Anxiety and the Postmodern Condition

Should clinicians and mental health professionals remain with in the closed vessel of the consulting room, or should they step outside these confines and express themselves regarding trends that are taking place in society and the world, about elections and candidates, about democracy and the characteristics of different regimes? Psychoanalysts such as Freud, Jung, Winnicott, Erik Erikson, Erich Fromm, Erich Neumann and others have often stepped outside the consulting room and looked at the world and society around them. C.G. Jung  writes in his preface to "Essays on Contemporary Events," The storm of events does not sweep down upon him [the doctor] only from the great world outside; he feels the violence of its impact even in the quiet of his consulting-room ...  As he has a responsibility towards his patients, he cannot afford to withdraw to the peaceful island of undisturbed scientific work, but must constantly descend into the arena of world events, in order...

 From Chapter 3, The Puer and the Puella Who are they, the young man and the maiden, the puer and the puella? We easily recognize them in everyday confrontations with moody teenagers, when sexual desire competes with dark rage, the one setting the house on fire, the other breaking up the walls. Alternatively, and even worse, inexplicable withdrawal makes the earth quake in deadening silence. There is beauty struggling with acne, and tender sensuality trying to contain awkward clumsiness. Eros and desire break through the face of insecure constraint, mercilessly exposing their blushing flare. Hope for the future competes with anxiety of failure and apocalyptic fears. Thomas Coyle: Youth Art and poetry, mythology, music and literature, abound with tales and pictures of the pain, suffering and sorrow of young Werthers, of hidden loneliness when the birds sing out of tune in a world without love, of trying to save the child in a world characterized by alienation an...