Listen now (16 min) | Support Sunday Letters I spend a lot of my time observing people. I ask myself, why does this or that person behave as they do? Why do I behave as I do? The reactions are responses to conditions both in and out of our control. In that sense, Skinner was right, but in favour of a reductionist version of reality, he missed the underlying root cause. These conditions could be the most insignificant everyday occurrences, like bumping into someone when you weren’t looking or the choice of whether or not to let someone into your line of traffic. Or they could be catastrophic, like a car accident or the loss of a loved one. In all of these incidents, we show ourselves. And that self we show can be measured and pre-meditated, or it can be unguarded and reactionary. But in all of that, there is the traumatised individual. It is ultimately unavoidable and forms what Jung referred to as the shadow.
200 A Traumatised Species
200 A Traumatised Species
200 A Traumatised Species
Listen now (16 min) | Support Sunday Letters I spend a lot of my time observing people. I ask myself, why does this or that person behave as they do? Why do I behave as I do? The reactions are responses to conditions both in and out of our control. In that sense, Skinner was right, but in favour of a reductionist version of reality, he missed the underlying root cause. These conditions could be the most insignificant everyday occurrences, like bumping into someone when you weren’t looking or the choice of whether or not to let someone into your line of traffic. Or they could be catastrophic, like a car accident or the loss of a loved one. In all of these incidents, we show ourselves. And that self we show can be measured and pre-meditated, or it can be unguarded and reactionary. But in all of that, there is the traumatised individual. It is ultimately unavoidable and forms what Jung referred to as the shadow.