Even A King Needs Help . . .

07Feb2011 By Judith Barr

Recently, I saw the movie The King’s Speech. A touching, powerful example of how politics and psychology are woven together! It’s also a beautiful portrayal of the hard work and the full commitment it takes in a healing venture – on both sides, that of the therapist and that of the client.

I don’t want to give anything in the movie away . . . and I don’t need to in order to offer what I have to say. The essence: the Duke of York, later King George VI, stammers; in order to fulfill his job, his potential, and his destiny, he needs the help of a speech therapist. The therapist knows you can’t heal stammering by mechanics alone; you have to go deeper.

You see . . . even a King needs help to work through the wounds of his childhood. And if a King needs help, so do we all. Even if the symptom in us that reveals the wound isn’t stammering. Even if the symptom in us that is the out-picturing of the wound is an addiction of any kind, one that is right out in the open for all to see, or one that is well hidden – drugs, alcohol, food, sex, gambling, work, exercise, television, the computer or something else. Even if the symptom in us that is the divining rod to the wound at the root is grief, heart break, fierce independence and competitiveness or, on the other side, intense dependence and inability to function the way our potential indicates we could. Even if the symptom in us that points to the wound is our endless hunger to fill the void within us, or the unquenchable thirst for power that hides a fear of powerlessness at our core.

No matter whether others can see your wound or not. No matter whether you yourself are aware of suffering from your wound or not. No matter whether you are even conscious of having been wounded or not, even you have wounds that need to be healed . . . in order to fulfill your job, your potential and your destiny.

One of the innumerable parts of the movie that I treasure, is when the therapist tells his client, that he, the client, is the bravest man the speech therapist knows. I feel that way about the people who work with me as their therapist. They are the most courageous people I know!

A War Against Women . . .

06Feb2011 By Judith Barr

When is a political campaign (and I don’t mean an election) a guise for accomplishing something far more sinister and far more dangerous than is claimed?

When seeming attempts to save unborn lives in the name of something holy are really a war on women.

When apparent efforts to prevent abortion in the name of protecting the lives of the unborn are, in actuality, purposeful, planned moves to take away women’s power . . . a war against women.

When men, and most tragically of all, other women themselves, are so afraid of the power women have birthed and claimed in recent times, that they are bound and determined to turn back the times and make women powerless . . . a war against women.

When men, and even women, collude, under the guise of goodness, to make women possessions again . . . possessions of their fathers, possessions of their husbands, possessions of their religions, possessions of the Divine as they perceive the Divine, women making themselves the possessions of others, even women treating themselves like possessions . . . a war against women.

When men, afraid of the growing power women have claimed, and even women themselves are afraid of their own power and the power of other women, and instead of supporting that power and working through their own fears, want to squash that power forever . . . in a war against women.

Wherever else this is happening in our world, it is also happening right now in the United States of America in 2011.

It is rising to bizarre proportions! Last week, there was a bill in Congress that , under the guise of taking action to prevent abortions, would have redefined rape to include only forcible rape . . . and to leave women powerless when they are violated in other ways – by date rape, by rape that occurs when a perpetrator drugs his victim, by rape while a woman is intoxicated or asleep, by rape perpetrated on underage females,by rape when a woman withdraws her consent, or by rape when a woman is trying not to be injured further or is trying to stay alive.

Whatever this bill looked like it was doing, H.R.3, The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act was, in truth, a war on women’s power, a war on women’s protection, a war on women’s access to help . . . a war against women!

And this bill was one single action in millions that have been taking place and that will continue to take place.

A terrorizing war . . . against women!It’s like a daughter of an incest perpetrator who cuts her off from help in the family, isolates her from the outside world, threatens her loss of safety, threatens her daily survival — food, clothing, shelter, and medical help – squashes her voice, and most dangerous of all, puts on the face of kindness and goodness one minute, while stalking her silently and consistently, so that she is scared all the time.

I know that this is the backlash to the power women have been birthing, growing, and claiming. And I know a backlash was inevitable. We need to take this seriously now! This is a war against women.

If we are going to end this war against women, we – women and men alike – are going to need to do our own inner healing. All of us are part of this, whether we want to know it, acknowledge it, feel it . . . or not! This is no joke! I don’t mean just by reading self help books or going to support groups or even a workshop here and there. We are going to need to heal within us our own fears of being powerless, and also the places where we would take dangerous actions to crush someone else’s power because we are afraid.

There is much more that needs to be said, taught, and healed here than I can do in this short time and space. I hope, though, that I have opened your eyes to see what is really occurring, opened your mind to help you think about the truth of what is happening, and opened your heart to say ‘yes’ to the healing you, yourself, need to do. I also hope that you will pass this on to others . . . whose eyes, minds, and hearts need to open.

Thank you and many blessings,
Judith Barr

ELECTIONS – YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW

14Nov2010 By Judith Barr

Why did the elections turn out the way they did? Not only this election season, but also . . . why do elections in general turn out the way they do?
Race? Incapability? Wrong direction? Lies and mudslinging? Corruption? Greed? Hunger for power? Change? Plain ole human nature?
Whatever you think . . . there is a deeper reason than most people know.

It is called transference.
In psychology – the psych part of PoliPsych – there is a dynamic called transference.
Boiled down to its essence, Transference is when you transfer onto someone or something in your life today a thought/belief/decision, feeling, sense, experience/memory, perception/interpretation based on an experience you had long, long ago in your childhood. . . particularly with people in your childhood who you experienced as authority figures. That could include your parents, the adults in your extended family, older siblings, adult or older neighbors, teachers, clergy people, etc.

People often think of transference as happening only in the therapy room. But the truth is . . .
we transfer onto others unconsciously and so very frequently, that we would be amazed to become conscious of when.

What in the world does this have to do with elections?

Just this:
We also transfer onto our leaders. Not just our educational and spiritual leaders, but also our political and governmental leaders.
We may transfer onto them negatively . . . thinking they are horrible people and leaders and not wanting them to lead us ever, let alone anymore.
Thinking they’re going to do terrible things that will hurt us, while pretending they’re doing things for our own good . . . like Mom or Dad did when we were little. We may be seeing them as Mom, who coddled us but didn’t teach us how to function in the world. We may perceive them like Dad, who pretended he and Mom were doing without and they were being generous with us, while he was really being stingy with us and hoarding things for Mom and him. We may feel they are like Grandpa, who lied to us and got our family into trouble; or Uncle Jim who was mean to the children but nice to the grown ups; or our older sister, who bullied us and lied to our parents to get us in trouble; or the teacher who punished us unfairly and played favorites with others. All of these early experiences may be transferred onto our leaders . . . and limitless others, too!

We may transfer onto them positively, or in an idealized fashion … thinking they are wonderful and can do no wrong, and will always take care of us well . . . blind to who they really are and what they are really doing, just like we were as tiny children with our parents.

In this past election . . . at the root of the situation was a deep, unconscious transference. The people elected in 2008 were seen, transferentially, as the good parents who would get us out of trouble . . . quickly . . . like with the wave of a magic wand. Since that wasn’t possible, and wouldn’t have been for any leader . . . on the young, transferential level, those same people are now experienced as the bad parents who didn’t do it right. And now the children are looking for new parents to take care of them.

How do we tell the difference between when we’re in transference with a leader and when our assessment of him or her is accurate?
To tell the difference to the core and in truth . . . we need to do our inner work with our own transference.
We need to find out if we’re transferring onto the specific leader and if so, who and what we’re transferring.
And then we need to do the work to resolve, dissolve, and heal the transference and the wound beneath it that drives it.
Only with the transference healed, will we be able to see clearly to choose and vote for leaders with clear seeing and knowing.
And only with the transference healed, will we be able to heal the whole process we have set up for choosing and electing our leaders.

We have a lot of work to do.
But it is so worthwhile to do it – for ourselves individually, for everyone in our lives that we affect, for our country, and for our world!*

© Judith Barr, 2010

*If you’d like help to explore your own transference, please feel free to email me at JudithBarr@PowerAbusedPowerHealed.com to explore the possibility of a consultation…and if you know others who would also like to explore theirs, I would gladly explore creating a workshop or group in which to do that.

AFTER THE ELECTION: TAKE TWO

10Nov2010 By Judith Barr

The election itself may be over, but the effects of the election and how it was carried out will not be over for a long time to come.
The awareness of this cycle of cause and effect continues to be with me.
And the feelings in response to the damage revealed and the damage caused are palpable.

The degree of lying in this election was mind-boggling. Heart-boggling!
How can so many candidates simply make up facts and stories and present them as if they were the truth . . . just to get what they want?
What does that say about them?
What does that say about their childhoods…
about what they did and didn’t have as children?
about what they felt they had to do to get what they needed?
about what their parents did to get what they needed . . . or simply wanted?

If the candidates lied to get into office, doesn’t that mean they would lie in office,
in the course of their carrying out their job . . .
or their own agenda?
How could it mean anything else?

What does it mean that we let it happen?
That we let the lies go on, knowing they were lies.
That some of us didn’t even know they were lies.
That some of us believed the lies.
What does it say about us and our childhoods and our wounds . . .
the lies we were told, the lies we told ourselves, the lies we thought we had to tell others?

And what does it mean for our country and our world?

TO SPEND OR NOT TO SPEND – AND ON WHAT?

08Nov2010 By Judith Barr

Among many things that are in my mind and heart after this past week’s election . . .
I keep coming back to the issue of money.

According to NPR’s Morning Edition, literally billions of dollars were spent on the election nationwide!*
Let’s look at some specifics.
Candidate for California governor, Meg Whitman, spent $71 million dollars of her own money on her campaign.*
Rick Scott, Florida gubernatorial candidate, spent about $73 million of his own money to win.**
Linda McMahon – spent at least 50 million dollars, mostly her own money, on her campaign in Connecticut . . . more than any other Senate candidate this year. **
Candidate for New York governor, Carl Paladino, spent $3 million of his own money in the last week of the election alone.*

Extraordinary amounts of money . . . spent on political contests and governmental seats.

Think of all that money.
With that amount of money . . .
Imagine how many people’s houses could be saved from foreclosure!
Imagine how many people could be helped to move from the streets into safe households.
Imagine how many people could be fed.
Imagine how many people could be given good medical care.
Imagine how many children could receive wonderful educations.
Imagine how many people could participate in psychotherapy to heal the wounds of their childhood to the root … so as not to perpetuate them onto another generation!
And imagine the impact on our country and our world if we all had access to the deep inner healing we all need!
Imagine!

What are we doing?
Where are our values?
How distorted our values have become!
Look at all we spend for things outside us!
What about investing in finding the distortions at the roots of our relationships with money?
What about investing in healing the wounds we live with that would cause us to spend all that money on a government position that lasts for just a few years!

* https://www.pressconnects.com/article/20101102/VIEWPOINTS03/11020338/Over-the-Top-Election-Spending

**
https://topnews360.tmcnet.com/topics/associated-press/articles/2010/11/07/114854-wealthy-self-funded-candidates-found-wins-elusive.htm

The Election Through The Lens of Powerlessness

19Oct2010 By Judith Barr

Election time is again upon us. Many in our country are sad to find that the process has become distorted . . . characterized by mudslinging, lies, destructive behavior. How did our election process get this way?

We have to understand that the election process did not get this way overnight, but has, almost since its inception in this country, had the seeds of distortion in it. Our ancestors came to America because they felt powerless in England. They tried to create a country in which they would not feel powerless. They even created an elections system in which they would not feel powerless. One in which they, as citizens, could have some power in the selection of their leaders.

But look at what’s happened with elections. Here are some examples earlier in our history. In 1828, supporters of John Quincy Adams insinuated that Andrew Jackson’s mother was a prostitute and his wife an adulteress. In 1884 there were anti-Catholic statements made by a minister . . . and there were chants against Grover Cleveland, who, it was discovered, fathered a child out of wedlock and had the child put in an orphanage. These sound like something we could see or hear in the political arena today.

But the roots of distortions in the election process are the same, whether in 1810, in 1910, or in 2010. As humans we will go to extraordinary lengths to keep our feelings at bay. Our earliest pain, fear, rage, and powerlessness. All to get away from those primal feelings . . . but especially the feelings of powerlessness. The very feelings that brought us to America!

How does this priority of holding feelings at bay play itself out in our country in relation to elections?

If you were once powerless as a young child and it was not a good experience, you will do anything to keep from being powerless again . . . or even feeling powerless again . . . or even having the unconscious memory of your powerlessness be triggered again!

Losing an election would definitely trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it? Being attacked during an election campaign would certainly trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it? Having skeletons in your closet that are discovered and revealed would, of course, trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it? As a matter of fact, even just having skeletons hidden in your closet would trigger powerlessness, wouldn’t it?

So . . .
Would you spread rumors? Lie? Slander an opponent . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you become an archaeologist seeking old news about your opponent . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you seduce voters with charm, false promises, half truths . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you cheat at the polls . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you steal funds to support your campaign, or take funds anywhere you can get them, even from dubious sources . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you prevent voters from voting . . . to win an election? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you numb yourself out during the election campaign? To keep from feeling powerless?
Would you refuse to participate in an election in any way? To keep from feeling powerless?

How do we each contribute to these distortions? By defending against our own early feelings of powerlessness instead of exploring them, working with them, building the capacity to feel them, and then not having to defend against them anymore. And how are we each contributing to these distortions in relation to the elections? By using the elections as a defense against our own feelings of powerlessness. Or by using the elections as a trigger to our own early feelings of powerlessness and just going with it instead of healing it.

Think how powerful everyone involved in an election feels . . . as they go campaigning all over the countryside; as they dig up “dirt” on the other side; as they raise funds for negative campaign ads; as they “get off on” getting even uglier than their opponents. Or better still . . . think how much doing all those things keeps someone from feeling powerless!

So . . . how can we truly heal our relationship with our country’s election process . . . and change the process itself from the inside out?

By doing our own inner work related to our early feelings of powerlessness and how we are superimposing our early feelings and our defenses against those feelings onto our elections. We may not heal the entire process this year! But you’d be surprised how much even working with this over the next days leading up to this year’s election can do. And beginning right now can open the way to truly healing our elections in years to come.

Will you join us?

IF YOU BELIEVE “THERE’S NO WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN” … READ THIS! UPDATED

11Jul2010 By Judith Barr

Recently I included the article below, If You Believe There’s No Way for Everyone to Win, in my newsletter. In response, someone who reads my newsletters sent me an email about this article. With her permission, in this post I share with you the heart of the interchanges she and I had. They expand and deepen the understandings in the article. You can find the update right below the article.

IF YOU BELIEVE “THERE’S NO WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN” … READ THIS!

AND IF YOU BELIEVE “THERE IS A WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN” … READ THIS!

Recently, a well-known news commentator* – remarking on a comment by Bill Clinton that the only way for us to go is to make sure everyone wins – emphatically stated, “THERE IS NO WAY FOR EVERYONE TO WIN!”

Would you, or do you, follow someone who made a decision that in life there’s no way for everyone to win?

And, whether or not you follow a commentator who believes this…do you wonder where a belief like this comes from…and how it can affect our lives and our world?

When I heard this comment from Glenn Beck,* it struck me so . . . as something so familiar. It sounded just like things I’ve heard from my clients so many times over the years. This statement – There is no way for everyone to win – is a classic example of what I call an “early decision.”

I’ll explain . . .
When we are children, and we suffer pain or trauma that’s too much for a child to bear, we bury the pain and defend against it by making unconscious decisions about ourselves, others, our world, and life in general. Now when we are children, an “early decision” may be a life-saver . . . it saves us from agonizing pain, perhaps emotionally, perhaps also physically. But as we grow, if we are unaware of this unconscious decision, and if we haven’t healed it, it can haunt us from our own underground, affecting our feelings, thoughts, attitudes, behavior, and choices. The important thing to remember is that this is unconscious. We are unaware this is happening inside us, and unaware that early decisions like this are driving our lives.

Here’s an example. . .
Let’s say you’re a child. Your father files for divorce because of your mother’s alcoholism. However it unfolds, you and your sister end up living with your mother. When you are 15, your mother commits suicide by drowning. Then your step brother commits suicide. You and your sister move to live with your father . . . the same father who divorced your mother and moved away. Without even realizing it, out of each of your traumas or out of the accumulation of your multiple traumatic experiences comes an early decision: There is no way for everyone to win!

Without even realizing it, you make that decision again and again at each painful incident. You also come to use that decision to defend against your pain. And you use everything you can . . . not only to defend against your pain, but also to hold onto that early decision for dear life!

You believe you are proving that decision every time you have a painful incident in your life. Your first daughter is born with cerebral palsy . . . and you prove it again. You struggle with substance abuse and ADHD . . . and you prove it again. As an adult you use your power to prove to yourself over and over that there is no way for everyone to win.**

And then you draw people to you who also decided as children in their families that there is no way for everyone to win. You use your power and your following to make choices and take actions based on that early decision. If you have decided there is no way for everyone to win . . . what kinds of choices will you make and what kinds of actions will you take? Likely those that will make you and your following win . . . and everyone else lose. And if your following is filled with people who also made that early decision, how much chance is there that anyone you would listen to can pierce that decision?

Can you see how this would affect all of us? And our world? If our leaders, politicians, celebrities, and media don’t become aware of and heal their early decisions? And if each of us doesn’t become aware of and heal our early decisions . . . we could end up following the cause of someone who decided as a little boy, just like we did, that there is no way for everyone to win.

Remember, you are fighting for dear life to hold onto that early decision, and so are all those around you . . . Because when you let go of that early decision, you will be right back at the scene of the very first trauma out of which you decided There is no way for everyone to win. And back at that first scene, you will be feeling all the feelings you have been defending against ever since . . . which is exactly what we all need to do purposefully, safely, for healing. For once we have gone through and felt the pain we were so relentlessly trying to avoid, we will never have to hold it at bay again, and we can free up our precious life energy for constructive, creative, life sustaining changes for ourselves and everybody else.

Can you see how this would affect all of us? And our world? If our leaders, politicians, celebrities, and media do become aware of and heal their early decisions? And if each of us does the same?

*The well known news commentator was Glenn Beck. My intention for choosing to talk with you about his comment is not a way to comment on his politics, per se, but rather to utilize a perfect example to help us really comprehend the relationship of a child’s painful experiences to not only his adult life, but also his politics, the politics of our nation, the politics of our world and the well being of all involved. And how many times do we get to hear such a public figure, who is a leader in his arena, say one of his/her early decisions aloud and so publicly?

**This example has been created from some of the events in Glenn Beck’s life, beginning with his childhood.

UPDATE

“Thank you, Judith. That was another enlightening essay. It made me think of my grandchildren, two of whom are boys who really like to “win” in games and who are learning, little by little, that it doesn’t have to mean something is wrong with them if they lose a game. But generally, that is what happens, there is some serious loss of self-esteem when there is a loss of a game, yes? . . . One time my grandson went into a huge crying fit when playing chess with his Dad, my son, and lost. He was mad at my son for playing too hard; he expected him to somehow let him win or at least have a better chance at winning.”

When someone loses a game, yes, there may be loss of self esteem. But I think it depends upon the person what the loss is.
And how young the experience.
It could feel like loss of self. There is no me.
It could feel like loss of sanity. Nothing makes sense . I feel crazy. Everthing’s getting bigger, I’m
getting smaller.
It could even feel like loss of life. I’m not going to survive this. I’m dying. I’m disappearing. I’m falling through the cracks into nowhere.
This is why people’s reactions can be so extreme when they lose.
When they lose a game. When they lose an argument. When they lose a job. When they lose a friend.
When they lose someone they love.
When they lose an early decision . . .

This is why people will fight tooth and nail to hold onto their early decisions . . .
both the leaders who have the early decision
and the followers who have the same early decision.
This is why the followers are so easily enlisted in the cause and kept enlisted.

When children respond this way . . . they have little choice.
The loss is too much for a little child to bear.
But when adults respond this way,
in effect, they are using their power to defend against the loss.
In the case of the people in this month’s article, the people who have an early decision
There is no way for everyone to win . . .
they are using their power en masse
to defend, each of them, against the losses they experienced in their respective childhoods –
the losses that led them to decide
There is no way for everyone to win.

How crucial it is for each of us adults to do the inner work
to discover, heal, dissolve, and transform our early decisions
and feel the pain of the losses from long, long ago.
That way we will no longer need to use our power to defend against those losses.
Instead, we can use our power creatively and fruitfully for living fully today and tomorrow.

ABUSE OF POWER UNDER A GUISE . . . REVISITED

21Jun2010 By Judith Barr

This post is a follow-up to my previous post on this subject.

The man who was to be executed by a firing squad . . . was, in fact, executed.
The man who volunteered to be on the firing squad was one of five law enforcement officers on the firing squad.

Who can imagine this makes us feel safe?
Who can call our society civilized when such a thing could happen?
Who can imagine we are society of mature human beings if we can’t see through the guise?
Who can call us a society of healthy human beings if we can’t see through the guise?
The guise of justice covering abuse of power.
The guise of justice covering such deep wounding.

I posted a comment on a blog about the incident, and then went to read others’ posts to the blog.
My heart hurt so to read the responses. To see such hatred, rage, violence, and venom come from people
toward the man who had been executed . . . again under a guise. And toward other people who responded without hatred, rage, violence, and venom.

I wondered who from their own early lives they were transferring onto this man who was executed, and onto others.
I wondered about the abuse in their early lives . . .
the cruelty in their childhoods . . .
the punishments and other pain they suffered as children . . .
and under what guises?
Punishments that now they flung at others.
I wondered about the revenge someone took out on them during childhood,
revenge from a previous generation’s experiences of cruelty, hatred, punishment.

I wondered how to gather the help in larger numbers
so that together we can help to awaken and heal
our wounded, suffering, society.

Abuse of Power Under a Guise . . .

14Jun2010 By Judith Barr

This month, in a few days, the death penalty may be carried out in Utah by means of a firing squad.
In Utah . . . in the United States . . . in 2010!

A man who volunteered to be on the firing squad, who has been on a firing squad before, and is currently a law enforcement officer in Utah . . . spoke to CNN* about the use of firing squads for death penalty cases, and about his experience of being on a firing squad.

Here are some of the things he said:

“How often does this come along? 100 percent justice.”
“The process is instantaneous and carried out with the utmost professionalism.”
“It was anti-climactic. Another day at the office.”
“I’ve shot squirrels I’ve felt worse about.”
“There’s (sic) just some people we need to kick off the planet.”
“The death penalty is nothing more than sending a defective product back to the manufacturer. Let him fix it.”

Does it take your breath away to hear this? It does mine. Does it break your heart to hear this? It does mine. Imagine!

The abuse of power often takes place under a guise . . .
under the guise of taking care of people,
under the guise of helping people,
under the guise of serving people,
under the guise of justice. **

I urge you to see through the guises . . .
so you aren’t abused under a guise,
so you don’t collude with someone under a guise,
so you don’t remain passive in the face of a guise.

And here, in the form of a firing squad, is a guise for sure.
100% justice . . . that’s the guise.
The signs of the guise . . . what the law enforcement officer said:
“Another day at the office.”
“I’ve shot squirrels I’ve felt worse about,”
“There’s (sic) just some people we need to kick off the planet.”
“The death penalty is nothing more than sending a defective product back to the manufacturer. Let him fix it.”

If you experience being on a firing squad and shooting someone to death as “another day at the office,” you are numbed out and your heart is hardened and closed . . . abuse of power under the guise of professionalism and objectivity.
If you feel worse about squirrels you’ve shot than a human being, you are so disconnected from and misusing your feelings . . . which feeds the abuse of power you are committing.
If you have decided some people need to be kicked off the planet and set yourself up to participate in deciding who and how . . . you are not valuing human life and you are revealing your commitment to destroying what you don’t value. And kicking someone off the planet is abuse of power no matter how you describe it.
If you have decided “the death penalty is . . . sending a defective product back to the manufacturer,” you are abusing power under the guise of a belief and relationship with God.

We need to understand this. We need to know it, hear it, see it, and feel it.
We need to not be fooled by the guise that attempts to justify or hide abuse of power.
We need to understand this and not be fooled by the guise that attempts to justify or hide abuse of power anywhere – including in the bedroom, the living room, the classroom, the boardroom, the legislative halls, and the halls of justice.

* https://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/09/utah.firing.squad/index.html?hpt=C1

** In my book, Power Abused, Power Healed, I state:

“Every form of power can be used well or misused.
“The law has been used to manipulate as well as to serve justice. Parenthood has been used as a means of captivity, and it has been used to nourish a soul, helping it grow into fullness. Sexuality has been used as a weapon to rape and dominate, as a substitute for unmet childhood bonding and physical touch, and as an exquisite sacred expression of love and union.
“Even God’s name has been used both to destroy and to heal. Christian Inquisitors burned midwives at the stake; zealots have committed acts of violence all over the world in the name of religion. In contrast, people of many religions pray for peace; practitioners all over the world speak different names for God as they lay hands on suffering bodies to touch hearts and souls and restore them to health.”

Congress – America’s Biggest Dysfunctional Family

25Feb2010 By Judith Barr

Congress doesn’t work anymore because it is like a dysfunctional family.

A family in which there is a string of successive fathers, who try to do something for the family -to make it like they want it – while bringing their own wounds and dysfunctions to the group. A family in which there is no mother at the head of the family. Where did she go? Who took her? Who got rid of her? Where in the world is she? Her absence leaving the dysfunction that comes of abandonment. Even if she was barred from the family.

A family in which the siblings have learned to fight with each other . . . some of them while pretending they’re not fighting; some of them under the guise of friendship; some of them fighting in public view while being close in private; some of them trying to win; some of them trying to make the others fail; some of them fighting to the death, albeit figurative death . . . to date. None of them seeing what they are doing to each other. All of them blind and uncaring about what they are doing to the family. Fighting for what they want . . . the family be damned! The consequences be damned!

And that’s what our members of Congress are doing. They’re acting like the children in a horribly dysfunctional family. They’re in adult bodies. Some of them even have adult personas. But some of them, many of them, looking and acting like children right out in full view. Meanwhile they are all (or almost all) regressed children . . . as young as the age at which they were wounded in their own early lives. We have regressed, wounded children running our Senate. We have regressed and wounded children attempting to do the business of our House. We have regressed and wounded children claiming to lead our country.

When we are wounded as children, we get stuck at that age, that point in time, that developmental level. We may grow around the wound, but the wound is left there in the center. We may create defenses that help us seem to develop around the wound, but the defenses don’t dissolve the wound. Until we actually heal the wound, we will consistently, under stress, regress back to the level of that small child — mentally, emotionally, in some ways even physically.

No amount of bandaids will heal the wound. No quick fixes, no matter how simple or how sophisticated, will heal the wound. No amount of managing of behavior, thoughts, or feelings will heal the wound and help the development to continue. The dysfunction will continue, even expand and escalate . . . until we heal the wound to its root.

Our Congress is a dysfunctional family. A family of wounded children. The family needs therapy . . . both as a family and every member of the family.

But…is it just our Congress that’s a dysfunctional family?

Judith Barr

Mysteries of Life

psychology of leadership