Dr. Gerhard M. Kroiss

When we look at other people, we try to find out what worldview they hold: Is this person a democrat, a republican, a communist, a fascist, an islamist, a spiritualist, a scientologist, a psychoanalyst, an atheist, a materialist, an objectivist, a Buddhist, or something else?

We rarely find people, who are just themselves, who think or feel on their own. Although we may learn a lot from belonging to an identifiable group--and this is a necessary stage in our development--all these groups are restrictive. They prescribe group-thoughts and group-feelings and prohibit their members from being themselves. And in a deep sense, these people are not individuals, but just individual editions of a group ideology.

I believe that when human beings find themselves, their true potential gets released. This is a gift we owe to give to ourselves and to the rest of the world. This is our true success--when we become who we are meant to be--and our greatest happiness.

People very often ask me what my specialty is: "Do you work with children, adolescents, adults, marriages, old people? Do you have expertise in treating depression, drug addiction, or eating disorders?"

My is answer is: "The work with children will not be successful if they live in a bad marriage or if their parents fight vicious custody battles. It is never clear from the outset, who or what has to be involved in solving a particular problem. As for specialization concerning a particular 'mental disorder,' such as depression, we have to see that a person can be depressed for many reasons--as s/he may cry for many reasons, such as sadness, extreme happiness, the intention to get one's way, frustration, having peeled onions, and so on. If you want to solve a certain problem, there is no way around using a vast and flexible array of problem-solving and reasoning skills. PEOPLE WILL LEAVE ENDOWED WITH THESE NEW ABILITIES. THEY CAN THEN USE THESE CAPABILITIES TO ADDRESS ANY NEWLY EMERGING ISSUES ON THEIR OWN. The outcome is described above as the ABILITY TO THINK AND FEEL ON THEIR OWN, which is just another way of saying that they are on their way to REACH THEIR TRUE POTENTIAL. You can be sure that this is the best antidote against substance abuse."

Let me make a few comments on the form of this site. This site is written by me personally. I like to go on the Web Builder and put in any new ideas immediately. I am not at all interested in the packaging. I am interested in the content. I reject the clumsiness involved in dealing with professional web developers. If someone needs a nice package, they should go there. There are plenty of them.

One site I want to recommend to you in person for a variety of information. This is http://SelfGrowth.com

Dr. Gerhard M. Kroiss

408-1/2 State Street

Greensboro, NC 27405

Phone: 336-707-8866

Fax: 336-294-0904

Email: gkroiss@triad.rr.com

DIRECTIONS: My office is located at the intersection of State Street and Golden Gate in Greensboro. State Street goes off North Elm to the right if you come from Downtown Greensboro. You pass Moses Cone Hospital, go another half a mile on North Elm and turn right onto State Street--just before you reach Cornwallis. If you go too far, make a right turn on Cornwallis until you reach Golden Gate. Make a right turn on Golden Gate again until you come to the intersection with State Street. Look to your left and you will see a coffee shop above which a huge mural sign says STATE STREET CENTER FOR RENEWAL. My office is in this center, whose entrance you will find in the middle of the block on State Street.

Let me give a summary of the whole site firs before describing the context of each page separately:

• The first block of pages are references. Managers and executives want to look at REF HORST, REF FRZ and REF DAVID as well as REF HANDY, PHILOSOPHY AND BIG MONEY and MANAGEMENT TRAINING.
• The second block contains a critique of current psychological methods and a description of a new approach, which centers around reasoning, critical thinking, and problem solving.
• The third block of pages (in constant development) contains issues, which are of current interest to me--and hopefully also to others.

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  A Pictorial Autobiography: Clients are generally curious about my personal life. There are some pictures and related stories, which might satisfy their curiosity.                        
• If you scroll down and go to NOTES AND ADVICE, there will sort of a diary, which will give you a more personal impression than the other pages. It actually ties in with the Autobiography.

Continuing Education: I have added here the press release, which accompanied my certificate, which says that I am a DIPOMATE of the AMERICAN PSYCHOTHERAPY ASSOCIATION, as well as some recent continuing education courses:

• Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adults
• Adolescents: Treatment for Substance Abuse Disorders
• Trauma, Terror, and Treatment: PTSD in Children and Adults
• Crisis Intervention Training for Disaster Responders

Ref Carnegie Foundation:  This letter is actually more or less a condensed curriculum vitae of mine. It is related to Ref National Interest.

Ref Horst: The man was a top executive of AEG, the German equivalent of the American GE. His son was in deep trouble (suicidal, university dropout). After I had fixed the son, the father got a big load off his heart--and a few additional sessions for the father achieved what none of the usual "leadership seminars" could, namely an enormous career takeoff. His letter does not mention anything about his son, although he was clearly 90% of the executive's issues; potentially losing your only beloved son is a major threat. Things like that are not "publicized" in seminars.

Ref FRZ: Description of my services for a German "metalwork company." The information gained from various people in the company was used as backgound information to help the boss reach a crucial business decision. The situation is similar to marriage counseling: I see both partners individually--and do not disclose information conveyed by the other. I do not know how I do it, but people just trust me that I use the information to help both of them.

Ref Piedmont Community Services: This agency is situated in Rocky Mount, Franklin County, Southwest Virginia. I drove there each day, which were between 3 and 4 hours on the road each day. I was interested because I never had had these kind of clients before: low-income, Medicaid or Medicare. John, the agency's director told me: "I do not know how you will get along with these people. Remember, we are in the Moonshine Capital of the World. They are kind of peculiar." I loved it there. The agency wanted me to stay there after they had extended my contract three times.

Ref David: David was an American research scientist (biochemist), whom headhunters had baited to a company in Germany. David absolutely hated working there--and had serious aggressive eruptions in his wife's car, who regularly picked him up from work after she had picked her daughter up from school. His wife got quite angry at him and his daughter quite scared of him after some time. On the other hand, he treated his wife also as if she was a machine. One day, he told me about the HPLC, a very complicated machine, which he used at his work: "Well, even if you knew its handbook, you have to work with it for years before you get a feeling for it. And then you do shortcuts, things that are not in the handbook or even against its recommendations." I replied: "You have to admit that your wife is on a higher level of biochemical organization than your HPLC. Can you tell me why you do not treat her at least as well as the HPLC?" He looked at me, puzzled for a while. And all of a sudden, he got it and then started laughing like crazy, I joining in.

Ref Allison: Life-long depression, many unsuccessful attempts for treatment. Letter shows that she seemed to have overcome her depression.

Ref Dr. Young: I normally do not make recommendations. But here is an excellent and caring pediatrician. His recommendation of mine is directed to insurance companies, which did not help me a bit because they just did not accept any new providers any more, saying they had enough of them in this area.

Ref Attorney Albright: Sometimes I have clients, who fight against each other with lawyers. Sometimes, there are even kids involved, who are damaged by both sides. At the moment, I am looking for lawyers, who are not just out for their money and who are willing to set things right. Here is one of them. I included his letter to the court system.

Management Training: I have included certificates in this area.

Ref Anna Freud: Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund Freud, later president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and probably the first official child psychologist, wrote this recommendation letter to Boston University's Overseas Program, which is exclusively reserved for US soldiers and their dependents. (If you want to talk about getting into such a program as someone who had nothing to do with the American Army and was a German in addition, you have an approximate idea of what problem solving means.) Now, if I mention that I had been in contact with her for about 20 years, I am immediately labeled as a psychoanalyst. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The letter is in German, but is followed by a translation and a short biography of Anna Freud.

Ref Mathematics: When I was in high school, I was a person with a humanistic, language-arts orientation, who did not hate--but who was highly afraid of--mathematics. Since I had a short attention span, I became highly impatient with computations, and therefore got bad grades. However, I promised to myself that I would not go through life with this attitude of mine. Psychologist say that students, who are good at math, have a different brain hemisphere working than the ones, who fail in mathematics. So, it seems to be kind of a biological predisposition, whether you can do it or not. But what do psychologists know! Mathematics is a lot of work, even for those, who are good at it. For me, it was much more so. The first letter is from the Mathematics Coordinator of the University of Maryland Overseas Program saying that I miraculously belonged now to the top 1% of all students of mathematics. And you know what: You can make a lot of money with things you are not good at. I did with "tutoring" mathematics. I asked for a lot of money for one hour. Why? Well, because otherwise I would not have made any. The second letter shows why. Of course, the things I am doing are not tutoring any more. Professor Vaughan in his letter tries to explain what I am doing, but I think it is even more complicated.

Ref National Interest: It contains part of the Approval Notice, a short description of the preconditions, and an evaluation of the difficulties to get the petition approved. After my local immigration lawyer had gotten into trouble with the FBI and been locked up, I had to do the petition myself. Everybody predicted: "No chance you're ever be able to get it approved." I did. Another example of problem solving. I also included letters of recommendation written for the NATIONAL INTEREST WAIVER by Professors Hodel (Duke University), Dye (Rollins College), and Russ (University of Maine).

Ref Handy: The Brit Charles Handy is one of the most distinguished writers on management comparable to the American Peter Drucker. When reading one of his books, I sent him some feedback and a solution to one of the issues he addressed there. The page contains Handy's response and the "piece on relativism" he was referring to.

Philosophy and Big Money: One could make a lot of money with publishing my approach to mathematics. At the moment, I am too lazy to deal with the hassle. But what is more interesting is that one can actually make even more money with what the Does consider the most useless of all disciplines, namely philosophy. The first letter is from the CEO of BB&T, a quickly expanding bank in the Southeast. He explains how a particular form of philosophy, developed by Ayn Rand (objectivism), helped him in his business success. George Soros, the international speculator, was a student of Sir Karl Popper. I have included what Soros had to say about Popper and a letter from this philosopher and its translation. This page also contains two very different evaluations of the philospher Paul Feyerabend by Peter Drucker and by Jay Ogilvy (Global Business Network).

Comment: Rand and Popper--despite their differences--contain one common denominator, namely their reliance on critical thinking. People, who study their books, learn to think critically. Soros--more than John Allison--modified what he learned from his teacher.

Transcripts: Sometimes clients want to know what I studied. One of them even asked me: "You seem to have studied philosophy only because you have DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY diploma on your wall." Well, sorry, I cannot do anything about the way universities call what I have learnt. But it is a reasonable request to get to know what courses I took. So, here they are. Sometimes, I also have students, who want to learn how to learn. Very clever of their parents, who want to make sure that students get their grades up in high school! That will save them a lot of money later on. I also have included three letters (President Toll, University of Maryland; Dean Donor, Boston University; Associate Dean Ann P. Saab, University of North Carolina at Greensboro).

A Critique of Psychology and Psychiatry: Target shooting serves as an example of validity and invalidity. There is unreliable invalidity in the case of psychology and reliable invalidity in the case of psychiatry.

Is the unconscious intelligent? The answer is YES. It has the capacity to be so, if properly prepared. The proof is given by showing that the unconscious can be successful where the conscious mind is not--even in fields, which are quite "brainy," such as mathematics.

The Advantages of Mathematics: A discussion of the advantages of mathematics for the general public. Mathematics has as least as many advantages for problem solving and reasoning as chicken chasing has for boxing. There are also some comments of its relationship to politics and the emergence of Hitler in Germany.

Nobel Laureate meets psychiatrists: This is Dick Feynman's account of his meeting with psychiatrists. Feynman was an eminent physicist of the twentieth century, the founder of so-called quantum electrodynamics. He was on the commission who explored the first Challenger disaster and gave a demonstration on TV how the O-rings, which were responsible for the disaster, lost their sealing properties under low temperature. Feynman today is almost a cult figure for physicists. You will find his book under BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Feynman assesses psychology: This page contains the adaptation of Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement address Cargo Cult Science: "During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency." That is how Feynman begins his speech. He then proceeds to say that psychology derives from the same unscientific attitude.

International Institute for Critical Thinking: A copy of the IRS charity certification of this Institute, which was founded according to the suggestion of Sir Karl Popper and also according to Dr. Kroiss' critique of psychology.

A Test of Critical Thinking in Psychology: The following test was completed by 291 graduate counseling students in 11 states. If you want to do the test yourself, I propose the following: Print out one item, and then fill it in. Even if you are not a psychologist or counselor, don't be afraid, because the students did not do all too well themselves. The page after the next will contain the solution to the items. I know it is some work to go through the test and the solutions. However, you may this way be able to equalize the power differential between you and psychologists or counselors.

Lacroix: Contains the first pages of Lacroix's 1800 book on arithmetic, translated from the French into English in the early decades of the United States. The book demonstrates a style of reasoning that is lost today. To find the reason of why I added these pages, you have to consult THE ADVANTAGES OF MATHEMATICS.

Solutions to the Test on Critical Thinking: You probably are not aware that psychological test normally do not have any right or wrong answers. This test has them.

Math Counseling: A description of this new discipline.

Black Holes: Adolf Hitler is described as a psychologically dead person--"a violent black hole"--who sucked others into his nothingness. The relationship of "psychological holes" within the fabric of the soul to other issues such as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and addiction is explored.

Notes and Advice 1, 2, 3, ...:  A sequence of annotations and advice, which I have made at particular days.

Problems and Answers: Answers to problems.

Bibliography: Contains scans of parts of books--such as front covers, title pages, and sometimes internal parts, such as copper plates of antique books.