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Happiness and Survival
Bob Gebelein
5-Star Accolades
Blending personal narrative with scientific insight, Gebelein's work pioneers a transformative approach to psychological development and societal change.
A must-read for everyone who has deep-seated questions about the state of our minds, spirituality, and society.” - Doreen Chombu for Readers' FavoriteDURHAM, NC, UNITED STATES, January 10, 2024 /EINPresswire / -- Bob Gebelein's new book, Happiness and Survival , could revolutionize Western civilization. He has already been compared to Copernicus.
The main message of Happiness and Survival is simple: For personal happiness and survival of the species, everybody needs to go to a psychotherapist.
But to get that message across is not so simple. The collective psychological defenses of an entire culture have gotten rid of Freud. Just to understand what that means, one needs to have recognized the subtlety and power of one's own psychological defenses in psychotherapy. Also because his major discoveries came through psychological development and not through an intellectual process, Gebelein says that the people best qualified to understand this book are people who have been through psychotherapy with positive results. He is counting on those people to lead our culture to what can truly be called a“civilization.”
His first step has been debugging Western civilization. He pinpoints errors in physicalism, so-called“spirituality,” academic philosophy, and sociology. The Freud-bashers are all refuted by the simple fact that he achieved“therapeutic change” in psychotherapy. Even the abstract language of intellectualism is less accurate than the specific language of psychotherapy. Gebelein notes,“I am saying that psychotherapy, as I experienced it, led me to personal happiness and to a discovery that would make the survival of the species more likely. I am asking people to try this very specific system in their own life's experience and see if it works for them.”
Sigmund Freud introduced to our culture a new way of thinking that made intellectualism incomplete. He showed that unconscious forces create inaccuracies in our conscious thinking. Freud also introduced to our culture a new kind of education. Through psychotherapy, unconscious contents are brought into consciousness, where they can then be dealt with consciously. This opens up portions of the mind that weren't used before. In Gebelein's personal experience, he uncovered creativity, intuition, and will from the unconscious, became more aware and better able to differentiate, and fine-tuned his perceptions to the beginnings of clairvoyance. Carl Jung improved upon Freud's discoveries, recognizing the spiritual, among other things.
Gebelein recommends that psychotherapy and psychological testing should become part of our educational system.
After he finished therapy to the satisfaction of his psychiatrist (1963), a little dream (1966) told him that he was still only 10 years old psychologically, and that this was normal for the culture. Using the disciplines he had learned in psychotherapy, he continued his psychological growth beyond normal by analyzing his own dreams. At the psychological age of puberty, he experienced a transition point where his“human nature” itself changed, from the exclusive self-interest of the child, to an equally natural motivation to give and share and even sacrifice himself for others, as is more appropriate for an adult. If a majority of people were to reach this point, governments would change, and the threat of nuclear annihilation would be eliminated.
Psychotherapy is limited by the philosophy of the therapist, Gebelein says. His psychiatrist did not believe in the spiritual, but the dreams introduced him to the spiritual. The awareness, acceptance, and assimilation of the spiritual was necessary for him to find the compassion that changed his“human nature,” and is absolutely necessary to achieve psychological maturity, by his definition. He recommends that when individuals have acquired the necessary disciplines by working with a therapist, they should finish their psychological development by analyzing their own dreams.
Gebelein adds a few discoveries of his own to the legacy of Freud and Jung – the“mental senses,” the concept of“psychological age,” the discovery that the normal person is 10 years old psychologically,“the self-steering process” of dream analysis, and the transition point where“human nature” itself changes. He sees dreams as a source of truth and dream analysis as a form of education that is not authoritarian: You don't get the lesson unless you are willing and able to figure out the riddle. He is not asking the reader to believe all this on his“authority.” He is only asking that you treat everything he is saying as a working hypothesis, to be verified or not in your own life's experience. Each one of us is the highest authority to decide for ourselves what to believe. As children, we delegate that authority to our elders. But as adults, it is time to take it back.
Reviewers are embracing Happiness and Survival with enthusiastic acclaim, sharing impactful insights and reflections:
“Gebelein's writing style is engaging, and I felt like he was talking directly to me, making 'Happiness and Survival' a personal and intimate exploration of psychotherapy and its role in our lives. His discussion on creating a new civilization and his critique of academia's focus on physicalism were particularly thought-provoking.” – Reader Views
“I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars because of the numerous lessons it contains. I recommend that this book be added to the psychology curriculum in schools. Just as students study Aristotle, Freud, and Carl Jung, they should also learn about Bob Gebelein's theory on happiness and survival. Those who want to discover themselves should read this book as well.” – Robert Andrew, OnlineBookClub
“We have been conditioned emotionally and intellectually from childhood to believe everything based on other people's authority. Whether you are knowledgeable or not, it is up to you to decide what you want to believe... To read Happiness and Survival, you must be open to viewing your life from a different perspective and question everything you have ever been taught. I loved this because it is enlightening and opens your mind to new thinking possibilities. Bob Gebelein does a great job of presenting his work in a way many people can understand. He uses simple words and a conversational tone... I loved that the author was not trying to impose his ideas on others or give them solutions like psychologists or self-help books do. Instead, he leaves it to the reader to interpret the work and draw their conclusions... The book is a must-read for everyone who has deep-seated questions about the state of our minds, spirituality, and society.” – Doreen Chombu for Readers' Favorite
About the Author:
Bob Gebelein, with an IQ of 140 and a Harvard education, had a legendary career as a computer programmer and creator of software systems. But the main thrust of his adult life has been something else. In 1955, at age 21, he saw the threat of nuclear annihilation as proof of total systems failure. So he turned his back on the culture and set out to design a new civilization. His methods were psychotherapy, withdrawal from the culture, and dream analysis. He discovered, in taking his psychological development beyond normal, a transition point where his“human nature” itself changed, from the exclusive self-interest of the child to compassion and altruism. If a majority of people were to reach that point, we would have a whole new level of civilization. In his psychological development, he opened up large portions of his mind, formerly unconscious, so that he was able to“see through” the lies people live by. He has self-published 4 books, Re-Educating Myself, The Mental Environment, Dirty Science, and Happiness and Survival, and Uncle Bobby's Record, which has been re-issued by Old Bear Records and Mystery Train in Amherst, MA. He has presented papers on“The Self-Steering Process” at the ASD conference in 1991,“The Mental Senses” at the IASD conference in 2006, and“Physicalism” at the PA conference in 2014 (also published in the Journal of Parapsychology, 77-2).
Gebelein put an ad for Happiness and Survival in The New York Times Book Review in November 2023, and Amazon has been out of stock for the paperback version ever since. But it can be obtained online at href="" rel="external nofollow" bookbab or ordered from a bookstore (ISBN 978-0-9614611-8-8, Independently Published 2023).
Learn more about Bob Gebelein and his work here: An Interview with Bob Gebelein . For more information or to request an interview with Bob Gebelein, please contact: ... or ....
Sheri Hoyte
Reader Views
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A Conversation with Author Bob Gebelein
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