Horseshoe Bay* The Puzzle of Process*

 

Horseshoe Bay*

Took a walk to Horseshoe Bay (after walking to Estivant Pines).  Along the short trail to the pebble beach, came across this patch of beautiful light.  (Strangely, right after this picture was taken, we approached a middle aged man and his mother coming towards the beach.  The old mom loses balance and does a slow motion tumble over the roots and rocks.  I offer to help, tenatively, because the man has a massive pit bull/masstif on leash... looking friendly enough, but intimidating). The man kindly refuses help, saying she had a stroke last year and sometimes she does this.  Then he engages me in a couple minutes of conversation about how much further it is and how the trail conditions are.  He is disappointed because he definitely wants to see the beach.  Meanwhile mom stay on ground... "OK, have a good day!"). Anyway, the beach is a beautiful cove.  Along the left side by Lake Superior is this absolutely massive stand of rock.  You need to scramble hand over foot, almost vertically, for 20 feet to get to the top, which is maybe 100 feet wide.  It's the 20' edge of some rock titled nearly vertically, forming the edge of the bowl of Lake Superior.  It's like a moonscape, craggy, solid rock.  Some plants grow from crevices.  There are small depressions, and larger, filled with rain water.  The far side meets the waves directly.  It's one of the strangest and most interesting landscapes I know.

The Puzzle of Process*

Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person, "A Process Conception of Psychotherapy" (1956)

My own reason for engaging in such a serach seems simple to me. Just as many psychologisits have been interestd in the invariant aspects of personality -- th eunchanging aspects of intelligence, temperament, personality structure -- so I have long been interested in the invariant aspects of change in personality. Do personality and behavior change? What commonalities exist in such change? What commonalities exist in the conditions which precede change? Most important of all, what is the procss by which such change occurs?