Inner Conflict - Reconciling your feminine and masculine side

Jungian school of psychoanalyses theorises human beings unconcious (the one we are unaware of) is constantly at conflict with itself. Men have a feminine side repressed so often that this conflict spews forth and can be seen as the basis for a lot of mental illness (sensetive men are viewed by society as being weak). Jung termed this the anima side of the man, in women the masculine side was termed animus. The modern male, the stereotypical metrosexual is more at ease with his feminine side, dressing in a way that for years would be typed as an effeminate quality, these men are much more at ease with themselves. Gay men I would theorise myself from experience have a much harder time of this one side enslaves itself to stereotype of campness and the other side jumps into this extreme macho butchness role. All of this representative of an inner conflict . It was an internal struggle for me personally for quite a long time but now I do believe Im at peace in terms of this conflict. Are fellow PW users aware of their opposing side? Do they believe it exists? Do they act on it? Are they comfortable with it?

Psychology of Identity and Nationalism

Identity is a key cornerstone of any person and forms a central part in helping a person to place themselves in society. People will ask who they are from the time they are very young and will take on various cultural aspects to their psyche that they use to create an identity.

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/ouco...36&section=1.1


We choose to identify with a particular identity or group. Sometimes we have more choice than others. This chunk will address the relative importance of structures, the forces beyond our control which shape our identities, and agency, the degree of control which we ourselves can exert over who we are. 

although as individuals we have to take up identities actively, those identities are necessarily the product of the society in which we live and our relationship with others.

This brings me to the question how does nationalism and identity fit in together? Notions such as borders and countries create a shared and common collective conciousness and invariably this leads to the banding of people together from everyone such as travellers to Irish nationalists to loyalists, from Dubliners to country people, identity creates these groups with common bonds. Nationalism stems from one group with a collective conciousness that want to control for themselves as a group . These groups are more than likely to work together to compromise for the best deal for themselves as a group rather than individuals.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...e-do-they-come


 The research on cultural differences in thinking suggests that the patterns of differences that have been found are related to the distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures. That is, members of collectivist cultures tend to exhibit behaviors like being likely to compromise and for their memory for objects to be influenced by context. Members of individualist cultures show a preference for one side or the other of a debate rather than compromise, and their memory tends to be uninfluenced by culture.

Regarding the issue in Belfast with the British flag over city hall and Unionists feeling aggreived at it it only being flown 15 days of the year, are nationalists and unionists collectivist cultural groups or individualistic? The Alliance party put forward a motion to keep the butchers apron flying a few days a year while one side of the argument seemed to react in extremis nearly storming city hall. SF the Guardian seems to think that this is some sort of passive move to split the Unionist identity and perhaps make them lose confidence in Unionism:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...flag-loyalists





Sinn Fein's desire to see the union flag removed from the city hall may not be written into its manifesto – but it is abundantly clear in its passive-aggressive politicking that this is an orchestrated tactic. The message is obvious: destroy unionist and loyalist confidence and the rest will follow. In fact, the message hasn't changed that much since the summer of 1971, when the then Sinn Fein president Ruairi O'Bradaigh claimed: "We're on a high road to freedom, and what we need to do now is to rock Stormont and to keep it rocking until Stormont comes down."


Through manipulation of identity on a psychological level a lot of parties are building their support by telling people they must pledge allegience to either one side of the argument or another. As per Sideys "Im either Irish or Im not" rhetoric it fails to take into account that there are numerous grey areas in between . Some of us may see ourselves as being European , some of us may simply see ourselves as being part of humanity or some us are just simple products of a capitalist regime .

Psychological Conditions - Dissociative Identity Disorder

In the series Lie to Me, a psychologist and his team are tasked with finding out people who are lying and getting the truth from them. In one particular episode a person is brought to their attention whom has Dissociative Identity Disorder in which the person is manifested with two or more personalities as distinct from having one which would be par for the norm in a lot of cases . The sympthoms of the disorder are behaviours outside what other people are aware of and the absence of alcohol, drugs and the lack of financial motive (pretending to be someone else for financial gain). There is no known cause of the disorder but one theory claims that it is from therapists using memory regression in order to gain memories from a childhood where alot of this would occur. A malfunction in the brain causes the child to disassociate himself from his old self thereby creating two identities for himself and a facade of sort.

More info on it can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissoci...ntity_disorder

This would go a long way towards explaining things like demonic posession or other similar situations where the person claims that they are occupied by more than one personality. The following case study shows the trauma that was suffered by a particular victim called Paula. Having suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her parents, she formed a number of identites to protect her self.

http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/schmidt1.htm




It wasn’t until over a year later that Dr. Harpin was able to officially diagnose Paula with dissociative identity disorder. Dr. Harpin had just concluded a hypnosis session in an effort to help Paula regain her memory from one of her episodes of amnesia when Paula complained of an intense headache. Suddenly Paula seemed very disoriented. She did not know where she was, but she claimed that her name was Sherry and that she was thirty years old. It was later discovered in therapy that "Sherry" was created in order to protect Paula from suffering from the emotional trauma of her father’s sexual assaults

The Irish Psyche at the moment...

My finger tips just wanted me to write this piece at this moment in time, so Im satisfying that urge. Various things have struck me over the last few months about the mental well being of our nation, its soul, its spirit. Captain Con's recent thread on Irish forum politicalworld.org on the Irish mindset (http://www.politicalworld.org/showth...ht=clandestine) provides a useful tool to how we Irish think but what about this current moment in time? With Croke Park coming to and end and a second bailout possibly needed, the whole psychology of Irish people is going to change. 


We are, for a lot us, Celtic cubs, we became accustomed to a certain way of life and now we find we don't have the material possessions around us we find ourselves becoming more and more dissatisfied as we do not know any other way to live our life . Material objects that once satisfied a craving are now replaced by despondent people looking for their next hit much like a junkie should he crave his heroin. The flash cars have gone back and the four bedroomed houses have gone back to the banks and people are left with nothing which marks them out as being what they were, rich, middle class and "look what I have and what you cannot afford". Second houses, holidays to the US for two weeks and the Beamer are all in the past now but those cravings still remain.


It pains me to bang on and on about the apathy that people have. They have literally being raped by the banks for everything that they own while the rich upper class dance away in their ivory towers in tax free havens. People though lack any sort of passion that once made Ireland what it was . The money that was their drug having been whipped from underneath them as it was about to put the barmans college or up their nose instead is now being handed back to Merkel. They stay in their little two bedroom matchboxes on some half finished pyrite infested estate on a suburb far flung from Dublin getting upset , not because they are broke, not because they were victims of being raped by the rich but because they did not see their favourite singer get through X Factor. Apathy descends on these households, Troika to them is some new holiday destination in Spain for all they care.


Imagine being in a box, with steel doors that wont open and a feeling of general anxiety that surrounds you. You have limited oxygen, food and other things at your disposal , what do you do? You suffer anxiety, clawing and scaping at the door. Its more or less akin to being buried alive. This is what a lot of young families are suffering after watching their father or mother lose the jobs , the homes , the cuts in welfare. A feeling of hoplessness drifts in to people, they see no way out excpet a six foot wooden shiny box that slowly descends into the cold ground of an island they once loved.


The sheer frustration felt by people coupled with the above just makes us more and more tired, downtrodden as a nation. We feel frustrated by our lack of opportunity. 


All is not lost though, just as pandora's box was said to contain all the evil and fears of the world , the Greek gods knowing man was curious put one thing in it, hope. It would act as a defence against all the bad qualities humanity would inflict on one and other . That is what it is important for people to understand, we have a hope of sorts. Admist all the squabbling, the finances, the banks , the despair. We have one thing....each other. Lets not forget that we need to keep hope, for the Irish psyche has taken quite a battering but lets not lose our faith in one and other.....