American Paradox - Dan Siegel

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Résumé :
This book addresses the problem of our contradictory nature. It does so by describing in detail the ways we may deceive ourselves about how we can bring about harm while telling ourselves quite the opposite. Future generations may rightly condemn us for not doing more to save the world's climate, on which all of us depend. While this is a logical question, and deserves an answer, no response could be complete without also asserting our dual and divided nature. Imagine a cruise ship traveling to Greenland or Antarctica with the express goal of informing the passengers about the peril of global warming. Not only is the cruise itself contributing to global warming, but there is a good chance the ship is dumping its untreated garbage into the ocean. While this is a striking example of self-deception, of the role that feelings play in perception and belief, it is only one example. Today, in the United States, there are more cars on the road traveling longer distances. Mass traveling on holidays have recently reached historic highs. The need to recognize our self-deception is stronger now than in recent memory. Most famously, from Shakespeare to Anton Chekov, our duality has been portrayed in literature. Many motion pictures have done the same. In this book, humanism is the vehicle for explaining our self-contradictions. The book presents a framework that seeks to explain the challenges of values, perceptions and beliefs that often have a foundation in emotions. This is an inescapable aspect of our nature. Rather than simply regretting the present state of our society and politics, the book provides a perspective by which the individual reader can better understand the conflicts....

Sommaire:
Originally from New York City, Dan Siegel grew up in a few Midwestern states. Since 1980, he has lived with his family in Southern California. For about 50 years, he has been doing outpatient psychotherapy with adults. This almost daily interaction with unhappy people, or those with psychiatric symptoms, forced him to understand the personalities of a great variety of people. Only to a marginal degree did book learning aid in this understanding. Instead, there has been a need to develop a perspective that establishes a creative tension between the lived reality of the individual and a reasonably universal understanding of what the individual needs to gain greater control over emotions and symptoms. This book seeks to communicate this creative tension as understood by Dan Siegel. Today, with an army of psychotherapists--much larger than that which existed fifty years ago--the statistics on declining mental health shows that psychiatric problem are still on the rise. To put it simply, the nation cannot grow its mental health system enough to meet demand. About fifty years ago, the American humanist Joseph Wood Krutch noted that it would be more efficient for individual to understand how the society contributes to unhappiness than to create an ever-expanding legion of therapists. He also concluded that there was more dignity for the individual who could reach his conclusions on his own. Although nobody can reasonably expect to reach an authoritative grasp of societal problems, greater understanding can only help. The role of values in important in such a perspective. Because of the inevitably subjective nature of values, the field of psychology has minimized their importance. Still, without a grasp of values and their importance in our lives, the individual may become lost. The creative tension mentioned earlier is that between the individual's values and the more objective reality that surrounds the individual. This book is one attempt to provide a framework for reconciling our conflicts between ourselves and society. No two people will do so exactly alike....