“The United Kingdom Has Gone Mad”

This was the heading of an article written about Brexit for the New York Times by Thomas L Friedman on April 12^th 2019. In this article Mr Friedman writes about the agonising and incomprehensible act of self-harm the UK is currently hell bent on enacting. It is an excellent piece of journalism and I want to use his heading to think, from a psychoanalytic view, why his title it is so apt.

I, like so many others, was moved to tears as I watched one of the D-Day remembrance ceremonies that took place at Ver-Sur-Mer on June 6^th. The only politicians present at this particular event were Theresa May and Emanuel Macron.

Of course I felt sad for the huge loss of lives, but it was the warmth of President Macron’s address and Theresa May’s response that moved me to tears. Why? Because after three years of hearing nothing but divisive rhetoric and hostility between the general public, politicians and journalists, these two leaders were acknowledging the enormous value of co-operation, compassion and love.

For so long our country has been revelling in hate and division. Manipulated by politicians for their own ends, we have been driven to a primitive state. Whipped up to believe that the world only operates in a binary way, the pull to join one side or the other of the Brexit argument is irresistible, as is the delightful feeling of being right while all the others are wrong.

No wonder those who have the temerity to suggest we compromise and come to some sort of mediated agreement are relegated to the periphery of the debate. Who wants reasonableness when we have been encouraged, indeed given permission, to be vitriolic and hate filled.

It is natural for an infant to be in, what is called later in life, a paranoid state. Natural to project his feelings onto his mother and, when he does so, to see her as two separate people. When he hates her, she is the wicked stepmother, when he loves her, she is the good fairy. In healthy development this state doesn’t dominate for long. With the help of loving parents the infant comes to realise that love and hate can be experienced in the same mind and often at the same time. He comes to realise that life isn’t binary and, in embracing a mature state of mind, recognises that other people who are separate from him with different ideas, are neither monsters nor angels.

But Mr Friedman is right, as a nation we have gone mad when it comes to Brexit. That is to say that we have regressed to a primitive and paranoid way of being, operating from a none thinking state that simply sees anyone who sees things differently to us as deluded.

I passionately want to remain in the EU. I like the philosophy of integration and believe the move away from isolation towards co-operation is a progressive step and evolutionary step. I shout and scream at the television when, it seems to me, only Leavers are asked their opinion and I have experienced levels of hatred towards my countrymen over the past three years that I didn’t believe I possessed. As I write this piece I am literally in two minds, the one that knows without a shadow of a doubt that the way forward is to remain in the EU and reform it - and my psychotherapeutic self who knows that there is another way of thinking that should be respected, listened to and thought about. But that is the trouble with this situation; there is NO thinking going on and anyone who dares to suggest we do so gets shouted down as a traitor, as betraying democracy and the will of the people.

Thinking is hard work, it means bringing together two different ideas out of which a third, creative idea can emerge. It means giving up the belief that you are right and that anyone who thinks differently to you is an idiot. It means giving up that delicious feeling of belonging to the good tribe, which only exists because of the hated other tribe. It is very hard to give up certainty - I find it so - but there is also a wonderful sigh of existential relief when I experience, as I did when watching the D Day ceremony, my connection with the rest of humanity.

I expect it is the connection we all need to find if we are to stop going mad and become sane again.

Pauline Hodson, Oxford, UK

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

pauline.hodson@btconnect.com

The Business of Therapy

14^th June 2019 – The Guardian
Therapy to get us thinking again

For three years, the UK has been revelling in hate and division, says Pauline Hodson, and individual therapy for aspiring politicians could create new insights and awareness, says Elizabeth Adalian. Meanwhile, some responsibility for the toxicity of politics must surely lie with electors, says Pamela Davies

Those, like Rory Stewart, who have the temerity to suggest we compromise, are relegated to the periphery of the debate,’ says Pauline Hodson. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

George Monbiot writes that “psychotherapy would take the toxicity out of politics (Journal, 12 June). He says: “Almost everywhere we see the externalisation of psychic wounds or deficits” and that Sigmund Freud claimed “groups take on the personality of their leader”.

For three years, the UK has been revelling in hate and division. We have been whipped up by politicians to believe the world only operates in a binary way – the pull to join one side or the other of the Brexit argument has been irresistible, as has the delightful feeling of being right while all the others are wrong.

No wonder those, like Rory Stewart, who have the temerity to suggest we compromise and come to some sort of mediated agreement, are relegated to the periphery of the debate. Who wants reasonableness when we have been encouraged by our leaders to be extreme.

As a nation we have gone mad when it comes to Brexit. That is to say that we have regressed to a primitive and paranoid state.

We refuse to think, and simply see anyone who views things differently as deluded. Thinking is hard work. It means bringing together two different ideas out of which a third, creative, idea can emerge. It means giving up the belief that you are right and that anyone who thinks differently is an idiot. It means giving up that delicious feeling of belonging to the good tribe that only exists because of the hated other tribe.

But didn’t these tribes come together briefly when we watched the D-day ceremonies; didn’t we feel for a day connected to the rest of humanity; and isn’t that the connection we all need to find if we are to become sane again?
Pauline Hodson
(Psychoanalytic psychotherapist), Oxford

Sign up to our Brexit weekly briefing

• The quote from the article – “For some people it is easier to command a nation and to inflict terrible suffering than to process their own trauma and pain” – reminds me of a seminal book on the subject I read many years ago called The Drama of Being a Child, by Alice Miller. In fact, the imprint of the traumatic effects of the primal years led me to write a book, Touching Base With Trauma: Reaching Across the Generations.

****** 25th June 2019

Subject: RE: Did I send you this already?