POST 8 >> A SUBJECT I'VE ENJOYED STUDYING THIS SEMESTER

Well, particulary this semester I have enjoyed all the subjects. In previously occasions of the class, I have mentioned one of them or things about it: Psychosocial Trauma. But today I will talk about another subject of this semester that I like very much: Psychosocial approaches to quotidian life. It is teached by María José Reyes, a great teacher who matters much the content of the class as the way how it is done, including the participation of the students. Consequently, one important thing that we do in every class is to sit in circle. For the teacher, when the class takes this form, the relations between its participants have differences in its dynamics, so the class happens in a totally different way: more horizontally, more equally, and able to us too see each other faces. The contents that we have seen include theorical and methodological approaches to undestarnd, conceive and investigate the quotidian life, from different epistemologies of social and human sciences. Also, we have to present logbooks of observations that we made in quotidian spaces along the semester (my group made observations in the market, other group made observations of street christian preachers, etc). Just yesterday was the turn of my group to present a text of Shotter called "The conversational font of social life", that talks about the interesting things that happens in our conversations, as a web and as individual and unique events of our daily life, and the daily life of the cultures, and how it builds our social reality and our ways to think and behave.

I like very much this subject for two important reasons: It talks about fundamental levels of the psychosocial phenomenons, and consequently it gives relevance to quotidian life in its observation and analysis.

POST 7 >> CARRER-RELATED WEBSITE OR AN EXPERT ON YOUR FIELD

Hi class! Today I'll talk about Ignacio Martin-Baró, who was a psychologist, philosophist and a jesuit priest. He was born on November 7th in 1942, in the spanish city of Valladolid. He studied in universities of Spain, Ecuador, Germany, United States, Belgium and El Salvador. But the most important place of his career was the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA) of El Salvador, where he studied psychology, and also was a teacher. He is known for his work about Social Psychology, where he proposed and defended the idea that psychology has a close relation with the social and historical conditions of the territory where it is developed. Therefore, he writted a lot about psycho-social phenomenons in Latin America, and others related to the people experience of the social events and periods that they lived. His work was an important contribution for Political Psychology, Social Psychology and Community Psychology, and a lot of critical theories and disciplines. These are some examples of his work:

- An strange remedy for homosexuality: his legalization
- The complex of macho or the "machism"
- Psychology of the stroke
- Psychodiagnostic of Latin America
- Psychology of the salvadoran farmer
- Some psycho-social repercutions of the demographic density in El Salvador
- Social Psychology of the War: Trauma and therapy
- Social Psychology of the liberation for Latin America

I like him very much because he worked a lot of concepts and analysis of the relation between society, history and psychology, and that is what I am looking for in this career.

He was murdered by the army of the conservative government of El Salvador.

 

POST 6 >> THE TRASCENDENCE OF THE EGO-CONSCIOUSNESS, PART 1 (FREE/THEMED POST)

To talk about the trascendence of the ego-consciousness, we need to talk first about how this can be possible from our own experience. So, today I will talk about a proccess related to a practice and to an oriental phylosophy, specifically the chan budism (zen budism in Japan). This practice is the meditation. To be rigorous, meditation is a practice that a lot of cultures discovered naturally, even us. Is related to those moments when we want (and maybe we need) to be alone to think or release the mind from thinking; those moments when we feel lost and we want to find ourselves, when we are looking for a self-encounter. It's some kind of rest. A mind resting. But according to chan budism, is not any kind of resting, it's not like the sleeping. It's an conscient entering to a deeper and deeper calm. A deeper and deeper state of consciousness (for some people, maybe including me, it's not the same that state of mind, because the mind as we understand it commonly, is only one possibility in our consciousness).

How can we meditate?

Well, actually, this beautiful act is very simple to do... in theory at least. The only thing that you have to do is breathe and focus on your breathing. Breathing is something that everybody know how to do, with, maybe, some extreme exceptions. But breathing is one of those few actions that you can control and do on porpose, and when you don't, it is done automatically, always. If you feel that this it what happens with your breathing, then you can meditate. So, the way to start can be explain with steps:


1.- Look for a confortable place in a confortable moment, after you have, if it's possible, a good sleeping.
2.- Sit in this place, cross your legs, put your hands where you whant to put them, and be sure that you feel confortable. For some people, this could be problematic, but it's also something that you can practice.
3.- Close your eyes.
4.- Focus on your breathing.
5.- Begin to breathe every time deeper and slower. Every time deeper and deeper. Every time slower and slower.
6.- Let your consciousness become a peaceful and silent experience. At long-term, free of any thought.

0.- Necessary condition: you have to be genuinely determined to try it, even if it is just to explore it.

Meditation is recommended to be practiced one hour per day, if it is possible. If it's not, 10 minutes per day can work too. After a lot of meditation, some people have experiment something that the chan budism calls "illumination". It means the trascendence of the ego-consciousness. The ego is the "me". And a consciousness that realize the illusion of the "me", changes radically. But it is not something of one day to other. It is a patiently practice of the meditation.

POST 5 >> A PHOTOGRAPH YOU LIKE

This photo was taken by Barbara Mora. It shows me, standing in the edge of a path and looking to the horizon and the sky, in a trip to the "Reserva Natural Río Clarillo" in the Región Metropolitana of Chile. It was taken in February of this year, during the summer vacations. I liked it a lot because that was a trip that I really wanted to make, and I did it with my own money, and the company of Barbara Mora and Amanda González. It was a very fun trip, and I remember that I felt proud of me because I walked and walked and I didn't get tired enough to stop de travel. We didn't use any car, so it was even more interesting to do it. I also remember that the water of the river was cold at the beginning, but after some swimming, it felt so nice! Also, about the photograph, I think that I was looking very cool with that long clean hair. 

POST 4 >> "MY FAVORITE MOVIE"

After some minutes thinking about it, I decided that is too difficult to choose one favourite movie, because there is a lot of great movies, a lot of movies that taught me something important. So, I will choose as favourite the most relevant movie that I seen in the last weeks. This movie is a documentary called "Five Broken Cameras". I saw it to make an essay for the Psychosocial Trauma class. I like it because it was the first documentary about the israeli-palestinian conflict that I have ever seen, and it shows the quotidian reality of a palestinian father in the Bil'in village. It's a very powerful documentary with a lot of emotions and details, that makes you live in their lifes, and be in their shoes.

I like to watch all kind of movies I think, with some exceptions related to the comedy, parody and romance genres. Documentaries, psychological, terror, thriller, fiction and sci-fi are some of the genres that I most enjoy.

The most recent movie that I've seen is "The Fountain", a wonderful and emotive movie with a very deep story. I totally recommended, but, somehow, you need to be prepared to open your heart and mind to that movie.

I think there is a lot of great movies, I will finish this post mentioning more recommendations: "Atlantis", "Lion King", "What's eating Dorian Grey?", "Avengers: Infinity War" (and "Endgame"), "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Grave Encounters", and that's all for today.