Mind Matters—Reflecting on SocIety

Posted by Dr. Kayta Gajdos on August 3, 2011

As I was driving last week, I caught the news on the radio that there had been a bombing in Oslo, Norway of a government building. The reporter presumed with no evidence, that the perpetrator of this crime must indeed be a Muslim jihadist-terrorist. I immediately, as I am wont to do, yelled back at my dashboard, “No! This sounds like a white, right-wing extremist to me.” This same man, Anders Behring Breivik, soon after the explosion, massacred children and families at a summer camp.

Once the murderer was identified, no one called him a terrorist, but a lone madman. He may have acted alone, but his profoundly disturbed thinking arises from a milieu of fear and hatred that spews forth from many a media personality as well as from a certain “genre” (that nomenclature is undeserved) of writers—some of whom even purport to be Christian.

Steig Larsson, the author of the Swedish trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being the first and whose Swedish title was Men Who Hate Women), was an investigative reporter who knew full well the dangers of the fascist far right. In uncovering the schemes of the right wing white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Scandinavia, his life was threatened many times.

Some may ask why am I writing about this in a column devoted to psychology? Well, I think that these events are exactly what need to be faced psychologically. We delude ourselves if we think what happens on a societal level here or elsewhere doesn’t matter. The irony is that we are, time and again, fed bread and circus moments that may, at first, appear to be attending to the bigger picture: Casey Anthony, case in point—a tragic story, yes; but one that reeked of the “quality” of gossip and deflected many of us from more pressing matters. Or maybe the media deflects us to Octomoms and Casey Anthonys for the very same reason that Breivik killed so many.

Whoa, you say, how dare I make such a leap! There appears to me to be an insidious disdain for women who don’t fit the mold. I am not proclaiming Casey Anthony’s guilt or innocence. But why did her case make national news? Why did Octomom hit the headlines? When women get out of line there is the lunge for the lynching. I just began reading Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. This author notes how Cleopatra has been vilified by men for centuries as a seditious, seductive slut. In fact, she was a brilliant and complex leader. There is a patriarchal undertow to how women have been treated for thousands of years.

Note that Breivik castigated women: in his 1,500 page manifesto, he decried the feminist movement for leading us into the multiculturalism that would be the downfall of the white male. Fortunately, not every man (white, or otherwise) who longs for the continuance of the patriarchy’s stronghold is prone to violence.

However, when we wish to keep others down or persist in thinking that any “race” (a bogus genetic issue anyway: there is more genetic difference within a given “race” that there is between “races”) is better than any other, or that men are of a superior gender, we do engender violence.

And so, in the long run, it is not about male or female, color or colorless! Every man carries the female hormone, estrogen, and every woman, the male hormone testosterone. That biological fact correlates with the great psychiatrist Carl Jung’s view that within every man lies a feminine aspect of soul, and within every woman, lies a masculine aspect of soul. When an individual is balanced, the contra-sexual aspects are acknowledged.

Across the globe, women must be respected, of course. But even beyond that, the feminine principle that balances patriarchal dominance and aggression must find its rightful place. The “feminine” principle refers to care, compassion, collaboration, common good. Wouldn’t those qualities have helped Congress? Wouldn’t those qualities have removed the gun from Breivik’s hand?

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or (610)388-2888. Past columns are posted towww.drgajdos.com.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.