I don’t have a degree in psy­chol­ogy. My pur­pose for telling you that I don’t have a degree in psy­chol­ogy is to fore­warn you that my opin­ions have been mostly self-taught along with a few courses that I have taken at the under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate level. Also to allow you to rec­og­nize that my word on the sub­ject should not be viewed as final or all knowing.

 

I, for a long time, have wanted to put a slave train­ing the­ory to writ­ing. The major rea­son for doing so is to bet­ter express my meth­ods of train­ing and improve them. It occurred to me that the best way to develop an effec­tive the­ory is to adapt the con­cepts of an exist­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal the­ory or the­o­ries into a slave train­ing the­ory. The the­ory adapted, first and fore­most, must agree with my own basic idea of train­ing. This is my the­ory and I don’t nec­es­sar­ily believe that is is the best for all Mas­ters. How­ever, I think at least a few of the con­cepts could be use­ful to most Masters.

 

I estab­lished the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria for my adap­ta­tion. I wanted an under­ly­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal the­ory that:

 

1) has a gen­eral phi­los­o­phy of life as well as being a well rec­og­nized field of study in psychology

2) has been around long enough to have with­stood the test of time and criticism

3) is cur­rently being taught at the PhD level at a Uni­ver­sity rec­og­nized by the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion. (This allows the under­ly­ing the­ory that B.E.S.T. slave Train­ing is based upon hav­ing the ben­e­fit of cur­rent stud­ies and access to cur­rent books on the theory.)

4) is based upon more than one person’s stud­ies and/or one book

5) has a future ori­en­ta­tion since I view slave train­ing as a long term process for the pur­pose of train­ing a slave for long term ser­vice. (I also want one to under­stand that past life expe­ri­ences effect our cur­rent behav­ior and not ignore them as does most behav­ioral and cog­ni­tive the­o­ries do.)

6) could eas­ily accept other mod­ern psy­cho­log­i­cal con­cepts within it’s frame­work and still be true to the basic philosophy

7) does not focus on only one area such as behav­ior, cog­ni­tion, or ana­lyt­i­cal but views the being as a whole

8) could eas­ily be adapted to slave train­ing and become a prac­ti­cal and under­stand­able method of teach­ing a slave

9) most impor­tantly, one I can relate to

 

One of the best cur­rent books that gives an overview of many major the­o­ries of psy­chol­ogy is “The­ory and Prac­tice of Coun­sel­ing and Psy­chother­apy 6th edi­tion” by G. Corey, (2001), Wadsworth/Thomson Learn­ing, Bel­mont, CA. This is a basic book that is used in grad­u­ate school or upper level under­grad­u­ate courses. Some of the major the­o­ries he explains are Psy­cho­an­a­lytic, Adler­ian, Exis­ten­tial, Gestalt, Real­ity, Behav­ior, and Cog­ni­tive. I had stud­ied Adler years ago, upon re-reading I real­ized that his the­ory could be adopted to my own per­sonal beliefs.

 

I excluded psy­cho­an­a­lytic, exis­ten­tial and Gestalt right off the bat. Psy­cho­an­a­lytic is based on the teach­ing of Sig­mund Freud. In gen­eral, he con­sid­ered human nature deter­min­is­tic. Lit­tle effort is given to cog­ni­tive or behav­ioral meth­ods of train­ing. I don’t like most of the the­o­ries that are direct off-springs of his teach­ings as well. That being said, his idea that the past plays a major role in how we behave now is not to be ignored.

 

I don’t par­tic­u­larly like or for that mat­ter under­stand Exis­ten­tial or Gestalt the­o­ries. In my opin­ion, Exis­ten­tial the­ory is more of a phi­los­o­phy of life than a psy­cho­log­i­cal the­ory. The phi­los­o­phy seems to be less adapt­able to slave train­ing than oth­ers. Few tech­niques are dis­cussed or detailed in the theory.

Gestalt the­ory has some very good tech­niques that can be use in train­ing and can be adapted to hyp­no­sis. I don’t like it as an over­all slave train­ing pro­gram. Gestalt is also con­sid­ered an Exis­ten­tial the­ory, but includes more techniques.

 

Behav­ior the­ory tech­niques can be adapted to slave train­ing, but do not take into account past or future events. They also do not con­sider emo­tions or think­ing. I think it is often used know­ingly or unknow­ingly as the under­ly­ing the­ory by many Mas­ters. I con­sider it an unac­cept­able under­ly­ing the­ory. That being said, many Behav­ioral tech­niques are very use­ful, if not essen­tial, in slave training.

 

Cog­ni­tive the­ory is also very use­ful in slave train­ing, but takes no inter­est in ana­lyt­i­cal tech­niques and past expe­ri­ences. Cog­ni­tive the­ory focuses on find­ing faulty think­ing and dis­put­ing it.

 

Psy­cho­an­a­lytic and Adler­ian are two the­o­ries that seem to affect in a pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive way all the other the­o­ries. Many the­o­ries, includ­ing Adler­ian, are in some ways responses to Sig­mund Freud’s teach­ing and some directly state that they are opposed to his thinking.

 

The rea­son I chose the Adler­ian the­ory is because it answers most of the cri­te­ria estab­lished above. It is less pop­u­lar today than in the past as a stand alone field of study in psy­chol­ogy, but is still taught at the PhD level. It includes behav­ior, cog­ni­tion and ana­lyt­i­cal teach­ings. Real­ity and Cog­ni­tive the­o­ries are based, in part, on the teach­ing of Adler, there­fore these meth­ods are adapt­able to the Adler­ian theory.

 

The Adler­ian the­ory is an older the­ory and there­fore has with­stood the test of time and crit­i­cisms. Besides the writ­ings of Adler, many books have been writ­ten about the theory.

 

I like the con­cept of goal set­ting, social­iza­tion, re-education and moti­va­tions as a major por­tion of train­ing. I also like the idea of first we think, then we feel, then we act.

 

Three other the­o­ries have been molded deeply into B.E.S.T. slave Train­ing. They are Real­ity, Mul­ti­modal and Cog­ni­tive. All fit neatly into the Adler­ian con­cept because of it’s influ­ence on them. Although the basic the­ory is Adler­ian, the nuts and bolts (Prin­ci­ples) of train­ing are geared around Mul­ti­modal the­ory. It pro­vides a means of exam­in­ing the com­plete being and estab­lish­ing train­ing pro­ce­dures for each area. It focuses on behav­ior, emo­tions, sen­sa­tions, cog­ni­tion, self-image, inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships and the phys­i­cal body. Mul­ti­modal ther­apy seems a nat­ural sup­ple­ment to Adler­ian the­ory because of its holis­tic approach. How­ever, it is weak in the area of an ana­lytic exam­i­na­tion (exam­in­ing past expe­ri­ences and their affect on cur­rent behavior).

 

Real­ity ther­apy is where the con­cept of “choice deci­sion” is derived and was adapted to B.E.S.T. slave Train­ing. It seems weak as an over­all the­ory because of a lack of ana­lytic approach.

 

The cog­ni­tive the­ory woven into B.E.S.T. slave Train­ing is Ratio­nal Emo­tive Behav­ioral Ther­apy (REBT). It is based upon the Adler­ian con­cept of “We first think, then we feel, then we act.”

 

In fair­ness, I should also tell you that the Adler­ian the­ory is weak on tech­niques, but many tech­niques from other the­o­ries can be adapted into it. Adler spent most of his time teach­ing instead of prac­tic­ing. Also the num­ber of newer books on Adler­ian the­ory is smaller in num­ber than some other the­o­ries, but their are sev­eral good cur­rent books on the sub­ject. Another point that is con­sid­ered weak by many is Adler’s atten­tion to birth order and sib­ling rela­tion­ships (fam­ily con­stel­la­tion). Where he implies gen­eral behav­iors to an indi­vid­ual based upon their birth order (old­est child, sec­ond child, mid­dle child, youngest child, only child). I believe it can be used as a gen­eral guide, but not as an absolute fact. In my lay­man expe­ri­ence, it seems to apply to an indi­vid­ual, at least in part, most of the time.

 

The thing I like best about adapt­ing Adler­ian think­ing to slave train­ing is that it has a holis­tic view of the per­son. We train the mind, body, soul and spirit of a slave. Adler pro­vides means and ideas that help this train­ing process.

 

I don’t believe that all Mas­ters should use this adap­ta­tion, but I do believe that some parts of it can be adapted by most Mas­ters in their per­sonal train­ing methods.

 

As a sec­ond choice, I like Actu­al­iz­ing slave Train­ing (AST) that is detailed in another arti­cle on this web­site. AST is not an inde­pen­dent the­ory, but an eclec­tic the­ory. It dif­fers from most eclec­tic psy­cho­log­i­cal meth­ods in that it has an under­ly­ing gen­eral phi­los­o­phy of life that is used to weave the tech­niques together into a sen­si­ble unit.

 

AST is the best eclec­tic the­ory that I am aware of and can eas­ily be adapted to slave train­ing. A weak­ness is that there is only one major book that com­bines all the tech­niques into this eclec­tic the­ory. “Ther­a­peu­tic Psy­chol­ogy 3rd Edi­tion” (1977) L. M. Bram­mer & E. L. Shostrom is the book I have, but their is a newer ver­sion that is cur­rently being used in many col­leges today enti­tled “Ther­a­peu­tic Coun­sel­ing and Psy­chother­apy” at a cost of $91 U. S. That is why I am happy with my older, out of date book.

 

AST inte­grates Gestalt, behav­ioral, cog­ni­tive, var­i­ous human­is­tic influ­ences, ana­lyt­i­cal, real­ity, and Adler­ian think­ing. It inter­con­nects think­ing, emo­tions and behav­ior and there­fore is con­sid­ered holis­tic. The focus of A.S.T. is on actu­al­iza­tion goals and problem-solving in the present and future, but rec­og­nizes that the past can be used to help under­stand the present and pre­pare for the future.

 

Many read­ers relate to AST more than B.E.S.T. slave Train­ing. There­fore, I will attempt to update it from time to time.

 

I also dis­cuss Social Learn­ing The­o­ries under in an arti­cle enti­tled Social­iza­tion. The major Social Learn­ing The­ory writ­ten by Rot­ter comes under crit­i­cism in some quar­ters for being to gen­eral and not going deep enough. To me, it is use­ful for behav­ioral train­ing in that it gives ideas on goals and rein­force­ment values.