John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and presenter. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he cofounded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus. Along with his Python costars Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Graham Chapman, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), and The Meaning of Life (1983).
Perversion is a form of human behavior which deviates from what is considered to be orthodox or normal. Although the term perversion can refer to a variety of forms of deviation, it is most often used to describe sexual behaviors that are considered particularly abnormal, repulsive or obsessive. Perversion differs from deviant behavior, in that the latter covers areas of behavior for which perversion would be too strong a term. It is often considered derogatory, and, in psychological literature, the term paraphilia has been used as a replacement, though this term is controversial, and deviation is sometimes used in its place.
The concept of ego reduction is predicated on the use of Sigmund Freud's concept of the ego to describe the conscious adult self; and broadly describes the deflating of an over-inflated or egotistical sense of oneself - a curtailment of what Iris Murdoch called “the anxious avaricious tentacles of the self”.
A moral hierarchy is a hierarchy by which actions are ranked by their morality, with respect to a moral code.
I'm OK – You're OK is a 1967 self-help book by psychiatrist Thomas Anthony Harris. It is a practical guide to transactional analysis as a method for solving problems in life.
Socratic dialogue is a genre of literary prose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. The earliest ones are preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon and all involve Socrates as the protagonist. These dialogues, and subsequent ones in the genre, present a discussion of moral and philosophical problems between two or more individuals illustrating the application of the Socratic method. The dialogues may be either dramatic or narrative. While Socrates is often the main participant, his presence in the dialogue is not essential to the genre.
Anticipation is an emotion involving pleasure or anxiety in considering or awaiting an expected event. Anticipatory emotions include fear, anxiety, hope and trust. When the anticipated event fails to occur, it results in disappointment or relief.
Egotism is defined as the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself and generally features an inflated opinion of one's personal features and importance distinguished by a person's amplified vision of one's self and self-importance. It often includes intellectual, physical, social, and other overestimations. The egotist has an overwhelming sense of the centrality of the "me" regarding their personal qualities.
Families and How to Survive Them is a bestselling self-help book co-authored by the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Robin Skynner and the comedian John Cleese. It was first published in 1983, and is illustrated throughout by the cartoonist J. B. Handelsman. The book takes the form of a series of dialogues between Skynner, playing the role of therapist, and Cleese, who adopts the role of inquisitive lay person.
The colloquialism control freak usually describes a person with an obsession with getting things done a certain way. This is why a control freak can become distressed when someone causes a deviation in the way they prefer to do things.
In psychology, intellectualization (intellectualisation) is a defense mechanism by which reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its associated emotional stress – where thinking is used to avoid feeling. It involves emotionally removing one's self from a stressful event. Intellectualization may accompany, but is different from, rationalization, the pseudo-rational justification of irrational acts.
Projective identification is a term introduced by Melanie Klein and then widely adopted in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Projective identification may be used as a type of defense, a means of communicating, a primitive form of relationship, or a route to psychological change; used for ridding the self of unwanted parts or for controlling the other's body and mind.
James Robertson (1911–1988) was a psychiatric social worker and psychoanalyst based at the Tavistock Clinic and Institute, London from 1948 until 1976.
A father figure is usually an older man, normally one with power, authority, or strength, with whom one can identify on a deeply psychological level and who generates emotions generally felt towards one's father. Despite the literal term "father figure", the role of a father figure is not limited to the biological parent of a person, but may be played by uncles, grandfathers, elder brothers, family friends, or others. The similar term mother figure refers to an older woman.
Splitting is the failure in a person's thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both perceived positive and negative qualities of something into a cohesive, realistic whole. It is a common defense mechanism wherein the individual tends to think in extremes. This kind of dichotomous interpretation is contrasted by an acknowledgement of certain nuances known as "shades of gray".
Robin Skynner was a psychiatric pioneer and innovator in treating mental illness.
Identified patient (IP) is a clinical term often used in family therapy discussion. It describes one family member in a dysfunctional family who is used as an expression of the family's authentic inner conflicts. As a family system is dynamic, the overt symptoms of an identified patient draw attention away from the "elephants in the living room no one can talk about" which need to be discussed. If covert abuse occurs between family members, the overt symptoms can draw attention away from the perpetrators.
Postponement of affect is a defence mechanism which may be used against a variety of feelings or emotions. Such a "temporal displacement, resulting simply in a later appearance of the affect reaction and in thus preventing the recognition of the motivating connection, is most frequently used against the affects of rage and grief".
The name of the father is a concept that Jacques Lacan developed from his seminar The Psychoses (1955–1956) to cover the role of the father in the Symbolic Order.
Counterdependency is the state of refusal of attachment, the denial of personal need and dependency, and may extend to the omnipotence and refusal of dialogue found in destructive narcissism, for example.
