Help for a Civilization in Crisis
New book by pioneer psychiatrist says society is sick but can be cured
Online, April 5, 2010 (Newswire.com)
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Healing Civilization: New book by Dr. Claudio Naranjo
Publisher: Rose Press/Gateways Books and Tapes
Publication date: June 2010
The Doctor has taken the pulse of modern civilization and concluded that it is very sick - perhaps even terminally ill. The diagnosis? "The great problem of civilization is none other than civilization itself!" the author declares. What is the cause? And is there a cure?
In a time when concern about the planet's welfare is rising-the environmental crisis, the financial crisis, poverty, racism, violence, war, and the sheer stress of survival-wouldn't it be a tremendous relief to have one cure for all these problems?
In Healing Civilization, pioneer psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo brings 30 years of successful transformational work with individuals and groups into the societal realm to heal our collective illness. The root cause, he asserts, is patriarchy: the millennia-old system of male power based on a predominance of aggressive, competitive values over loving, cooperative values and spontaneous, instinctive joy.
Patriarchy lives not only in the outer world (the economy, war, racism, child abuse, oppression of women, human rights violations) but also in the conditioned workings of our own minds. It is a virus that masquerades as ourselves. And it is killing life on the planet - and the aliveness in us!
Our planet, and how we humans live on it, is in critical condition. Yet there is a cure. By nurturing our loving values and spontaneity of being rather than allowing our warring values to dominate, we can achieve an internal and external balance that fosters cooperation and compassion over competition. As we each work to integrate our "intra-psychic family" (Inner Father, Inner Mother, and Inner Child) - and as our educational system shifts to one that fosters the whole person - we will at last have a true civilization. For healing civilization is an inside job, and the future of civilization is in our hands.