Category: Conflict

Using Projections to Gain Self-Knowledge

A pro­jec­tion hap­pens any­time some­one uncon­scious­ly places their own beliefs, desires, con­clu­sions or expe­ri­ences onto anoth­er per­son or group of peo­ple. In its pos­i­tive form, it may help us empathize with oth­ers, as we use our expe­ri­ence to imag­ine their real­i­ties. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, pro­jec­tion has a dark­er side and becomes less pos­i­tive when it serves as… Con­tin­ue read­ing Using Pro­jec­tions to Gain Self-Knowledge

Breaking Society

Jared Kush­n­er, Trump’s son-in-law, recent­ly wrote a book called, “Break­ing His­to­ry.” It’s received poor reviews. How­ev­er, I do like the idea behind the title and have stolen it to name this post, “Break­ing Soci­ety” because that is the actu­al con­text for his book, a soci­ety in dan­ger through polar­iza­tion and mis­trust. Although that might seem… Con­tin­ue read­ing Break­ing Society

The Reason for Evil

Gwen Adshead begins her recent book, The Dev­il You Know: Sto­ries of Human Cru­el­ty and Com­pas­sion, with an epi­graph from Carl Jung: “The rea­son for evil in the world is that peo­ple are not able to tell their sto­ries.” As a foren­sic psy­chol­o­gist and psy­chother­a­pist she’s heard some unimag­in­able ones — from decades of lis­ten­ing… Con­tin­ue read­ing The Rea­son for Evil

The Mutiny Against Our Conditioning

As adults we come up against facets of our­selves that we wish to change. Uncon­scious big­otry, for exam­ple, or cer­tain aspects of intro­ver­sion or exces­sive guilt, impa­tience or ego­cen­tric­i­ty — our weak­ness­es and the results of our “over-strengths.” Tak­ing on these chal­lenges sounds good and promis­es a desir­able trans­for­ma­tion but in real­i­ty also por­tends the… Con­tin­ue read­ing The Mutiny Against Our Conditioning