We tend to respond better or worse—and be influenced more or less—by different sequences of social engagements. For example, first impressions stick, and the last interaction in a sequence more heavily defines the whole social encounter.
I always love the worldcentric vibes of the holidays. Peace and love for all, New Year’s Eve around the world, and the brotherhood of man are staples of the season, and seem to be more easily shared this month than the rest of the year.
There is four times the rate of depression now than in 1987. We’ve essentially been doubling the amount of depression in this country for each of the last three generations.
Even considering an increased tendency to diagnose depression now than in previous years, this emerging 21st century culture is clearly not particularly conducive to happy care-free lives.
Who is your closest relationship right now? Do you get along well all the time? Do you fight occasionally? To those who can’t think of a conflict, come on! You must have fought or been irritated at least once! Remember your last fight or disagreement. As you and he or she struggled, were you listening, explaining, making excuses, or attacking? Probably you were doing several of these.
In my book, Waking Up, I maintain that Integral psychotherapists cultivate compassion and depth of consciousness to co-create healing cultures with their clients. Depth of consciousness means understanding people within the many contexts of their lives, including the altitudes they typically inhabit on a variety of developmental lines like the self, interpersonal, parenting, morals, psychosexual, and integration-of-defenses lines. With deeper consciousness in my clients and myself comes felt responsibilities to help all those contexts, but with varying degrees of urgency.
The concept of a midlife crisis first appeared in a 1965 article by Elliot Jaques, entitled Death and the Midlife Crisis. He, like the psychoanalytic community, felt that approaching death was more fully realized by adults, potentially provoking depression, panic, and strong impulses to flee, change, or recapture a vision of youth and hope.
We talked about CEOs, the special challenges they face, and the potential for growth and service inherent in being the top boss. The interface between business and personal existence is a bigger deal than most people realize.