Professional Papers

I shall be arguing that the very mechanisms that enable the development of the conscious, cognitive, self-reflective mind in human beings which, in turn, enable us to face reality (Freud’s Reality Principle) also provide the templates that achieve a denial of reality. To do this I shall describe those mechanisms and how they can be corrupted. I shall further argue that, when they are perverted to deny reality, this is always in the service of an unconscious belief. I shall use adolescence as an example of how such unconscious beliefs, embedded in social media and aimed at enticing vulnerable adolescents into internet silos, destroy normal adolescent development. Finally, I shall link this to the social and political phenomenon of the primacy of individual rights over any care or concern for others. I shall use the current assault of female identity as an example of this.