by Naomi Adams | Nov 22, 2018 | Cultural Currents
The archetype of the scapegoat goes back to the ancient Hebrew ritual of using two goats to expiate the sins of the tribe. Once blamed for the wrongdoings and misfortunes of the community, the goats were driven out into the desert carrying the evil with them thus...
by Naomi Adams | Nov 15, 2018 | Cultural Currents, Personal Issues
Lisa, Joseph, and Deb circumambulate the difficult issue of gender reassignment. They discuss the significance of teen girls wishing to transition and the current tendency to foreclose the meaning of this and move rapidly into medical procedures, a process of...
by Naomi Adams | Nov 8, 2018 | Personal Issues
What happens when one is held captive by the mud of messiness? We try to understand sloppiness as a defense against overwhelming emotions, ongoing enmeshment in the primal maternal matrix, a regression to a younger and less differentiated self, and a tendency to...
by Naomi Adams | Nov 1, 2018 | Personal Issues
Compulsive eating is a complicated psychological and biological problem. Food addiction can be a way of defending against unmet needs by displacing emotional hunger onto food. We discuss how infant experiences with eating and soothing can shape one’s relationship to...
by Naomi Adams | Oct 25, 2018 | Cultural Currents
We consider literalism a normal childhood state – children’s literalism can be funny and charming. We first grow into the ability to understand metaphors and later develop a capacity to conceptualize symbols with various levels of meaning. Later in life...