ABSTRACT
Relatedness is the basis of health but it also exposes us to interpersonal wounding. We protect ourselves from being hurt by calling up anti-related energies: by denigrating the other in our minds, by erasing him through not-seeing his need, by forgetting his wishes when those wishes would cause us distress. All the pathological tendencies in the psyche push us toward an anti-related approach. Anti-related energies underlie the American culture’s predilection for an extraverted manic “friendliness” that precludes real relatedness because its goal is to make everyone into a friend, bypassing the much more substantial issue of finding the individual(s) with whom one has a real heart connection. Similarly, these anti-linking forces create the British culture’s reliance on schizoid defences. In Chapters 2 and 3 we have explored the basic structure and operation of the growing psyche: the nature of the unconscious and the fundamental work it is always engaged in, turning the onslaught of life into thinkable and feel-able symbols. In this chapter we will look at the structure of our anti-relational aspects, of the parts of ourselves that value stability over development, safety over creativity. In the next chapter, we will explore the dynamic interplay between the energies that pull us to grow and the energies that resist new ways of being.
