BlogClick on the Light
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- Written by Joseph J. McMahon Joseph J. McMahon
It was a dull, grayish, wintry morning around 1990 when I knocked on the sixth grade classroom door to pick up Julio for a counseling session. As a staff psychologist on the school based team of the community mental health center I worked with grade school children at risk of being placed in special education. As we walked down the well-worn staircase of the seventy-year old school building in the south Bronx, I noticed the glum expression on Julio's face. When we arrived at the office situated off a landing of the staircase, I opened the door and asked Julio to click on the light. The switch was on the outside of the room next to the door. Julio, then, took a seat on the old wooden, straight-back chair, slouched and grunted, "Ugh .. this place is ugly too."
The Science and Art of Living
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- Written by Joseph J. McMahon Joseph J. McMahon
“…the art of life is the most distinguished and the rarest of all the arts.”
C.G. Jung from Modern Man in Search of a Soul
The dilemma
The common sense belief that the intuitive awareness of our ideals such as, truth, love, knowledge, and justice motivates us in our everyday lives inspired the development of the Vision Circles Program. On the flip side we also know that we have biological and security needs crying out, “Take care of yourself first. It’s a dog eat dog world out there”. Given the rational tendency to satisfy our own self-interests in a rapidly advancing scientific culture and given our more-than-rational tendency to create ourselves and the world in the light of our ideals, how do we carry off this psychological high-wire act?