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Mega-fires, mega-denial

By Chris James - posted Wednesday, 25 February 2009


He goes on to say we can understand all “physical, biological, mental and cultural systems” by retracing our human evolutionary stages in the same way as we examine the cosmology of the universe. In other words, we can explore the brain in much the same way as the palaeontologist explores the fossils on a hillside. Each tells a unique story.

Roszak believes we readily accept the stages of evolution in the natural world but do not like to think of ourselves as primitive or childlike, but all the stages of evolution are actually represented in the gestation period and are built upon at birth. What Roszak is telling us is that we do not come into life as a beginning but as the culmination of all life that has gone before us and if we recognised this more fully we would maintain closer links with nature and not make so many catastrophic mistakes.

Roszak claims “ecopsychology” is one way in which we can make our previous life forms meaningful to our daily experience and he says we need to do this if we are to discover a sense of well being. To be clear, Roszak is not talking about a New Age belief in past lives passed through a single consciousness but a scientific formula for human development and progress. Another way of looking at this is to suggest that we have prioritised material progress and forgotten the value of self development; or “know thyself”. What we need is not more material “stuff” but therapy.

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The goal of therapy is to recover the repressed unconscious. Roszak tells us the goal of “ecopsychology” is to awaken the environmental elements that are dormant in the unconscious and/or to acknowledge the difference between the real self and the socially constructed self. That is, who we really are and who we imagine ourselves to be.

We used to understand the real self in religious terms as the soul or spirit. With the demise of religion these entities have disappeared from our vocabulary but Roszak believes they remain with us at a deeper level. Roszak contends the spirit, soul or what he terms, the “ecological unconscious” link us to a crucial stage in the child’s development and an “innately animalistic quality of experience”. He believes the main source of human dilemmas resides in the fact we are constantly searching for these lost entities - the lost spirit and/or the lost child - however one wishes to explain it.

When we come to know these entities Roszak believes we move towards an “ecological ego” and a sense of “ethical responsibility”. He believes that when people feel this move happening they engage in more traditional techniques of healing and they find ways of expressing a mysticism that has generally been expressed in religion and art. He says, these expressions help us to develop the “ecological ego” and this in turn changes the fabric of social relations. We also see changes in political decisions.

One important aspect of the new ecopsychology “is the re-evaluation of certain compulsively ‘masculine’ character traits that permeate our structures of political power and drive us to dominate nature”. In addressing this dominator behaviour “ecopsychology draws significantly on some [not all] of the insights of ecofeminism and feminist spirituality with a view to demystifying the sexual stereotypes”.

Roszak argues that attention needs to be given to the small scale social forms and personal empowerment. Large scale projects, he argues undermine the development of an “ecological ego” and the collective nature-based spiritual needs of the people. We must bring back the “synergy” in order to return to “sanity” and “salvation”. Roszak claims “ecopsychology is post-industrial but it is not anti-industrial in its social orientation”. The focus is on a “synergistic interplay between planetary and personal well being”. Or in other words “the needs of the planet are the needs of the person”.

I do not agree with everything Roszak has to offer but his ideas are worth consideration. Difficult times in history have always drawn the best of idealism, Roszak is no exception. We cannot turn the clock back and “small” is not necessarily good or ethical. However, today, we know a lot more about human behaviour than ever before. We know for instance that humans are on a path of self-annihilation and much of the cause sits with a lack of individual well being.

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As the former US Vice President Al Gore has said, “our society’s failure” [and the failure of our governments] “to seriously tackle the ecological crisis” is akin to a “dysfunctional family”. The crisis in nature is also a crisis in consciousness and it is not a move towards long term human survival. We must do something to change this situation.

In the wake of the devastation across Victoria there has been a lot of emotional outpouring from survivors and the public, to which the politicians have had to respond. There has also been some anger and opportunism.

Governments have a wonderful capacity for hope but they are not so good at formulating long term sustainable policy. The rational responses have been few and the willingness to look at the bigger issues of a global ecological crisis has been, generally speaking, negligible. What will it take for governments to have an honest look at the issues of denial, responsibility and inertia and begin the real work of a lasting recovery for humans and for the planet?

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About the Author

Dr Chris James is an artist, writer, researcher and psychotherapist. She lives on a property in regional Victoria and lectures on psychotherapeutic communities and eco-development. Her web site is www.transpersonaljourneys.com.

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