I think this is in fact a completely complete essay in so many ways. Most people seem to define “strength” in military terms only but real strength is much more. Numerous examples in history show this. If we make the children of our enemy our enemies we will always have enemies. Three cheers for compassion. Thanks Avigail.
Thank you so much Peter, for such incredible feedback. Military strength is not strength, it is a defence that comes out of fear. It is perhaps the group equivalent of individual defences like aggression. Real power is benevolent. It is not limbic, and has no relationship to fear at all. It comes out of real integration and it cannot be faked. It is the result of people being able to remain in their executive, ethical adult brain, while feeling something strongly. In the executive we are all ethical, and have a broader perspective. We do not rush, we take our time to act and to consider our responses to situation and we always take everyone into account, not just our own limbic need to be safe and survive.
Israel or the US, for example, think their military might makes them strong. But in effect they operate like people with trauma who ‘fortify’ themselves in various ways just to mitigate the gnawing sense of fear and insecurity they always feel. I personally believe that on a societal scale, we have never experienced real power because we are not sufficiently evolved. A few days ago I became aware of a quote by the famous evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson.
In a video on BigThink he said:
“Modern humanity is distinguished by Palaeolithic emotions, Medieval institutions … and god-like technology. We’re a mixed up, and in many ways archaic species in transition. We are a chimera of evolution.”
The thing is most people can improve on our congenital poor connectivity between the limbic and executive systems. Parents can easily integrate their children from birth, and directly create more evolved humans. Most adults can change their own brains in the same direction. This is the explicit job of psychotherapy. Our general state if mental health, and the state of our species as a whole are intrinsically linked and are evidence of how poorly we have been cobbled up together. What we are creating in our world is consistent with the mess that we ourselves are. It is all we can do with our current state of our neurological ‘equipment’. Unless we change our brain, nothing will change. I wrote about all of this in Therapy Without A Therapist. Thank you so much once again for reading and for your generous feedback. Avigail 🙏
Excellent article. Avigail addresses the 'human condition' clearly and with great insight, backed up by science. Begs the question, why is the field of Psychotherapy so hopelessly stuck upon failed modalities? Well done Avigail.....again!
Thank you Brendan. You ask a good question. My field is a big disappointment and I believe it is stuck. It has long sold out to the survivalist forces of neoliberalism. In other words, psychotherapy these days is more about the survival of therapists in the world, their jobs, their income, etc. All the idealism has gone out of it and even when they teach humanistic psychology as most person-centred focused therapy schools do, they ignore the political elements and the philosophy. Everything is reduced to ‘how-to’, and teaching students ‘tool kits’. It means that most therapists have been taught to think of human beings (including themselves) as ‘objects’ who just want to survive and ‘cope’, rather than the complex and incomprehensible systems we really are. They also ignore the interconnectedness between us all and how important it is to our development. There is an absence of both heart and spirit in the profession now at least IMHO. Of course there are pockets of PFC-like principles and values here and there, but the dominant forces are of limbic survivalism, and their objectification of everything and everyone.
By and large, my profession behaves as if there have been no innovations at all, and everything is the same as it has always been. Not only are schools ignoring the breakthrough of the humanists from the 1940s, but also the much later developments of IPNB. This is why therapy is so useless to most people. It is also the reason why I am much more keen to share my work and knowledge with the general public, than I am with my profession. If the rest of the profession wants to catch up, they can... 🙏
Wow! Our society has a trauma brain, evident in certain places more than others. I'm not sure there is hope for some peoples or nations, as there is little of no hope for the psychopath. But those of us who survive can work hard to reward the executive brains of our societies to find a balance that both recognizes self-determination and individual value while promoting growth. A question I have is: what are the attributes of a leader who has a strong set of executive skills and the vision to integrate different and competing values and needs of our society. It seems one might be putting country and others ahead of self and party. In that respect I don't see such an American leader emerging in our election year nor one emerging in the most limbic nation, Israel.
You said it. A good leader (or group of leaders) would be someone who is reasonably well-integrated. As a result they would not be prone to act on their feelings without thinking and reflecting, would be principled and values driven and would be interested in cooperation, and dialogue, and in promoting a world where everyone is enabled to grow to their potential. When individuals and couples start therapy they have relatively modest expectations because they do not know what is possible for them. As they grow, they begin to realise that they can grow beyond their wildest expectations. It is possible for humanity, but it is going to be hard work. In every country there are people and groups who can lead the way, but we need to decide that we have had enough of the patterns we keep reenacting. It’s has to be a collective decision to stop fighting and destructiveness and start on the path to growth and development. Thank you for your comment. You really got what I was talking about, for which I am deeply grateful.
I think this is in fact a completely complete essay in so many ways. Most people seem to define “strength” in military terms only but real strength is much more. Numerous examples in history show this. If we make the children of our enemy our enemies we will always have enemies. Three cheers for compassion. Thanks Avigail.
Thank you so much Peter, for such incredible feedback. Military strength is not strength, it is a defence that comes out of fear. It is perhaps the group equivalent of individual defences like aggression. Real power is benevolent. It is not limbic, and has no relationship to fear at all. It comes out of real integration and it cannot be faked. It is the result of people being able to remain in their executive, ethical adult brain, while feeling something strongly. In the executive we are all ethical, and have a broader perspective. We do not rush, we take our time to act and to consider our responses to situation and we always take everyone into account, not just our own limbic need to be safe and survive.
Israel or the US, for example, think their military might makes them strong. But in effect they operate like people with trauma who ‘fortify’ themselves in various ways just to mitigate the gnawing sense of fear and insecurity they always feel. I personally believe that on a societal scale, we have never experienced real power because we are not sufficiently evolved. A few days ago I became aware of a quote by the famous evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson.
In a video on BigThink he said:
“Modern humanity is distinguished by Palaeolithic emotions, Medieval institutions … and god-like technology. We’re a mixed up, and in many ways archaic species in transition. We are a chimera of evolution.”
(https://bigthink.com/hard-science/eo-wilson-what-makes-us-human-paleolithic-emotions-medieval-institutions-god-like-technology/)
The thing is most people can improve on our congenital poor connectivity between the limbic and executive systems. Parents can easily integrate their children from birth, and directly create more evolved humans. Most adults can change their own brains in the same direction. This is the explicit job of psychotherapy. Our general state if mental health, and the state of our species as a whole are intrinsically linked and are evidence of how poorly we have been cobbled up together. What we are creating in our world is consistent with the mess that we ourselves are. It is all we can do with our current state of our neurological ‘equipment’. Unless we change our brain, nothing will change. I wrote about all of this in Therapy Without A Therapist. Thank you so much once again for reading and for your generous feedback. Avigail 🙏
Excellent article. Avigail addresses the 'human condition' clearly and with great insight, backed up by science. Begs the question, why is the field of Psychotherapy so hopelessly stuck upon failed modalities? Well done Avigail.....again!
Thank you Brendan. You ask a good question. My field is a big disappointment and I believe it is stuck. It has long sold out to the survivalist forces of neoliberalism. In other words, psychotherapy these days is more about the survival of therapists in the world, their jobs, their income, etc. All the idealism has gone out of it and even when they teach humanistic psychology as most person-centred focused therapy schools do, they ignore the political elements and the philosophy. Everything is reduced to ‘how-to’, and teaching students ‘tool kits’. It means that most therapists have been taught to think of human beings (including themselves) as ‘objects’ who just want to survive and ‘cope’, rather than the complex and incomprehensible systems we really are. They also ignore the interconnectedness between us all and how important it is to our development. There is an absence of both heart and spirit in the profession now at least IMHO. Of course there are pockets of PFC-like principles and values here and there, but the dominant forces are of limbic survivalism, and their objectification of everything and everyone.
By and large, my profession behaves as if there have been no innovations at all, and everything is the same as it has always been. Not only are schools ignoring the breakthrough of the humanists from the 1940s, but also the much later developments of IPNB. This is why therapy is so useless to most people. It is also the reason why I am much more keen to share my work and knowledge with the general public, than I am with my profession. If the rest of the profession wants to catch up, they can... 🙏
Wow! Our society has a trauma brain, evident in certain places more than others. I'm not sure there is hope for some peoples or nations, as there is little of no hope for the psychopath. But those of us who survive can work hard to reward the executive brains of our societies to find a balance that both recognizes self-determination and individual value while promoting growth. A question I have is: what are the attributes of a leader who has a strong set of executive skills and the vision to integrate different and competing values and needs of our society. It seems one might be putting country and others ahead of self and party. In that respect I don't see such an American leader emerging in our election year nor one emerging in the most limbic nation, Israel.
You said it. A good leader (or group of leaders) would be someone who is reasonably well-integrated. As a result they would not be prone to act on their feelings without thinking and reflecting, would be principled and values driven and would be interested in cooperation, and dialogue, and in promoting a world where everyone is enabled to grow to their potential. When individuals and couples start therapy they have relatively modest expectations because they do not know what is possible for them. As they grow, they begin to realise that they can grow beyond their wildest expectations. It is possible for humanity, but it is going to be hard work. In every country there are people and groups who can lead the way, but we need to decide that we have had enough of the patterns we keep reenacting. It’s has to be a collective decision to stop fighting and destructiveness and start on the path to growth and development. Thank you for your comment. You really got what I was talking about, for which I am deeply grateful.