“Protecting our Humanity in the midst of Tribal Warfare: Thoughts for our Time”
Presented by Maxine Anderson MD
In these turbulent times, it is easy to surrender our quiet spacious thought for the excitement and often-delicious outrage emanating from polarized, tribal convictions. Significantly, the allure of such reversion involves descent from our humane toward our inhumane level of experience. This talk will explore the dynamics of this descent and emphasize the protective factors, which re-establish the links with our humanity and its quiet, open-minded thinking.
Dr. Maxine Anderson is a TA/SA with SPSI and NPSI and the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. This talk draws upon ideas put forth in her most recent book From Tribal Division to Welcoming Inclusion (2019) Routledge.
“Whose Humanity do we Protect?: Love, Lore, and Law”
Discussant: Stan Case LCSW, PhD
Our humanity helps us find the high road, but we easily fall into ruts. The in-group, digging in, dirties the out-group. Our love, lore, and laws–the high ground of our humanity–can erode when we retrench rather than rethink. Recent developmental studies add gravity to Dr. Anderson’s profound reflections on our turbulent times and her road map for restoring our humanity.
Stan Case is a TA/SA with SPSI and NPSI. He practices in Edmonds, where he works with adults and children.
Learning Objectives
As a result of attending this presentation, participants will be able to:
- have an appreciation of the allure toward tribal functioning
- describe the qualities of mind which constitute our humanity and contrast them with those which comprise our inhumanity
- cite internal and external ‘guard rails’ which may protect or re-establish one’s link with open-minded thought.
