Anxiety and the Postmodern Condition

In the present issue of Psychology Today, Pythia Peay, author of America on the Couch , interviews Erel Shalit (excerpted from the interview in  America on the Couch ): The hero archetype, as the mythologist Joseph Campbell taught, is common to all cultures. Yet the hero is writ especially large in the American psyche. From Gary Cooper facing down a gang of killers in High NAoon , to Captain Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepherd in  The Right Stuff ) piloting the X-1 rocket plane to the edge of the atmosphere and becoming the first man to break the sound barrier, it is a myth that animates the telling of our history, and that operates as a background force in all our lives. What is more—as vividly displayed by Republican candidate Donald Trump, whose invincible, strongman persona has propelled his rise to political power—our hero is an emotional tough guy. Yet according to Israeli Jungian psychoanalyst and author Erel Shalit, author of  Enemy, Cripple, and Beggar: Shadows in t

Europe’s Many Souls: Exploring Cultural Complexes and Identities by Joerg Rasche and Thomas Singer What is going on in Europe? In this book a number of outstanding Jungian Analysts explore the Cultural Complexes and Identities of their European homelands and nations. This is a new approach to old questions: What makes a people feel at home? How do their traditions and narratives form a cultural Self and identity? How do they differ from one another? Exploring cultural complexes as a part of answering these important questions requires knowledge of history, economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, psychology, religious studies, literature and poetry. But as every complex is built around an emotional core, the study of how cultural complexes live in the psyche is not limited to these disciplines. Each author and reader engages in a confrontation with their emotions, prejudices, and projections. The shape that the ideas and feelings of a cultural complex take in