Birkholm, n.d).

Later in 1965, Roberto published a book by the title Psychosynthesis where in one of the articles, he presented the oval diagram which was a presentation of the human psyche. The oval diagram was a presentation of the relationship between the conscious, unconscious and the collective unconscious. Through his effort, psychosynthesis has spread even to Europe and now have a global recognition. However, despite his valuable contribution in the development of psychosynthesis, he later passed on in 1974 moments after he had written an article by the title Freedom in Prison.

DONALD MEICHENBAUM
Donald Meichenbaum grew up in New York City where he was much captivated by how he could understand the human behavior. He was also interested in researching on why people engage in destructive activities. Donald was also curious to note that a percentage of individuals in the streets often talked to themselves. He got some formal education from the City College of New York and went ahead to pursue post graduate studies in psychology at the university of Illinois.

Though Donald had always aspired to be an industrial psychologist, he later took up a job with a psychiatric hospital where he worked as a research assistant. Being in the hospital led him to explore greater heights in clinical psychology which presented numerous challenges. For instance, he is quoted as to saying that he could not get the concept in his anatomy class and he hated spending much of his quality time with sick people. This led him to drop neurology and take psychology. After completing his studies, he got a job with the University of Waterloo where Donald admits that it was a wonderful setting to work in. While in the work place, he continued with research work on the self direct speech because he felt that it would be of much help in clinical settings (Yalom, n.d). By 1950, he focused much attention on behaviorism and this marked the beginning of the cognitive revolution which sought to identify the psychological disorders as well as identifying how to treat them. This laid the foundation for the Cognitive behavior modification which Donald explained to be a technique of modifying what patients say to themselves.

Specifically, Donald was interested on researching how anger often results to violence. He sought to find out whether anger is unique to a specific person or a specific way of thinking. After subsequent evaluations, Donald came to a conclusion that some thought patterns are more prone to violence than others. He adds that anger is often a consequence of emotional dysregulation. This made him to even publish the Anger Handbook which gives guidance on how to assess and treat patients with emotional dysregulation. Donald was also involved in management of trauma where he says that it is important that the trauma patients should be given some time to share their predicaments, implications on their life and therapists should be in a capacity to draw conclusions from the stories depending with their experience in that particular field (Yalom, n.d).

Currently, Dr. Meichenbaum is a retired professor who spends much of his winter time as a head of the Melissa institute. However, he still feels that there is much to give to psychology since it is the only way to make the world a better place to live in. He is of the opinion that understanding how and when violence occurs would save a great deal in reducing the number of trauma patients across the globe.