In the recently published draft findings of the Nyberg Commission of Investigation into the Irish banking crisis among the listed causes were ‘group think’ and a ‘herd instinct.’ To say that the narcissism, betrayal of trust, the greed, avarice, profit-targeted fixated mentality, the depersonalisation of both employees and customers, secretiveness and unethical behaviour can be explained by an unsubstantiated phenomenon as ‘herd instinct’ is seriously worrying. I need to inquire of the investigators of the worst recession that Ireland has experienced: ‘how did they come to such a conclusion, and, even more especially, how does one change ‘herd instinct?’ At some level – conscious or unconscious – this is a whitewash – a covering up of the true reality of what happened – that it was individual bankers who perpetrated the disastrous responses that led to the recession.
Read moreFamilies are for Children, not for Adults
A family is the collective context wherein children are reared. When a couple do not have children their coupledom is termed a marriage or a partnership, not a family. When children reach adult age – eighteen years – they need to ‘fly the nest’ and become their own person, independent and responsible for their own lives. Flying the nest is primarily an emotional leave-taking of the family, not a purely physical one. Nowadays, because of economic circumstances, many young adults remain on in the home of their parents, but it is the nature of that residing that requires examination. Eighteen year olds and upwards do not need to be parented; when they allow that they stay in a co-dependent place with their parents and, often with brothers and sisters as well. The young adult may complain that it would upset his parents were he to assert his independence and the right to take responsibility for his own life. The reality is that unless he separates he may remain enmeshed with his parents for the rest of his life or may eventually leave the house in a rebellious storm of protest and blame his parents for his unhappy state, sometimes never to return.
Read moreThere are no Dysfunctional Families
I recall when I wrote the book The Power of ‘Negative’ Thinking in 1996 several journalists interviewed me and, subsequently wrote articles on the theme of the book and my own personal experiences as a child, teenager and adult. Following such publications a number of individuals whom I vaguely knew approached me and exclaimed: ‘I never knew you came from a dysfunctional family’. Regrettably, at the time I was not quick enough to do two things: one, to assert that in my view there is no such phenomenon as a dysfunctional family and, two, to return the statement to the person who said it: ‘how is it that you need to make such a comment?’
Read moreFinding the ‘Right’ Leader
Traditional psychiatry classifies people’s different troubling behaviours under ‘personality disorders’ – especially those that don’t have specific symptoms like depression, anxiety, delusions, paranoia, hallucinations and substance addictions. According to these psychiatric classifications there are eleven personality disorders. What appears to be alarming is the research finding that three of these so called personality disorders are more common in managers than in criminals! The research was carried out by Belinda Board and Katrina Fritzon of Surrey University. The three psychiatric conditions identified were:
- Compulsive Personality Disorder (perfectionism, excessive devotion to work, rigidity, stubbornness and dictatorial tendencies)
- Histrionic Personality Disorder (superficial charm, insincerity, egocentricity and manipulativeness)
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder (grandiosity, lack of empathy, exploitativeness and pseudo-independence
When the Bottom Falls out of Our World
There is a central human experience that will rock us to our core and that each of us will eventually face. We don’t acknowledge it and rarely talk about it. Because of its threatening nature we distance ourselves from it by being busy with the affairs of relationships, work, education, food, pleasure and status. The experience is best termed existential despair and can happen when all the props that have supported our life collapse unexpectedly. Suddenly, the meaning our life had up to this point in time is no longer enough and it ceases to be meaningful. Previous to this moment of our world collapsing, in order to feel secure, we may have relied on success, achievement, wealth, power, status, being the bread winner, being loved or loving others. But now it all seems empty, meaningless and we wonder why have we being doing all of this and how was it that we were so blinded not to see that all of these pursuits were illusory and provided no absolute meaning?
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