ARTICLES AND POSTS

As infants, each of us tries to understand who we are in relation to the world around us. Early in childhood, we have needs that aren't met. We aren't fed, changed, or held right when we want to be and our caregivers are human—often trying but failing to read our minds. When an internal need is not met by the external "objects"—i.e. people—around us, it helps us in infancy to distinguish between us and them. Throughout our early life, once we become more aware of this separation, we go onto explore and test for danger as we move out into the world. And later, we try to reconcile our individuality with maintaining connection to an important other. These are phases that all children go through, but the types experience and adapt to them in different ways.

It’s a time of upheaval on multiple fronts. It’s as if the thin veneer of falseness that has been covering over the truth of the worst of us for some time now is being stripped away. It’s been called a post-truth world as our leaders routinely throw facts into question. But it’s as if everything that has been only barely still hidden is now being exposed. The virus and the violence have seen to that. The reality of greed, racism, corruption, sexism, hate, and insensitivity in our society that so many have wanted to deny is now not only out in the open—it’s killing us and tearing us apart.