Out of Balance.
I find myself out of balance these days.
Life on a global scale has been at a pressing standstill. Our lives are held hostage by a medical pandemic. In the face of this we have also been made to grapple with issues of social strife coming from recurring social tragedies; civilian victims of police responding, highlighting longstanding history of systemic racism and racial tensions in our nation.
These circumstances seem to have only further exacerbated the entrenched divisiveness that has characterized us in these recent years.
Maybe it’s the constant newsfeed. Not just articles, but the images and videos emitting endlessly from these glowing screens.
Mind-numbing voyeurism. That disturbing video played on loop. The senseless snuffing out of a human life in what should have been a routine police encounter, under the stubborn knee of an officer, sworn to an oath to serve and protect. The cries for justice. The shared anguish. The rhetorical bickering. The compulsory destruction of communities. Months of protests behind fabric masks, and amidst fears of a mysterious invisible virus.
Black Lives Matter! Blue Lives Matter!
All Lives Matter! No Lives Matter!
Support the Police!
De-fund the Police!
ACAB!
Then another publicized death. And another. A man shot seven times in front of his children. Another video on loop. More anguish. More compulsory destruction of communities. More unrest. Protestors and Militia. A 17 year old armed youth, pacing through the streets. Smiling. Waving at the police. More shooting. More death. More videos playing on loop. Endless rhetoric. Those shared stories, told and spun an infinite number of ways. The videos everyone sees, and that everyone sees differently. Collective trauma, over and over, unifying and dividing us, ad nauseam.
We make fumbling attempts to understand this, to communicate about it - always hearing about it - always blocking it out. Always talking about it. Always feeling compelled to avoid talking about it. The exhausting back and forths. Needing to be heard, and needing to defend. But in the end, the tragedy only seems to repeat itself.
Is the record stuck?
Is this thing on repeat?
Yes, I am out of balance these days. But frankly, so are you.
We so desperately need each other, but can’t stand each other.
Does this ring a bell?
We ARE facing a new reiteration of some old story. These are sins of heritage, old and familiar. Yet our mode of engagement around them has evolved. As have our defense mechanisms.
We are made to reconcile ourselves with this existence, and are called to consider how we can strive to be healthy in the midst of this.
In case you haven’t come to the conclusion yet on your own, this isn’t going to be easy.
Triggered.
In the face of perceived injustices, our thoughts betray us.
“He is a victim of the system!”
“The officer was only doing his job!”
“Cops don’t care about minorities!”
“If he didn't resist, he wouldn’t have been killed!”
These are ready-made responses that many of us have thought internally or have heard coming
out of the mouths of others. How much these things really tell us about the current circumstanceor simply reflect existing biases of the individual, is not readily easy to discern. It is defense of the self, ultimately, that gets triggered when the rights and lives of others are violated.
In our sedentary consumption of endless news, social media, and video content, we open
ourselves up the suffering of the world and to injustices that occur involving others. With no
way to objectively contextualize the information we take in from this constant feed, we find
ourselves hopelessly self-involved in the news we read.
We personalize the information that we are taking in.
And how can we not? The things that we are taking in involve real people, and offer real
implications for our own lives. If justice and order is breached out there, how can that not
affect me here and now? Also, the things that happen to others, conjure up memories. In our private consumption of media, we find ourselves coming to terms with whatever past injustices and grievances that we can draw from in understanding the current circumstance.
In these scenarios, our own world-views and experiences hold the current situation in the sway.
Consequently, we seek for things to be resolved out there, as a means to establish closure or
resolution for our own private experiences.
But this is a reversal of what is required in any true form of justice, as it makes the situations
that actually involve other people, somehow only about ourselves. The details of any event that
get filtered and distorted through our own wounded psychology, and set the stage for the
perpetuation of further injustices upon others. In our efforts to right the wrongs that have been
perpetrated upon us in the lives of others, all too often only end up being displaced upon another person in the end.
This is where we are at currently, locked in a pained and futile culture clash, privately harboring distinct “injustices” that have been transposed upon an increasingly turbulent world.
Thoughts of Justice. Thoughts of Healing.
“From the point of view of nature, man is an inferior being. But this inferiority with which he is afflicted, and of which he becomes aware through a feeling of deprivation and insecurity, acts as a continuous stimulus to find a way of adjusting, of providing, of creating situations in which the disadvantages of his position seem compensated. Since society played an essential part in this striving for adaptation, the psychological organ had to reckon with the conditions of society. All it’s abilities are developed on a basis which embodies the component of a social life. Every human thought has to be so constituted that it could do justice to a community*”
Alfred Adler, on the necessity of communal life
(*bold font added)
Alfred Adler had a clear appreciation for our social embeddedness as humans. As the above
quote suggests, our “psychological organ” evolved to bestow us with social capacities that
were necessary for healthy social living. Our social structures could thereby be viewed both as
an outcrop of our organic evolution, as well as a necessary component of it.
For Adler, it was of a biological imperative that we should evolve a favorable orientation towards
society, and to the concerns and needs of others. As such, this time of crisis also offers us a
true moment of opportunity.
The stage is set for us to be able to extend ourselves beyond our private logic and habits of
group think, towards the shared conditions that affect us all and our common sense.
As we hear again the rightful cries for Social Justice, I am struck by how radical Adler’s notions
around this matter were in his time, and how useful his views are in allowing us to find new
balance through this very endeavor.
Individual Psychology was itself a fundamentally contextual society. Nobody knew better than
Adler just how impactful the social context was upon the individual. However, whereas today
the emphasis of social justice tends to be upon the effect of the society upon the individual, to
Adler’s way of thinking, the very thoughts of the Individual that were to be directed eternally
toward the service and cause of social justice (“justice to a community”) and the individual was a vehicle of social justice (or injustice).
In this way, we are not only to be champions of social justice, but we are called to be stewards!
For Adler, the promotion of justice to the community was called to conscript our every thoughts
so as to direct our action.
Effectively, this tempers our drive to act out in the direction of social justice, and calls upon us
first to conduct a deeper inventory of our very thoughts and sentiments, so that our actions are
of actual benefit to society.What is remarkable about this psychology, is that it is the pursuit of social justice itself that leads
us out of our own subjective distress, as it offers us a means to advance the needs and rights of others in the end.
If I am to bring healing and justice to the world, first I need to find it in my own life.
Moving Forward
Forward and Outward Thinking
Our social embeddedness as humans requires us to shift our thoughts from being about
ourselves only, to being also about others. Justice, and social justice in particular,
requires this outward movement to prevent us from being trapped in t he echo-chamber of
our own private experiences.
Any manner of of social progress will also require us to move forward in time, away from the
wounded past and towards a preferable future. Although the past provides us a vantage point
of the world, it only serves us well when we can learn how not to repeat it.
Empathic movement
empathic sensitivities require that we can also be moved by the needs of others, emotionally.
This is a necessary precursor to any healing that can occur in the community, allowing for us
to experience the feelings of others and to allow ourselves to act in outward response to these
needs.
Action (Social Impact)
our thoughts towards Social Justice, our means of measuring our success lies in the impact
upon others and the world in general, not upon our internal feelings or private appraisals of our
actions.
Being able to empathically understand another’s experience, allows us to effectively impact upon their experience in a manner that is consistent with our true intent. This requires us to “see through the eyes of the other”, and not to revert to our own private assessment of what others should think or feel about our actions.
Whereas some may seek to heal themselves by healing the community, Adler’s radical
This necessitates that we can move past our own internal struggles, and to grow beyond the broken templates of past experience. Call it "trauma" or "emotional baggage", the fact is this gets in our way of being able to see the world and others as they are.
For some of us, this may require real work. Perhaps even treatment. But once we find
ourselves no longer triggered by circumstances in the world, it provides ourselves a chance to leave our past behind, and to emerge on the other side where we are able to assess circumstances in a new way.
Physical Movement out into the world
Movement also pertains to our level of activity in solving problems and in addressing concerns.
Physical activity is often a component of mental health treatment, with physical movement
stimulating movement and growth in other areas of life, also.
In the similar way, by physically getting out into the world and partaking in work at the community
level, it moves us from the “sedentary consumer” role (seeking our information to "take in" or
"ingest") and places us in active engagement in a world of others, where we can grow through mutual exchange and impact.
Social Movements
Through entering into the world with others we develop greater social connectivity. This requires a capacity to truly work with others, and to allow ourselves to listen and bear out the truths and experiences of others.
In hearing others, we identity shared stories, and become affirmed in our own experiences. This in turn provides clarity regarding the validity of existing social conditions and realities that confront us. As multiple people come together in addressing and understanding different aspects of shared struggles, social change becomes achievable through cooperative movement.
Movement towards the other
Finally, through joining together with others that share our struggle, we gain the courage and
strength to address those that may see things different, those who have a fundamentally
different societal perspective than we do.This final step of the process is perhaps the most risky,
however also allows for the greatest potential for community healing in the end.
As long as these entities are viewed as “enemies” and viewed as the source of the injustice
itself, further engagement with the group may prove to be only more toxic and traumatizing.
Certainly, there are circumstances where the brokers of injustice need to be overcome through
shared efforts, and replaced or removed all together.
However, frequently these entities end up being components of society that will be necessary in
partnering with in order for social justice to be truly achieved.
Court systems, schools, and police systems are some of the systems that will likely be
necessary in partnering with in situations in which social injustices are perpetuated by these
systems. Rather than moving against these systems, we will be required always to partner
with them, and to align the systems with shared goals and objectives. In this last phase, we evolve from moving against to a movement towards the other.
The realization that we are out of balance, offers the first opportunity to get back into balance.
Yes, these have been some difficult months. But as we consider what it will take to heal our
communities, we embrace the necessity for us to be ready and willing to move forward,
together.
The call for Social Justice is, in actuality, a perennial concern. Regardless of the day, year, or
decade, examples of injustice will continue to be perpetuated through our social systems which
will never be perfect. However, the preponderance of examples of injustice followed by social
upheaval and discord, provide a us moment in time for us to come together to consider what
we mean by Social Justice, and how we can pursue it together.
Save the date
May 27-29th, 2021, Milwaukee Affiliate for Social Living (MASL) will serve as local host to the
North American Society for Adlerian Psychology (NASAP) annual conference. We will be using this conference as an opportunity to consider the issue of Social Justice at this point in
history. The theme of the conference is Social Justice: Community Healing Through
Movement.
This year, the conference will be in a hybrid form, with the in person portion taking place and
Milwaukee’s Historic Pfister Hotel.
We are seeking presentation proposals with themes on Social Justice from clinicians, treatment
providers, researchers, community activists, and related professionals. Proposals are due
December 1st, follow this link for more information.
We are also looking for people interest in participating as volunteers for the conference! We are
needing help with registration, room monitors, and the NASAP bookstore.
Follow this link to volunteer and get a day of participation, free of charge.
Please, consider joining us in May for the 69th Annual NASAP Conference, either in person
(pandemic pending) or online. We look to have you with us, as we look toward a future of
justice, healing, and forward movement.
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