In These Times: Speaking for the mind ITT Mind

Racism is a psychological problem. It has been failed by the law, education, history and culture studies in stopping violence, hate and aggression towards different ethnic groups.


Previn Karian highlights the stuckness of racism in colonial history alone. It results in white shaming which guarantees the white backlash of nationalist populism and fascism seen in the US and Europe.


Karian turns to Freud's group psychology to explain the origins of group hate which is the psychological root of racism, and to John Stuart Mill for fundamental principles of free speech and hate speech that are currently confused in democracies. For Karian, "we are all racists" living in what he calls "multicultural hate" .


Listen to the full analysis here. A late tribute to the work of Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa.


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It's not about weight loss. It's not about body dysmorphia. It's not about relapses. What are the psychological roots of the anorectic?


Previn Karian discusses the structures of mind that lead to the prevalence of anorexia in young girls and women. What is required is an emotional space where the anorectic can begin to connect with their feelings. This can be a surprise.


Whilst anorexia is a protest against something in the family system, it conflicts with a deep love of the family. Self-persecution through food phobia, the dominant emotion of fear, the need to be invisible yet wanting to be seen, the relentless logic of torment, are all explained by Karian as the emotional chaos in the anorexia world.


Karian illuminates how talking therapies help the anorectic client to give their feelings a voice, make sense of the persecution from parents, peers or society, and connect with their own feelings, their own will, their own desires and their own mind.


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Female hate crimes, humiliation, harassment, degradation, rape and murder have been celebrated in cultures and religions for centuries as the acceptable norm. The idea that this might be wrong is a modern one. Hence the word: "misogyny".


Previn Karian discusses the psychological origins of men's hatred of women in the profound inferiority of the male brain structure as it cannot relate to life (birth) or pleasure (erotic zones). Like no other animal on the planet, the male brain obsessively destroys its own kind and kinship group, but especially women.


This bio-wiring is a psychological sickness implanted in all "civilisations". The failure to understand this has resulted in the failure of laws and even feminism to dent male aggression and its specific targeting of women.


This discussion is a necessary starter on the psychological origins of men's hate and fear of women. Until men confront their own darkness and shadow between themselves, there can be no progress in clearing out the roots of misogyny.


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Soaring energy prices and cost of living are driving millions into financial stress. This in turn leads to depression.


As the house of cards starts falling down, the human response is to bury your head in the sand, hoping it will all go away while the problems get bigger, more urgent, and more legally threatening.


Enter the Citizens Advice Bureau. Benefits Advisor Zoe Blyth is one of many at CAB who have taken on numerous cases of extreme financial distress - AND WON!


Her work is sensitive, compassionate, understanding and legally informed. Chrissie Pollard interviews Zoe on a wide range of cases that CAB can take on to help you get out of menacing financial debts.


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Susie Orbach is an iconic psychotherapist in the women's movement, author of insightful and bestseller books, co-founder of Women's Therapy Centres in London and New York, and therapist to the late Princess Diana.


Chrissie Pollard interviews Orbach, asking what has changed for women from past movements to present social realities.


With a subtle yet powerful aura and precision, Orbach highlights key themes of "internalised misogyny", the self-degrading and self-attack of women learned from male social structures and male social behaviour. Women are still subject to these external forces mentally and emotionally. The rise of the independent woman created pressures to be there for everyone except themselves.


But Orbach sees these forces acted out more and more in our bodies - something she intuited in the early 80s with her Fat Is a Feminist Issue book. Her other concern is the mental vulnerability of young generations who grow up and live in nothing but the internet. Bodies and minds now seek out groups to share their misery and alienation, becoming more divided from others as they do so.


Whilst great progress has been made for women to be recognised as equal human beings, there is still a long way to go. Women may be good at listening to others. Orbach urges them to listen to themselves, and to trust and enjoy doing so.


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What makes secure parents and parenting? How can parents reduce pressure, tensions and conflicts with constantly changing needs of children?


Chrissie Pollard interviews co-founder and psychotherapist Previn Karian on the application of Attachment Theory to parent-infant, parent-child and parent-teenager relationships.


Breaking through the "parent power" delusion that "I know MY child", and giving up this god-like position, Karian outlines how parents can understand different stages of child development. A-Theory concepts of "attunement", "secure base", "emotional contact" and the ebb and flow of dependence-independence, are discussed. They provide a psychological response to parental pressures and breaking points.


Princess Diana's way of holding children in the gaze of the cameras as she gazed at a starving child illustrate the fundamentals of the parent-child bonding. Parenting is a psychological task, and children hunger for a psychological relationship and understanding with their parents.


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