Many of us would read in the stars, if we could, something hidden from us; but none of us so much as know our letters in the stars yet—or seem likely to do it, in this state of existence—and few languages can be read until their alphabets.

1. Give an example from your own recent experience or observation of each of the following:
2. Avoidance-avoidance conflict
3. Approach-avoidance conflict
4. Approach-approach conflict
5. Anxiety
6. Cross-cultural norm
7. Cultural relativity
8. Conflict
9. Decidophobia
10. Rationalization
11. Repression
12. Statistical norm
13. Phobia

What is your reaction to the following statement?

Emotional illness is not an absolute matter. Mental health can be viewed as a continuum from fully-functioning individuals to those who are severely handicapped in their dealings with the World and other people. Most of us tend to fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

List three characteristics you have, which you would just as soon nobody else knew about.

Where did you learn to feel uncomfortable about these traits? (From parents, peers, religious  leaders, teachers, reading, etc.?)

List three things you have done or wanted to do that made you wonder whether you were completely “normal.”

Describe a situation in which you have been faced with an approach-approach conflict. Describe how you solved the conflict.

Describe a situation in which you were faced with an avoidance-avoidance conflict. Describe how you solved the conflict.

Describe an approach-avoidance conflict you have experienced and how you solved the conflict.

Can you remember any important conflict in which you were afraid to make any decision? If so, describe it.

Starting with your earliest memories, try to think of situation, etc. Then describe your way of coping with the situation. Indicate whether you took direct action or used a defense mechanism. (If the latter, identify it—repression, rationalization, projection, regression, withdrawal, etc.)

Review exercise C. Do you see any patterns in the ways in which you cope with frustrating situations?

What alternative courses of action could possibly have been more effective to eliminate the frustration?

Have you ever been in a situation that was so bad that you wanted to just shut yourself off from reality? What did you do?

List at least three things that your family or culture treats as “normal” that seems “crazy” to you. Explain your reason for considering them “crazy” instead of “normal.”

Have you ever felt as though there were a number of different parts to your personality or self? If so, describe them.

Is there any conflict between these parts?

Which one tends to win out?

Sings are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in people of sweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge.