ABSTRACT

This chapter begins with a discussion regarding the legitimacy of different ways of knowing, especially comparing empiricism versus received wisdom, or epistemic authority. It decides to side with empiricism and take evolutionary theory as the guiding truth for the text’s exploration of human development. It then explores the idea that there are really two different types of evolution, the first being physiological and the second being sociocultural. It is likely that physiological evolution was the main factor at the very beginning of our species – up to around 100,000 years ago, and now, more and more, sociocultural evolution is the main engine of change. However, sociocultural evolution builds upon physiological evolution. It impacts the specific forms of our anger, jealousy, hopes, and goals, but it was not the original source of them and cannot take them away. It has to work with the tools that physiological evolution gave it to work with. The chapter then explores these psychological tools through what we have learned from the work of cognitive archeology. This includes the roots of our capacity for language and abstract thought, which led to much of what we recognize today as human cultural forms, such as complex social hierarchies and differentiation of cultural roles. This led naturally to a discussion of evolutionary psychology. Both cognitive archeology and evolutionary psychology are important to understand how various, typically human patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior developed as adaptive advantages but also led to (mostly) uniquely human forms of psychological suffering, including prolonged shame, guilt, anxiety, and resentment, which could lead to complexes we might recognize today as depression and personality disorders. This question of how general psychological suffering might crystalize into specific disorders led to a discussion of two specific issues – the first known treatment of mental disorders (trepanning) and the neurodevelopmental roots of what we now call schizophrenia. Finally, the chapter circles back out to a wider perspective. Archetypal psychology provides the widest lens we have for exploring and understanding the underlying dynamics of the human psyche – one that includes a deep analysis of its historical roots, not just its modern manifestations.