Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Cognitive enhancements are on the scientific horizon — ways of making our brains function better. But they will only be available to those who are able to pay for them?

“Reclaim the night” is a women-only march in London, demanding justice for rape victims in a country in which, according to the British Crime Survey (2001) there are an estimated 47,000 rapes every year, around 40,000 attempted rapes and over 300,000 sexual assaults — with a paltry conviction rate of 5.3%.

How does it happen that intelligent people stay with abusive therapists or self development leaders or healers for so long, becoming more and more dependent, and giving them more and more money?

I don’t conceive of counselling as a navel gazing activity, nor as one which encourages the individual to take either the blame or the responsibility for their circumstances. It is not my intention to imply this when I state that although we did not create this structural, institutional power imbalance under which we live, the only way we can change it is by empowering ourselves to take action.

What should we be asking about the social, cultural, historical and evolutionary contexts in which compromised mental health arises and how it is compounded? Has humanity lost its way somewhere? Is it heading for its own imminent destruction via anthropogenic climate change, exhaustion of planetary resources and geopolitical conflict? Professor Colin Feltham is taking the dark view seriously. Here, he shares a precis of his new book, “What’s Wrong With us? The Anthropathology Thesis”.