Biographical Sources of Aggression
Psychodynamic theories attempt to explain the specifically human aggression as a reaction to frustration, abuse, and lack of love in infancy and childhood. However, explanations of this kind fall painfully short of accounting for extreme forms of individual violence, such as serial murders of the Boston Strangler and Geoffrey Dahmer or the indiscriminate multiple killing of the “running amok” type. Current psychodynamic and psychosocial theories are even less convincing when it comes to bestial acts committed by entire groups, like the Sharon Tate murders or atrocities that occur during prison uprisings. They fail completely when it comes to mass societal phenomena that involve entire nations, such as Nazism, Communism, bloody wars, revolutions, genocide, and concentration camps.
In the last several decades, psychedelic research and deep experiential psychotherapies have been able to throw much light on the problem of human aggression. This work has revealed that the roots of this problematic and dangerous aspect of human nature are much deeper and more formidable than traditional psychology ever imagined. However, this work has also discovered extremely effective approaches that have the potential to neutralize and transform these violent elements in human personality. In addition, these observations indicate that malignant aggression does not reflect true human nature. It is connected with a domain of unconscious dynamics that separates us from our deeper identity. When we reach the transpersonal realms that lie beyond this screen, we realize that our true nature is divine rather than bestial.
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