psychoanalysis

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[quote="peebo"]

i meet a lot of highly intelligent people through work. the predominant common factor is hitting upon hardship of some form or another (primarily economic hardship) or apparent deep seated family issues and general social adjustment issues (growing up in the care system etc.). it does seem pretty clear that the primary underlying factors are social and economic though.

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Am I missing some context here or are you saying that you find inteligence to be associated with these problems you describe? If that is what you are saying, I was thinking something similar earlier on. My explanation would be that we are driven to improve our lives and if this improvement is hard in coming then we have to really think and get creative to try and reach those much wanted solutions, hence intelligence. On the other hand, if you manage to secure a life that you are fairly content with early on then there is not a great deal that has to be done to improve it, hence more basic thinking.

[quote="peebo"] the root of the riots i believe was simply apathy. people are apathetic because society today is vapid. there is little to no community spirit and lower class people have generally nothing in terms of aspirations, so they aspire to material possessions and steal them if they can't afford to buy them. apart from this fact there is no longer even a welfare state. it has been replaced with a penal state. the poor and unemployed are punished for the situation they find themselves in. uk society has systematically moved towards this situation since thatcher.
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I don't see how apathy can be the root of activity in this way. Surely there must be some pent up enrgy that has bursted out. I don't know any of the rioters or that much about them as a group, so I don't really know what the motivations were. Perhaps it varied from person to person but that there was a coomon cause behind which they united. I'm not convinced it was just about materialistic aspirations in a direct way although I think that played a part. I think the apparent sense of justification that the rioters perhaps felt might have been due to thwarted material aspirations from the unfair society that they had to inhabit prior to rioting.

With regards to May having a point. Our civilzation is precious even though it is highly problematic in many ways. Rhetorically, I would expect our leaders to defend that, not only because it will win them popular support but because I myself want civization. I don't want to go out onto the street and for people to think they can just start beating me up for whatever grievance they have, or come and steal from my home, and so on. Not only is it to be expected that May speaks in this way, it is desirable. As an intelligent woman, I would be surprised if privately she were not thinking about how to address the issues more deeply, although I am sympathetic also to a more cynical view that says she might not understand or even want to change a society in which she has both money and power.

My therapist turned out to be my long lost forgotten girlfreind.

No actually quite liberal.

Partially off topic perhaps...but I've always thought terms such as mental health, mental illness etc were poorly chosen. Is there a correct way to think? I don't believe there is. There may be differing types and degrees of advantageous thinking, to the self or to the community, but certainly there cannot be a correct way of thinking. Unusual thinking patterns are often labeled as unhealthy, and so too are patterns of thought that go against the grain of the society where the individual is found.

For example, within a radical cult, a certain behavior may well be considered both beneficial and positive by other members, yet from the outside looking in, it may be recognized as madness. Which point of view is accurate? Who gets to decide?... and ultimately, does it matter?

In my opinion, one of the greatest contributors to "mental dysfunction" is forced inclusion within a society. For example, I am a US citizen, I live within a society and am compelled to modify my behavior to within the standards of the American societal rules, and am bound by its laws, and face the general opinions of other Americans in my interactions. I made no decision to join this group, yet am fully bound to it and responsible for conforming regardless. This forced inclusion may be a root cause of feelings of powerlessness, discontent and numerous other "mental health" issues. My philosophies of life, my choices of behavior and what I consider important in general does not align well with the society I have found myself a member of. The compulsive nature of inclusion only further aggravates this and amplifies it to levels of dysfunction.

I have often pondered why citizenship is mandatory, and why there is not a system in place for people who are born into a society whom disagree with it on fundamental levels. Then again, I disagree with it on so many levels I shouldn’t be surprised that compulsive inclusion is just another one on the list.

Those who reject psychoanalysis and its descendant psychodynamics have failed to integrate the critical experience of perceiving the good breast and the bad breast as different parts of the whole. The infantile splitting prevents the selfobject from introjecting a more realistic view of people, fixating the personality at a borderline personality structure.