Antiseptic, I hope that goes well for you.

I had to go back and check to see who had posted a comment on the Man Therapy thread re the inability of people in the industry to relate to a lot of men http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5833#163800 but it was Houellebecq not you.

A point I agree with so I hope you can eventually make a difference.

R0bert

Anti, go for it, I am a water leveler by trade, but I got a psyche degree well over a decade ago when I became a philosophy devotee.

What you will find is that there is not a great deal of revelation in the syllabus but more so a revelation of cause and effect focusing on rationalization. The study of urges, drives and outcomes is how I described it in one of my assignments. Good luck, you will do well.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. R0bert, I am convinced that there is a recognition of the need for a better understanding of the way social dynamics impact men's mental state and that the profession is well aware that it needs more male insights from outside the academy to be brought inside. I'm reading a lot into it, but the response from the department was much stronger than I expected and my name was already known to the course convenor for some reason I didn't go into. Perhaps QTAC passes details to the institutions preferenced?

In any case, I hope to be able to make some sense of it all and hopefully make some difference.

sog, I would like to be able to add some genuinely quantitative empiricism to my qualitative observations and get some proper understanding of the relative importance of different factors. Rationality is my preferred mode, as you may have noticed, but it can only work with premises that are correct or it reduces to rationalism and solipsism. That may yield interesting insights, but it's not going to yield solutions that are reliably useful and it can lead to seriously non-linear outcomes.

Antiseptic,

Hearty congratulations and go for it.

Do buy an older sportscar. Open, what other sort is there?

Get buffed up by a decent hairdresser and a few good casual outfits.

Then lie back and think of whatever you like while the SYTs (Sweet Young Things) educate you. Take them to the theatre or to an arty happening somewhere and never set foot in a pub.

Positive goals, enjoy the young minds and become one, smell the roses and a personal reward no matter how small each and every day.

Hmmmm, did I mention the very pleasant and stimulating SYTs to be found at the uni tennis clubs?

Antiseptic,

Sorry to post twice.

I should have mentioned the value of a unit or few of English literature. The big questions we struggle with in life are not new. Even if you don't want to pick up such units try to work your way through the reading lists of English honours students. You will not regret it.

I rarely read for pleasure anymore, I must admit, but I used to be voracious. Literature, science fiction, historic romances, modern novels and especially short stories.

I just sort of lost interest when I realised I could get pretty close to the story arc after the first chapter or so. I think there may be a critical information density which lets us start integrating the data and arrive at new insights. It certainly seems to me that my ability to see patterns in apparently disparate data has become much more highly tuned over the last 5 years or so and I sometimes find myself writing or saying things that I haven't consciously considered, but that make sense when I do, sometimes in ways I find a little surprising or draw on things I had forgotten I knew. The subconscious can do amazing things

I'm certainly willing to take your advice on the SYT front. When I was last at uni I was doing science and the absence of SYTs was very evident. Evidently I should have done humanities.