Personal Application #6

Much of what we have read about in the previous three chapters relates to my life on a personal level. With Darwin, the well-known concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest were mentioned. They are ideas that most people have been exposed to from a young age, and it was nice to get a fuller explanation of the concepts than the passing mentions throughout life. The quick run through of modern philosophy was nice too, since it applies directly to us in modern times, though this book is a little outdated to be entirely modern.
For me, the most important personal connection comes from Freud. Not only did we learn extensively about him in AP psychology, but also his ideas apply to me in a more personal, more direct way. I attend therapy, and it is mainly relying on his ideas of psychoanalysis. I spend 45 minutes once a week talking about anything and everything on my mind. No idea is a stupid one and it doesn’t matter how big or small, bad or good, the thing I’m saying is. They all seem to end up converging into a conversation about whatever was bothering me most that week. Most of the time what bothers me isn’t something I was even aware of, until it was pried out of me through free association and discussion with someone who knows what to look for and the right questions to ask. Though there are elements of other therapy within mine, it is mostly based on Freud’s ideas, and that makes his chapter extremely relevant to my life. Without him, I’d be in a different kind of therapy or perhaps none at all, and maybe be in a very different position to where I find myself now.