title: Egocentricity, coenocentrism, and the nature of human fulfillment.
abstract: This essay explores the reasons why human beings suffer unnecessarily and suggests the means by which that suffering may be alleviated. Normal psychological functioning isegocentric, a mode of being that derives from a profound sense of deficiency and proceeds with a quest to prove being and worth in face of the world.Coenocentrism is an awareness of inner commonality and relatedness that relieves a person's feelings of isolation, separateness, and difference from others. Coenocentrism requires a transformation of the self through ecstatic experience and a relinquishing of one's own basic tendencies and understandings of the self and world.
authors.affiliation: the Graduate School of Professional Studies at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Stark