By Edwin A. Locke
This course is an introduction to introspection. It starts by defining introspection and showing that Ayn Rand's introspective genius was critical to the development of Objectivism. It shows why introspection is important in a person's life and why so few people do it and why so few are good at it. The course proceeds to identify seven principles to aid introspection and includes a series of exercises to help develop introspective skills. These exercises include: identifing things one likes, breaking complex ideas or experiences into smaller units, naming and understanding the causes of emotions, identifying patterns of emotional responses to one's work and job, detecting and correcting defensive reactions, understanding one's reaction to other people, integrating separate introspective observations into a whole and using one's own actions as a clue to one's values and value conflicts.
This course was recorded at the 2008 Objectivist Summer Conference in Newport Beach, CA.
(MP3 download; 4 hrs., 25 min., with Q & A, 191.02 MB)
