THERAPY

Some of the goals of therapy

To find ways to love and accept love

How to stop getting stuck in feeling bad about yourself

To create a fuller and happier life

To find ways out of helplessness and the feelings of being overwhelmed

To find a way out of the unnecessary pains, sadness, and losses in our lives

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Evolution and Social Needs

Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 has a brilliant 10 minute start.  In these few minutes we watch a troop of primates in the somewhat early history of the planet (presumably, before the advent of homo sapiens) foraging.  The camera cuts to night fall and we see the primates sleeping in a cave, all but one.  This lone figure sits outside the cave,  awake and alert.   In this darkness we hear the sound of predators in the night.    Kubrick has crystallized in a short imaginary scene, one of the adaptive advantages of being a social animal.   The needs for connection, for belonging, are built into are genes because in the long trek of evolution the genetic makeup which pushes for social groups is more successful.   The problems evoked in connections whether pairs, small groups or larger social entities cannot be worked through without accepting and owning that each of us has a set of social needs.