The Good Men Project
You can receive updates about all of Dr. Maisel’s posts (Good Men Project, Psychology Today, Thrive Global, etc.) by subscribing for free here.
Dr. Maisel provides three weekly blogs for the Good Men Project website. These are Eric Maisel (on Mondays), Authoritarians in the Family (on Thursdays) and Kirism Today (on Saturdays). These are described below. If you’ve arrived here to fill out the Authoritarian Wound Questionnaire, you will find that further down this page. If you’ve arrived here to share your story of kirist living, you’ll find information on that further down the page.
Mondays: Eric Maisel
Dr. Maisel has a wide variety of interests and writes on many subjects, among them critical psychology, critical psychiatry and mental health; issues of life purpose and meaning; parenting issues and the mental health of children; and creativity, creativity coaching, and the challenges of the creative life, among others.
Check out his Monday blog here.
To receive Dr. Maisel’s weekly Kirism Today newsletter, please visit here.
Thursdays: Authoritarians in the Family
Dr. Maisel is particularly interested in the role of authoritarians in the family and the damage they cause. He invites you to take the Authoritarian Wound Questionnaire (below) and, if you’d like to share your questionnaire results with Dr. Maisel and with Good Men Project readers, to send him your story to ericmaisel@hotmail.com
Check out his Thursday blog, Authoritarians in the Family, here.
To receive Dr. Maisel’s weekly newsletter, please visit here.
Saturdays: Kirism Today
Dr. Maisel has recently developed a contemporary philosophy of life called kirism, which is described in Lighting the Way: How Kirism Answers Life’s Toughest Questions. Every Saturday Dr. Maisel shares ideas from kirism and stories of kirist living. He invites you to share your stories of kirist living with him and with Good Men Project readers by sending your story along to Dr. Maisel at ericmaisel@hotmail.com
Check out his Saturday blog, Kirism Today, here.
To receive Dr. Maisel’s weekly Kirism Today newsletter, please visit here.
The Authoritarian Wound Questionaire
Following is the Authoritarian Wound Questionnaire. If you’ve been harmed by an authoritarian—mother, father, sister, brother, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, teacher, boss, cleric, husband, wife, your own adult child, etc.—taking this questionnaire may help with your healing process.
The Authoritarian Wound Questionnaire
The wounds you received in childhood or adulthood at the hands of an authoritarian family member or someone else close to you may have determined the whole course of your life. That’s how profound these wounds can be. Let’s shine a bright light on this epidemic problem so that some long-overdue healing can begin!
You may not know the technical definition of “the authoritarian personality” or its exact look (it’s made up of more than two dozen specific traits). But you do know if you were bullied and treated cruelly, if you had to abide by arbitrary, mean-spirited rules, if your every move was watched, or if you were severely punished for minor offenses. If you’ve experienced an authoritarian, you know it.
To repeat: if you’ve had to deal with an authoritarian, you know it. Trust your intuition about this. If you’ve had such an experience, complete the following questionnaire, just for yourself or, if you like, to share with Dr. Maisel and his readers. Completing it even just for yourself will begin the healing!
Please feel free to write at as much length as you need. Telling your story fully will do you more good than supplying one-word answers.
1. Have you had the experience of having to deal with an “authoritarian personality” (a parent, sibling, mate, adult child, co-worker, boss, etc.)?
2. What was that experience (or those experiences) like?
3. What would you say were the major personal consequences of having been wounded by an authoritarian? (There are many common consequences but I don’t want to start naming them yet, as that will “put ideas into your head.” I’d rather you think through what you believe those consequences were.)
4. What (if anything) has helped you deal with or heal from this authoritarian wounding?
5. If you’ve been in therapy or counseling, has the issue of “dealing with an authoritarian personality” come up and been addressed? Has therapy or counseling helped in this regard?
6. If you had to make a complete break with the authoritarian in your life, what effect did that have on you, either positive (e.g., you felt safer and saner) or negative (e.g., feelings of loss and guilt)?
7. If you are still dealing with an authoritarian, what (if anything) helps you cope?
8. Please add anything that you’d like to add about living with, working with, or dealing with an authoritarian and/or healing from, or not healing from, your authoritarian wounds.
I hope that filling out this questionnaire will help you personally. If you would like to share your story with Dr. Maisel and Good Men Project readers, please send your filled-out questionnaire to Dr. Maisel with a few words granting him permission to use it. You can send it to Dr. Maisel at ericmaisel@hotmail.com Let’s shine a bright light on this problem!