Social dysmorphia – becoming what they say you are

Among the many contentious ideas and concepts in psychotherapy is a particularly tricky concept called projective identification. At least, it’s been made out to be a particularly tricky concept; I’m not so sure that it is. Considering the phenomenon the concept is meant to describe, there is a great irony for me in the contention [...]

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What is the purpose of emotion?

It seems to me that there is a bizarre fascination in our current age of explaining present day behaviour by reference to a wholly imagined pre-historic past. Considering the hyper-adaptability of human beings to present situations, it strikes me as odd that one would attempt to explain current behaviour as an evolutionary adaptation to an [...]

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Weeping for Narcissus: a review of Black Swan

I recently saw Black Swan, the much acclaimed thriller starring Natalie Portman as a ballerina whose sense of self undergoes a dramatic collapse under the pressure of her elevation to prima donna in a production of Swan Lake. Overall, I will be looking at the film as an interesting portrayal of a young woman driven [...]

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