How do you explain psychological therianthropy?

I can't seem to find a way to describe being a psychological therian to someone without sounding crazy.

If you wanted to tell someone about it because the person asked what being a therian means how would you go about it?

It depends on the person and their beliefs but a lot of people explain psychological therianthropy as an unconscious coping mechanism, imprinting or "complexity of human mind", I think those three are most common and easiest to explain especially if an outsider asked about it.

An example of how you could explain it to someone: 'I identify as X because of imprinting as a kid, I grew up around X and feel as though I am somewhat apart of that species, it's not spiritual for me but I still experience certain shifts as I've grown up with my kintype and know a lot about them, I believe that the human brain is very complex and this identity has stuck with me because of that'.

this may not be very helpful since its not especially accurate in terms of specifically explaining psychological therianthropy, but its more for if you just want someone to get a simple understanding of your identity without making it complex, that they can more likely digest: i plan on just telling people something along the lines of, "I have a dog/canine soul more than a human one. whether a spiritual soul or more of a metaphorical soul, i can't help it and it makes me feel like internally i am a canine and not a human." you could word it differently and specify more on it not being spiritual if you want, i dont mind it being more ambiguous in my case. but since "soul" doesnt have to refer to a literal spiritual belief, but is still generally familiar to people it makes it easier. and by using terms that people associate with some sort of life view like a metaphorical soul, due to being similar to a literal soul belief, what you say is likely to be respected more.

no one knows how it really is.
there are several popular theories, such as features of the structure of the brain and features of its development, autism, impressing, etc. in my opinion, there is a combination of factors.

I expressed one of my theories in the Russian segment, perhaps you have not heard this before

Spoiler (Click to View)

Традиционная психиатрия ставит вопрос о том, почему некоторые люди становятся больными. По моему же мнению, правильнее было бы спросить, почему не заболевает большинство людей. Если рассматривать человеческое бытие в условиях нынешних реалий, помня об отчужденности, одиночестве, беспомощности индивида, было бы логичным предположить, что он не сумеет справиться с таким давлением и будет просто уничтожен. В действительности же большинству людей удается этого избежать, но спасение достигается ценой уродования собственной личности. Люди замещают отчуждение житейской обыденностью, приспособленчеством, стремлением к власти, престижем, деньгами, служением тому или иному разделяемому с другими индивидами религиозному культу, стоическим самоистязанием или вызывающей самовлюбленностью. Однако все это способно поддерживать в человеке здоровье лишь в течение определенного времени.
Это кусочек из Эрих Фромм "Дзен-буддизм и психоанализ"

Так и причем тут тери, а это к вопросу становления и осознания себя зверем, в противовес запечатлению, мол есть же гипотеза про импрессинг, которая скорее объясняет синдром маугли, а не териантропию. По мне так, все скорее наоборот, это те кто в момент взросления и становления не прогнулся под внешними обстоятельствами и не принял те человеческие правила игры, или принял не в полной мере. Тут и ответ почему среди тери одни хищники. Причем подходит как и духовное\мистическое, мол на это способны только сильные духом, как и материалистическая, на подобное способна только сильная личность. Понятно что терианом индивид был и до того, но вот толчок к осознанию и поиску себя, стал пусть во взрослую жизнь.

....

продолжение мысли относительно той цитаты и фромма,

"Появление человека на свет и его уход из этого мира происходят не по его воле. Животное, в отличие от человека, инстинктивно адаптируется к окружающему миру и полностью сливается с природой. Для человека же, лишенного этой возможности, жизнь не может быть прожита сама по себе. Он должен прожить ее. Человек принадлежит природе, и в то же время, осознавая себя как индивида, он выходит за ее пределы."

Тери рождается зверем, а не становятся, все согласны? Причины не важны, (почему не важны, скажем доподлинно не известно почему мозг сложился именно так) и как было сказано выше, натыкаясь своими животными инстинктами на человеческое бытие, с его не пониманием чО вообще вокруг происходит и зачем, начинается самокопание, а почему оно так и поиск ниточек которые приводят к чему?

Есть такое понятие у буддистов, просветление, только вот, почти все этот процесс понимают не правильно, (из вики, соответствует переводу абстрактного существительного бодхи, знание, мудрость или пробуждённый ум), знаете, когда вы долго бьетесь над задачей, потом немного передохнув (помедитировав) приходит ответ как озарение, вот речь скорее об этом, нельзя с уверенностью сказать, но похоже на то, вот:

"Преодоление вытеснения и отчуждения от самого себя и, как следствие, от другого индивида означает осознание бессознательного, т. е. пробуждение, расставание с иллюзиями, заблуждениями и ложными представлениями и адекватное восприятие действительности. Осознание ранее неосознанного совершает в человеке внутренний переворот. Основой творческого интеллектуального мышления и непосредственного интуитивного восприятия действительности как раз и является подлинное пробуждение человека. Индивид, находящийся в состоянии отчуждения, когда реальный мир воспринимается им лишь на уровне мышления, оказывается способным лгать; будучи же пробужденным и, следовательно, ориентированным на прямое восприятие действительности, человек не способен говорить неправду: сила его переживания разрушает ложь. Наконец перевод бессознательного в сознательное означает для человека жить, руководствуясь истиной. Будучи открытым перед действительностью, он перестает пребывать в отчуждении от нее; не противясь ей и в то же время не пытаясь ей ничего навязать, он реагирует на действительность адекватным образом."

Открытым остается вопрос, причем тут звери.

machine translation

Quote:Traditional psychiatry raises the question of why some people become ill. In my opinion, it would be more correct to ask why most people do not get sick. If we consider human existence in the conditions of current realities, remembering the alienation, loneliness, helplessness of the individual, it would be logical to assume that he will not be able to cope with such pressure and will simply be destroyed. In reality, most people manage to avoid this, but salvation is achieved at the cost of disfiguring their own personality. People replace alienation with everyday routine, adaptability, the desire for power, prestige, money, service to a religious cult shared with other individuals, stoic self-torture or defiant narcissism. However, all this is able to maintain a person's health only for a certain time.
This is a piece from Erich Fromm's Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis

So what does Teri have to do with it, and this is to the question of becoming and realizing oneself as a beast, as opposed to imprinting, they say there is a hypothesis about impressing, which rather explains the Mowgli syndrome, and not therianthropy. For me, it's rather the opposite, these are those who, at the time of growing up and becoming, did not bend under external circumstances and did not accept those human rules of the game, or did not fully accept them. Here is the answer why there are only predators among the Teri. Moreover, it fits like the spiritual \ mystical, they say only the strong in spirit are capable of this, like the materialistic, only a strong personality is capable of this. It is clear that the individual was a Therian before that, but here is the impetus for awareness and self-search, let it become an adult.

....

continuation of the thought regarding that quote and fromm,

"The appearance of a person into the world and his departure from this world do not happen by his will. An animal, unlike a human, instinctively adapts to the surrounding world and completely merges with nature. For a person deprived of this opportunity, life cannot be lived by itself. He has to live it. Man belongs to nature, and at the same time, realizing himself as an individual, he goes beyond it."

Teri is born a beast, but they don't become, do you all agree? The reasons are not important, (why are they not important, let's say it is not known for certain why the brain has developed this way) and as mentioned above, bumping into human existence with his animal instincts, with his lack of understanding of what is happening around and why, self-examination begins, and why is it so and the search for threads that lead to what?

There is such a concept among Buddhists, enlightenment, only now, almost everyone understands this process incorrectly, (from the wiki, corresponds to the translation of the abstract noun bodhi, knowledge, wisdom or awakened mind), you know, when you struggle for a long time over a task, then after a little rest (meditating), the answer comes as an epiphany, here it is more about this, it is impossible to say with certainty, but it looks like that:

"Overcoming repression and alienation from oneself and, as a consequence, from another individual means awareness of the unconscious, i.e. awakening, parting with illusions, delusions and false ideas and an adequate perception of reality. Awareness of the previously unconscious makes an internal revolution in a person. The basis of creative intellectual thinking and direct intuitive perception of reality is precisely the genuine awakening of a person. An individual who is in a state of alienation, when the real world is perceived by him only at the level of thinking, turns out to be able to lie; being awakened and, therefore, oriented to a direct perception of reality, a person is not able to tell a lie: the power of his experience destroys the lie. Finally, the transfer of the unconscious into the conscious means for a person to live guided by the truth. Being open to reality, he ceases to be alienated from it; without resisting her and at the same time not trying to impose anything on her, he reacts to reality in an adequate way."

The question remains open, what does the animals have to do with it.

"It's an identity. A way to identify.
It's because I have certain behaviors and urges, certain insticts, that I identify like this. Because our society doesn't think those behaviors are human. Our society restrict humanity to just a few behaviours, when humanity is way more diverse than that. So, because how I am is called "animalistic" (or more specifically), I happened to identify this way."

At least, it can be a way. If there's anything special, you could add it. Like a disorder, syndrom. Or find anything else that suits you more.
I've found this idea in a french book about alterhumanity.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

But calling it a form of identity is definitely going to make people call you insane where I live. Or ask a ton of questions that are none of their business...

I'd probably lie my way out of it.

Usually nobody asks "What's a therian?" anyway. It's usually gear related or the: Why am I so obsessed with ferrets? Thing.

I just noticed if someone were to ask this: every explanation I've got sounds stupid.

Hey,

I found that it's usually not a good idea to give people information they did not want.

So... if they ask about it jokingly, provide a joking answer. They don't need to know everything about therianthropy. It will be easier for them to understand what it is if they are able to observe it themselves, otherwise they will wonder why you reached that conclusion.

Like I think you mentioned in another thread, people often don't value animals as much as humans. When I told people about being a wolf, their first question was why I would devalue myself like that.

---

To the actual question asked... I don't really understand the answers by @PineNeedle and @Pinedirt (hey I just noticed the thing with the pine usernames). To me psychological therianthropy is the normal kind of therianthropy... that is the one where you don't need weird spiritual explanations to justify it. It is experiencing the animal state of mind, or shifts or whatever.

I don't think psychological therianthropy necessarily has anything to do with identity. Whether or not I choose to identify as a wolf, is irrelevant to the fact that I have animalistic experiences. I do choose to identify as a wolf, but that's something I do because of my therianthropy and not the other way around. There are therians who hate their therianthropy and identify as humans, but they still have therian experiences.

Also I don't think I have to explain why it's not a coping mechanism, etc, there's boatloads of debate on those topics already.


I originally found I was a therian (back then simply called a "werewolf"), from the definition in the AHWw FAQ:

Quote:When folks here call themselves werewolves, they generally mean that they
find the characteristics of lycanthropy intriguing and see examples of such
in themselves.

It kind of explains the feeling, you know? When you discover therianthropy it just makes sense. It draws you to learn more about it, because it explains things about you that you could never explain by other means.

Quote:Ysengrin has this to say:
To me, being a were is having a strong animal nature - mannerisms, mindset,
social habits, and so forth - usually of a particular animal, and usually
*in place of* a more traditional human nature. It's not voluntary, and it's
filtered through our human upbringing, but it's still there. Many weres
visualize themselves internally as their were animal, or some anthromorphic
form, and are uncomfortable with people who don't think of themselves as
animals. Some weres - myself included - are uncomfortable enough with even
our human *form* that we strive to change into our internal, were images of
ourselves.

How do you explain this without sounding crazy? Well I think the key is that it is kind of crazy. As a science-minded person it used to make me feel extremely frustrated that I could not explain what made me into a therian. My conclusion was that it wasn't necessary to have an explanation, when you can simply observe it to be true.

I would say psychological therianthropy is the simplest explanation for my experiences.

But it's important to keep in mind, that it might not seem that way to other people.

LP,
Dusty

(2021-10-21 19:34)DustWolf Wrote:  Hey,

I found that it's usually not a good idea to give people information they did not want.

So... if they ask about it jokingly, provide a joking answer. They don't need to know everything about therianthropy. It will be easier for them to understand what it is if they are able to observe it themselves, otherwise they will wonder why you reached that conclusion.

Like I think you mentioned in another thread, people often don't value animals as much as humans. When I told people about being a wolf, their first question was why I would devalue myself like that.

That's true. I have 1 person (not counting my mother) that I sort of talk about it with. I simply stick to animals there instead of therian terms.

It's actually the other person who mentioned that I don't just like animals I actually resemble them. This was ment as an honest statement, not something disrespectful or joking. So I became more open about it there.

When some random person comments on gear in a mean way I ignore it and if it's just a question I blame liking anime or werewolves. Something along those lines.

I probably will never need a big "therian explanation" now that you've made me think it over. Someone either understands it because of interacting with me or they don't and just think I'm crazy anyway.

I haven't told anyone nor do I plan on it. However I don't think there is any way *to* explain it ya know? It's a feeling that's incredibly unique. How do you explain something as vast as Therianthropy to a sceptic who's first reaction will be to judge you. You can't.

The best explanation I have is it's something certain individuals experience by being naturally more in touch with their primal/animal side and would rather express it than stifle who they are as humans are animals who made up fancy fake words, societies, territories and rules that have stifled many.

I hope that makes sense? I'm not saying humans are bad for having made culture but in the creation of culture we at some point began to shun anything we don't deem as "human" and "normal".

this is an interesting topic! hmm well i sure as hell wont be trying to explain this to other people, it is none of there business and i honestly don't see a good thing coming out of it (unless its too ur partner, which is v important). i guess my explanation is that we know we are less human in some ways. we don't think we can shapeshift or whatever, it is our own feelings and identity, what we see ourselves as, nothin more