About Minding Cruelties
Sharing independent, interdisciplinary research on the psychological phenomena of our times.
There’s an anecdote of a famous psychoanalyst (Nancy McWilliams) whose friend asked, ‘Why would you want to work with all these crazy people?’ - to which the psychoanalyst replied that ‘We’re all crazy - to different degrees, and in different ways.’ There are no exceptions, which is why psychotherapy has become even more fascinating to me in our era of all things viral and contentious. Mental health is more widely accepted than ever, but the general population understands it less today than generations in past decades.
With the sharp rise in demand for mental health services during lockdowns, therapists have been forced to turn away people asking for help, or add them to a long waitlist. Minding Cruelties was born out of a desire to meet the needs of such individuals. Its relevance however extends to each of us within the whole of society. As Freud has said in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,
“only rarely and under certain exceptional conditions is individual psychology in a position to disregard the reactions of this individual to others. In the individual’s mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent; and so from the very first individual psychology, in this extended but entirely justifiable sense of the words, is at the same time social psychology as well.”
Minding Cruelties is comprised of three series integrating research in psychoanalysis, social psychology, and history.
Cruelties will focus on subtle psychological harms that are inflicted unconsciously.
Ironies will illuminate the discrepancies between our blind spots and reality.
Personalities will help explain the pitfalls in what we find attractive or offensive in an increasingly irrational society.
This is a labor of love and my hope is that it will be of use to everyone. I am happy to offer free access at this time but I’m also grateful for any form of support.
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