hello and welcome to worlds apart carl gustafer young a pioneering psychiatry's who is now seeing and now the rise to prominence more than 50 years after his death once remarked we don't solve our problems but rather outgrow them this may be true for individuals but does it also apply to societies and if so why do our society why don't the economic and technological growth seem more infantile than ever while to discuss that i'm now joined by dr james hollis

a prominent union psychoanalyst and author of the upcoming book living between worlds finding personal resilience in changing times dr hollis it's a great privilege for me to talk to you thank you very much for your time my privilege actually used to be with you now let me start to be dick title of your upcoming book the 16th i believe to come out from under your pan changing times isn't that a bit of an oxymoron because history has never stopped evolving and the dynamics of personal development are that everybody experiences a crisis at some point in our lives so other times believe in the really so extraordinary well not at all that's exactly the point we always live in changing times we always live in times of the changing structures of our society we live in times that are changes for ourselves crises of understanding of below. the roadmap

that we were following etc it's just that we live in a particularly time of great disruption of what people thought were fixed beliefs fixed structures and fixed understanding's of self and world so the real question is how does anybody personally survive and adapt but also maintain a sense of core integrity during those changes that inevitably happen to us now i know that psych psychologists and even psychiatrists often see crisis and conflicts as focal points when long story problems and grievances finally get a chance to be addressed when people and societies renegotiate the outdated terms of their coexistence doesn't that make crises not only inevitable but also healthy well to a degree yes some crises are brought about by traumatic events in history in our culture or in our personal lives many times we find ourselves having outlived our

assumptions or not fitting within the structures of belief such as our family suggested to us or the popular culture around us so you know a good girl to ask the question once what what abides amid all this change so he was concerned in the late 18th century about change and the key is what is it that would within myself that allows me to maintain a certain consistency of a dennehy and purpose and an integrity of belief and action that's the key what do i carry with me in mid all the changes that happen around me and as far as i know you know also sad that any transformation demands as its precondition and being over world the collapse of an old philosophy also live but the people who have a stake in an old philosophy or who are doing well in an old world may find these not only deeply unpleasant but also threatening and sometimes they fight tooth and nail to. to forestall the change do you find it effective do you think one can stop

or slow down a transformation once it's sat in motion no we really can't set back change nor nor should we because it's a natural evolutionary process but just to give you a quick example when i was a child there were very strong and fixed beliefs about what it meant to be a woman what it meant to be a man and all of that's been changing being being constructed over the last few decades and a priest people up but it's also frightening to people who don't have a sense then of who am i what are what are my scripts what am i supposed to do and b. and so forth and there are many other of those kinds of categories all of which create in a sense a shift that is occurring from the $1000.00 century in particular to the present of soroti being vast and residual institutions such as church and state and so forth and the family life to the shoulders of the individual which is freeing on the one

hand but intimidating and a burden to many others at the same time let me ask you a question about one particular institution that we can see behind you because over the last couple of years it experienced a major change a don't know a chunk was elected as a president of the united states and he's a very unusual president who doesn't feed your typical stereotype you often talk about the importance of embracing your shadow the part to you that you would drive in the let's see doesn't feel action of trying to qualify as such for the american politics and american society isn't trumping the very young in terms of shadow has no way to to come into the open well you're absolutely right in your description and the great cultural divide that we're experiencing in our culture is precisely between those who have sought to sustain the old values the old traditions the old structures and those who have found. constrictive and that conflict has deeply

divided our society and trump is in many ways symptom of that divide i know that many people in the united states find trump. for the lack of the better world but i think he's also authentically ugly he doesn't pretend to be badder than he is he is not positioning himself as holier than thou which i think is very common in politics all around the world. i'm not sort of asking you whether you like him annoyed but they're having and non-conformist like him is good for the system in the long run and he's by the way not the only one to be we have these type of politicians coming to power in many other countries in india some would say in russia in great britain for sure do you think having politicians like this that we may personally dislike. some bad if it's for the system. well anyone who

challenges the received order is going to cause conflict that's understandable that's always been the case at the same time there are many in our country who believe mr trump in particular has departed from in some cases the rule of law and the balance of powers which the founders of our nation thought desperately to try to maintain so the effects of this presidency is something that will be analyzed by historians for a very long time to come again it speaks to the importance of the individual understanding who am i in this situation what are my call to embrace what values oh my to conduct my actions and what are they in service to inside of me that's the key dr hollis you mentioned a moment ago that historians will analyze the legacy of this present i hope psychoanalysts bill do that too and i know that you personally are a big admirer of karl you know him as i am and i heard you describe young as the

fallible man who could also be of bain and self aggrandizing at times who like albert einstein had had extramarital affair is including one that with a russian lady by the way but who in his field made a lasting contribution when people focus on trump's moral character instead of let's say his economic performance or the substance of his policies isn't the same as looking at death they call it you know the theory of relativity through the prism of their founders lifestyle choices. well yes it's a very interesting point you make we don't judge a person's body of work their accomplishments with their personal moral life in this particular case really referring to the american president that moral life spills over into his politics in a very explicit way i think we could say of einstein for example whatever his relationship to his marriage they didn't affect his capacity as

a mathematician and as a theoretician as a physicist the same would be true of young his body of work continues to help us find ways to access personal authority and find the thread of of our passage through these complexities even though at times i think he was not was certainly a reprehensible individual i don't want to focus on trump but let me ask you one more question because i find him very interesting especially in the light of what you have been writing in your books and i've heard you say many times that we are all recovering children and perhaps that applies to trump more than to anyone else he is the 1st public figure i think to have a negative image over child attached to him and i you may recall these you know trying baby balloons that he's critics like like to fly their rallies what do you make of these african infantilized the president in the public consciousness do you

think it's justified do you find it helpful do you think it's bill bringing out something good in him well i think it's certainly true from based on his actions i've never met him of course but based on his observable actions he suffers from a deep narcissistic wound which is speaks to a deep in insecurity this is why he attends constantly to what people are saying about him now i don't think any of us are particularly amusing to what others think about us but he seems particularly wired to what people are thinking and saying and so forth and turns to the aggressive response. whenever he finds something not to his liking. i think underneath that is a very insecure and sort of unstable sense of selfhood and that doesn't that doesn't bode well for a pop foreign policy or consistency of policies either that's a psychological statement not a political statement absolutely but you also make

a point often that in childhood most of us want to fit in and please others and trump exhibits none of that in fact i think he believes that he's calling in charge of his own path in ignoring they say areas in discarding conventions in trying. new ways i mean isn't that the kind of individuation both carl jung i mean you preached in so many of your books well it depends of course when when he makes changes and facts hundreds of millions of people and i don't want to comment further upon the effect of those changes i'm simply saying it's a country that's deeply divided and for every admirer there is are probably about $1.00 of those who dislike him intensely so he is not a person who commands majority majority approval in this country despite being in power and so forth and mask of the last question not about chung but about his

haters and the intensity of all of that hatred because it's i live in the united states i started there i have many friends there and i have to tell you that i have never experienced that their way it is right now well with or without this they have a russian angle i mean like they have delivered a lot of polarization is simply mind blowing. do you think this intensity they see the boiling hatred of trump says anything about people who hate him isn't that also a kind of projection well of course it is of course it is again i think this group . divide is ok jand by the forces of change and the forces who wish to permit preserve rather a status quo and again the nature of our lives the nature of our culture is constantly changing so that conflict is present in all societies at all times it's just that the nature of the change has brought a lot of our institutional values expectations role definitions into question which

causes a wave of anxiety running through people and through the culture itself and the reactions to that are are very very pronounced on both sides of the divide well dr hollis may have to take a very short break now but we will be back in just a few moments stay tuned. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then.

welcome back to worlds apart with dr james hollis a prominent union psychoanalyst and author of the upcoming book living between 2 worlds finding personal resilience in changing times dr hollister and now for bella trump let's talk about your books the notion of personal responsibility and accountability for the lives leave and leave the essentials to you all your work and i heard you say that the main difference between my durnan 2 and postmodernity it was this shift the 4th or a from the collective to the individual on the whole are people ready

to shoulder such a burden such a weight well that's exactly what i was referencing before that the psycho social shift of the summons to personal authority now that is to say what is true for me how am i to understand myself and my assignments in this world and from whence comes that authority is it in residual institutions is it in the collective is it within myself. in my field paradoxically one of the clues to this is what we call psychopathology when we are acting in such a way that is contradictory to our own nature it always shows up symptomatically and that's one of the ways in which we find ourselves able to discern when what i'm doing is not necessarily the right way for me even though it's endorsed by those around me know the words why am i depressed when i've done all the right things why this panic attack those are the kinds of questions that arise out of the conflict

between our external conditioning forces of which there are so many and our own nature and our own nature has a certain autonomy which resists and rebels in the face of the oppression of whatever's going on around it now you know you are also a world renowned expert on the midlife crisis is this period anywhere between 30 and i guess 50 years old when many of us are proud q. on learn or at least bring into the open and the patterns up taishan defenses that's been learned this children and when we finally get a chance to become adults and accept ourselves in in our entirety of both pleasant and unpleasant sides and i find it that for many people accepting their shadow accepting their sides is ease more difficult nowadays than before why do you think that is. well it's a very instant question because everybody receives

a set of marching orders if you will from your family of origin your popular culture your education maybe religious background or whatever your cultural influences and again if they are in accord with my inner life then i will feel a sense of belonging and harmony when they're not on full that discord and often what we call the midlife crisis is where a person has left home entered the world created relationship created jobs etc etc but all of those things do not accord with or line up with what is wishing expression within myself and therefore that conflict once again emerges as symptomatology it shows up in our dreams shows up in our bodies it shows up in our symptomatology such as depression and self medication and so forth those represent a summons to a question what does the psyche want of me what is the soul means soul is the literal translation of the greek word psyche what is the soul mourning of me that's

a whole different matter i know what the world demands of me what is my own soul demanded made and that collision is what produces human suffering what i find fascinating about the time we'll leave in is that this dynamic that you describe it happens on there on a personal level it is also occurring on an international level and we have many countries we mentioned the americans but it also happens to the russians to the indians to the british to the chinese we are all debating who we are as americans russians etc and as fascinating as it is i i think that it could also be dangerous well of course of course but you know it's healthy to have that kind of debate and at the same time again i believe that the crisis that happens force individually and the crisis that happens to every culture is whether one can abide and sort of integrate the inherent chain. does that have to happen in every culture and every person's life you see every passage is the death of something all passages involve

some kind of conflict in between where one is trying to reconstitute the old way of doing things but it doesn't work and as a therapist i'm often working with people in those in-between times and we live in in-between times in history we live in in-between times in our psychic lives as well so again the key is how do i find my path through all of this and where do i find and it's in those moments we have to start beginning to trust what is coming from within the nature of our dreams which comment about 6 times per night on how our life is being conducted what about my feelings that they are in discord and conflict and what about the energy when i'm doing what's right for me the energy is available when i'm doing what's wrong for me i have to force it until it leads to burnout and depression and so forth and most of all is the question of meaning the most elusive but most important of all is what i'm living meaningful to me the goal

of life is not happiness that up to being a right relationship to one soul at that particular moment and when i'm i'm not in that accord that i will 6 perience that as a form of conflict and suffering speaking about conflicts you know as i was preparing for this conversation i rewashed carl young 959 interview with the b.b.c. which among other things discussed young's accurate prediction back and in thirty's . that the 2nd world war would take place and i'm going to ask you this same question the b.b.c. interviewer asked if young do you think a 3rd world war is likely given this midlife crisis is that their world seems to be going well you said that he could see in the psychological material of his patients. these collisions are occurring and he feared that they would be small

into the collective actions we know as war i would have to say those same collisions are occurring around the world in the psyche of individuals today will that lead to war i hope not no one knows yet i fear the instability of those politicians who are also caught up in these crises of change and their own stability and their own capacity to negotiate and so you know it's certainly true that what is not addressed inside will tend to sort of spill into the world through me which is a scary proposition none of us rises in the morning and says well today i'm going to do the same stupid things i've done for a long time but we will because there are often forces within us that are operating autonomously and that's what creates our patterns one of the thing that struck me in dot interview that i mentioned with the b.b.c. 959 interview is how much vitality of curiosity even mischief

c.g. young child adds inventor of age of a few for you you don't see that kind of almost childlike authenticity much these days. what is it about our times that seems to d. energize people sometimes because individually as you often argue we have more power more freedom than at any other point in history and yet so few people make decent use of it well that's exactly the point we live in a time of unparalleled part prosperity at least in the western world for most people not for all of course but but your own was energized by something that was meaningful tory and that's why i was suggesting if what i'm doing is in accord with the reality of my my soul's intent i have plenty of energy i'm i'm i'm charged with meaning i'm going to be 80 very shortly and i feel inside 30 might by. he feels 90 but my psyche feels 30 i look forward to the dialogue with my clients my patients i

look forward to seeing what's coming up in their dreams and so forth i look forward to the changes in the goshi ations they have to make with the outer world and when that time changes i will have to change with it but for now it's been energizing and purposeful so if what we're doing is right for us our psychological systems support us and when what we're doing is not in accord they may oppose us what my fear is that young was able to. retain this childlike authenticity precisely because he allowed go of his childhood defenses and his childhood complexes and you point out in the living between 2 worlds that the child is almost down to interpret the insufficiency of his circumstance be the troubled family member or. disadvantage social categories like raise sexual orientation gender etc as

a statement on he's or her inherent force is that true cross culturally and cross generational mentally or is it primarily a western phenomenon the reason i'm asking is because i read somewhere that the dalai lama when he was asked about the crisis of self-worth in the west had major trouble understanding the concept is that primarily and western malady and by west i also include russia by the way well i think it's fair to say and i have great respect for the dalai lama that he's operating out of a whole different understanding of self in the world and it's one designed to manage anxiety and give him a sense of peace and detachment for most of us were thrown into this world and we find ourselves wrapped up and caught up in those conflicts of which you describe and yes it's certainly true the child within us often governs our behaviors and our responses to people but underneath that again is

a core nature that is seeking some sort of rapprochement some sort of accord with us in our choices if i can align my choices with that inner life i will feel the purposefulness even thought my life is caught up in the world of conflict and so forth as a as a psychoanalyst i live in a world of suffering it's not my ego's choice to do that but i find that it is such a privilege an honor to share the journey of meaning and the journey of suffering with individuals it's not something i would imagine as a child and i would never do i want to be an airplane pilot or something like that but along the way my own psyche began to express itself and to say all right this is the this kind of conversation that you have with individuals is is what you find most meaningful other people will find. in other ways there's no single path but the point is can you find your path and can you also find a way to live that in the real world where you have to earn

a living deal with your family and your children and people who need quite legitimately your your services well now the most stereotypical image of psychotherapy is lying on a therapist's couch and blaming your parents or other adults for things that you did or couldn't do when is it helpful when is it understandable and when do we become our own abusers by nursing our traumas too much and still blaming it on others well i would say that's a misnomer i mean that's almost literally a cartoon these days. the question really is as faulkner said the past isn't dead it's not even past we have to recognize that the stories and experiences and tapes and scripts that we received early on are still present in us and they're still working we're either servicing servicing them or we're running from them so we can never ignore the past but we're always focused really on the present what is

spilling into the world through you where's that coming from in you what is driving us what's the hidden agenda here we're really present oriented we don't lie on a couch and just read regress we try to say ok this happened yesterday at work what if that touching you what it that set off it's far more interactive far more psychodynamic it's not passive and finally if i may very quickly a few years ago i heard you say that c.g. young remains under appreciated do you think that's still the case given the popularity of you tube preachers like jordan peterson who mentions young in almost every lecture some of which were viewed by millions of people carl young seems to be in vogue because they are not well more and more people are finding that young's discoveries. and his tools are their lives and that's a wonderful thing i've spent most of my last few decades in young education

unfortunately the academy the teachers psychologists and the psychiatric world has no regard for young whatsoever they're interested in external behaviors they're interested in going to process and they're interested in biological process all of which are true and important when you put them together you still don't have the human being what is missing there is that we are meaning seeking meaning suffering individual and unless we address the task of meaning we haven't really touched the core of what it means to be a human being well it's been a great pleasure great privilege for me to talk to you thank you very much for your time i'm pleased to be with you and thank you and thank you for watching see you again next sunday.

the world is driven by a dream shaped by. the day or thinks. we dare to ask.

live from our 2 international the big stories of the week that nations worldwide close borders and businesses and livelihoods as the corona virus is officially declared a pandemic. stocks and all prices take a major hammering to a severe travel restrictions more widely imposed we look at the ramifications coming up. and in other news in the wake russia and turkey cut short their 1st joint patrols along a key highway in syria in a move to prevent terrorist publication that may of homs have been.