Anxiety and the Postmodern Condition

Dear friends and colleagues, My website, www.eshalit.com/ (also at www.eshalit.co.il/ ) has now been upgraded. I invite you to visit – and will be happy to receive any comment you may have. You will find details about my books, contents, reviews and excerpts. ____ One of the features is open ends , with access to excerpts from books, book chapters, published papers and journal articles. Most of the material can be accessed directly from the page, while some of it requires login. ____ At et ceteri (from Latin: 'and others'), you will find announcements of organizations, lectures, et cetera, pertaining to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, such as the Jungian program scheduled to open at Bar Ilan University, and the upcoming exhibition of Jung's Red Book in Zurich, et cetera. I believe that much, perhaps most value, and great treasures, are to be found with the other (s). ____ Another feature is town square , a place where you can look at the stuff others bring to the ci

In a recent article in the New York Times, Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price, by Matt Richtel, June 6, 2010, Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and a leading brain scientists, claims that technology is changing our brains. As compared to fifty years ago, we consume three times as much information. We are constantly on the go, associatively moving from one site to another, whether in the cyberworld or in the world of non-locality, or non-places, as French philosopher Mark Augé calls the supermarkets, highways and airport lounges.While the brains of Internet users are more efficient at finding information, they have greater difficulty staying focused, and differentiating between relevant and the irrelevant.Not only is the brain affected and going through changes due to the features of the post-modern condition, but behavior and personality as well. The emphasis of ego-functions on motor coordination rather than creativity and depth of thought is not

Mother Earth has struck, and by means of her messenger, angry Hephaestus, the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull, she reminds us how she can fasten Icarus's wings to the ground. We have all become accustomed to the swift and structured passage through the airport, until we briefly breathe the disconnected sense of being duty-free, free of any duty. However, during the last several days, thousands of weary travelers have been stranded, making airports their inconvenient, temporary home. The nonlocality and temporality of airports, as Temples of Transiency, sooth the restlessness of the Transient Personality, and suit him or her better than the temenos of the therapy room and the analytical relationship. For a moment, however, the airports have come to a standstill. Suddenly the swift transition between one non-place and another, has frozen. I wonder if postmodern man will, indeed, stop for a moment, to reflect on Mother Nature's messages, one of which may be the

As reported in Haaretz newspaper, "Dozens of Palestinians clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem on Tuesday [March 16, 2010] on a 'day of rage' Hamas declared to protest Israel's consecration of an ancient synagogue in the city one day earlier. Palestinians hurled stones at police and burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem… … dozens of youths hurled stones at Border Police officers in the Shoafat refugee camp and in the neighborhoods of Isawiyah and Wadi Joz. Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby says police fired stun grenades to disperse dozens of protesters at one site. He said village elders helped end protests at another site. Police also arrested an Israeli rightist who sought to enter the Temple Mount compound and was refused by security forces. A police spokesman said some 3,000 officers were put on high alert … after Hamas announced, 'We call on the Palestinian people to regard Tuesday as a day of rage against the occupa

Eliezer Shimeoni (E. S.) chairs the Society for Anxiety and the Postmodern Condition (SAPC). By his friends, he is variously referred to 'as es', or as 'es' (that is it, or id), or sometimes, in Hebrew, as esh, that is, fire. He has recently been the subject of a fictitious account, the novella Requiem : A Tale of Exile and Return , by Erel Shalit.