Airline pilot suitabilities

Airline pilots are, at least in major airline companies, continuously investigated and re-examined: do they remember their home work? Do they know how to cope with unexpected flight situations? Are they medically fit?
I do not think that there is one single other occupation, where there are equally controls of the employees. As a frequent airline passenger I just have to say: thanks a lot. I do not want to be carried around some 30 000 feet above the ground by unreliable and unsuitable persons.
But is it possible to predict future behaviour already during an employment situation? Is it possible to detect and to find out if this specific, young man or woman is basically educated enough, has the right capacities to become learned and further trained, has developed a mature and stable personality enough, is socially capable enough, has the right potentials to later become a Flight Captain and commander of a very good standard?
Yes, it is. I know that it is possible. I state this based upon more than forty years working with questions like that.
Please, you are welcome to challenge me if you believe something else.

Authorities are not always to trust

By authority comes power. Power empowers. Most people love to become empowered. It serves as a resistant movement against all threats of being assessed as weak or living a life with no special meaning. Authority and power may in some cases be possible to buy, but the price is mostly very high and if you are lacking money you have to stay as an outsider and the one with a lower affiliation. It happens though that some people are fortunate to stumble on someone or something that suddenly and unexpectedly brings authority and power to them. Just like that! I, myself, have assisted some former friends of mine to a position of power. But power corrupts. After a very shortwhile some people coming into power change to some more or less mad personality styles. Abuse is the correct concept in those cases. They start to abuse their privileges, acting in ways that I would not have expected. Well, I am anot so very afraid of taking up a fight against those kind of persons, a fight with words, a serious discussion. But I have encountered some men and women, who have suddenly gained power, who act like turtles or snails. As soon as I ask them questions or come up with critical remarks, they escape, quickly, into some kind of shelter. They disappear into the shadows of their own. My call outs are just echoing back, echoing back, choing back, ing back, back…. My credo is: do not automatically trust those in power. Caution combined with a sense of mistrust – that is my recommendation.

From where comes the money?

From where comes the money? This is one of the main questions that served as an introduction to the theories about politicial ideologies and the building of modern societies during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Somewhat later, in the start of the 1980’s, the question was gone with the wind. Now the idea was spread that you, just you, would be able to raise the fortune of your own provided that you acted energetic and smart, using your talents. The old American dream. If money came tumbling down to you it was just thanks to yourself and based upon your own merits. If you happened to become the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of the Very Big Company, having a salary per month corresponding to what millions of other people earn after five years or more, it is perfectly all right as it is your money, earned by yourself and no one else. Hah! And you have absolutely no one to be grateful to, but you, yourself, and your genius genes. No guilt, no debt. No gratitude!
I have met lots of them. Question: from where comes all your money? Answer: from my hard work. Hah!
If you don´t feel any gratitude to people around you, and if you think that you are free from any dept there is probably and regrettably something wrong with you.

Happy Easter! (?)

People like to find out suitable days for festivals and parties. Well, let us see, do we have some holidays somewhere, preferably two or three ones in a row? Oh, yes, I found it – Easter! Nice! So let us invite some good friends, let us cook some good food, let us drink some tasty wine, let us be filled with happiness and joy – let us bring out a Happy Easter!
But, wait a minute, why do you celebrate Easter? Has it anything to do with the Exodus of the old Israelis, the group of people who claimed that God is One, and One only? You know, the Exodus from Egypt, where the Jews were kept as slaves.
But….no, that is the Jewish celebration, called Pesach.
Easter in the Christian tradition is a remembrance of the suffering of Messiah, Jesus Christ. According to the legend he was betrayed and caught, severely tortured and nailed to the cross, whereafter he was declared dead and was buried.
Wow!
Let us celebrate! Let us drink and bring out a toast! Let our hearts be filled with joy and pleasure!
Happy Easter!

I, myself, Ltd

We live in a culture that has very special driving forces. The majority of those forces are formed as educational and training advices to the citizens: if you just follow the politically streamlined and supported devices and ideas you will be able to reach your personal dream goals. And it seems to me that a majority of young people of today are dreaming of earning a lot of money, establishing themselves as rich, living in a nice house, getting afford to eat and drink at restaurants downtown, driving own luxury cars, sailing own big sailboats and so forth. Focus is “I”, not “we”.
Yes, I know, there are also lots of youths who have refound the traditional concepts such as loyalty and solidarity, and among them there are some, who are deeply engaged in several main, important questions of our time (climate change, how to build an even better society, care for the children, the old ones and the weak ones, so forth), but still – there are lots of young brats out there, and they are all formed by the current ideals in our present society. I think that all those young people are the main target for the entertaining speakers that conduct lectures with the headline “I, myself, Ltd”. How you, all by yourself, will be able to make a success.
Funny, I get a bitter and sour taste in my mouth. I think I have to brush my teeth…

Psychotherapy – a pure technique or what?

There is a certain dissonance when talking about psychotherapy of today. A lot of techniques for psychotherapeutic aims are always invented or re-invented. As we live and work in a culture that comes up with certain benefits to those, who are fast and claim that they reach very efficient results there are a lot of promising spaces for pure technical interventions in the psychotherapeutic rooms. Just as an example: one of the techniques used, becoming very popular indeed, is the EMDR (Eye Movement Desenzitation and Reprocessing), meaning that the person going to the EMDR psychotherapist learns how to move his eyes from right to left and from left to right over and over again – and, woops! – gradually the symptoms are declining. The other day I asked one EMDR psychotherapist if she could explain exactly what was happening. Could she make me understand the process? Was she able to give a brief lecture about the theoretical baselines of the technique?
Well…no. There are some hypothesis about the effects of the amygdala in the brain and so forth, but it seems as if no one knows exactly how it works. But it seems to work.
Well then, if it works – fine! Why bother?
Because according to my own ethics I want to know what is happening. I want to understand. And I want my clients to understand. My basic aim is to gradually increase the awareness of what is happening within us and in between us people. I happen to believe that we, all of us, could gain an even better control of our lives if we are heading for a more profound understanding about what is going on in this complicated world, in this complex society, in all of our more or less difficult relations to others. No, psychotherapy is not a pure technique for me. It is a dynamic process with one main focus: A better sight, and an increased awareness of what is going on.

Fear, withdrawal and repression

It happens that I challenge people bringing forward ideas or behaving in ways that I certainly do not like. It happens that I challenge them by writing an e-mail, telling them what I think. The reply is almost always – a total silence. It is as if I have turned to a snail or a turtle. They withdraw, hiding themselves in their shells, saying nothing, expressing nothing. I guess that they do that by fear, as if they have been violently attacked. Then they just hide away, waiting for the storm to blow away. Possibly they try to forget what I have said, repressing everything connected to it. But how smart is that? My guess is that this will sooner or later lead to some somatic illness – because our body does not want to just hide stuff like that. So, come on, bring it out of your chest. I will not bite you (perhaps just a little).

Psychology as a science and the quick-fix tricks of our time

Psychology is to be understood as the scientific studies of behaviour patterns and the internal dynamics of thoughts, fantasies and dreams of the human beings. Social psychology is focusing the interrelation patterns growing in groups and organizations. All these studies demand thorough and profound scientifically based investigations and experiments. It is of course a necessity to create space and time for such moves and measures. The psychologist working with applied psychology must be careful. It is very tempting to become affected by the quick-fix-tricks interests and needs of our time. I meet now and then the new quick-fix oriented psychologists, who immediately pick up their psychological test instruments and other tools from their pockets, who apparently have no time for any profound investigations, who are not at all trained in the art of scientific reflexion (which takes time), and who are giving advices or treatment ideas based upon theoretical frames that are very thin indeed. I prefer psychologists who appear calm, somewhat laid back, who do not take anything for granted, who prefer to look at their clients as formed by culture and group affiliations, unaware of the importance of such influences. By small means undetected layers are being brought up to the surface. Beware of the quick-fix:ers!

The crash of our time

Computer games are big money as there are are lots and lots of people, who seem to prefer sitting hours, days and nights in front of their computers. When they shut down they walk to the TV sofa to watch one of those endless action or sex movies that are produced all over the world. In between – a few hours to deal with the problems of the real world. They have to eat and to drink and some, but not all, have to go their work or to their schools or universities. This kind of real things are quite often experienced as “very boring”, and they hurry back to the dream worlds again.
Am I exaggerating?
I do not think so.
All these fantasies, coming directly towards you through the computer and TV media, inviting you to some peculiar memberships, are very tempting because in the dream worlds you could just play around with your fear and your anxiety and your secret wishes and your aggressive and sexual impulses – and nothing will harm you personally. That is anyhow what you believe. But everything that is connected to your mental and emotional life will affect you and start changing you, and after a while you will start to behave like one of those guys in the game or in the action movie, without even thinking of it. Then you will become one of the fantasy figures in your dream worlds and sooner or later there will be a big, small, but yet powerful BANG between you and the rest of the real world, and it is not so very certain that you will become rescued and directed back into the normal society again.
Beware!