Dangerous Margins: Recovering the Stem Cells of the Psyche

Abstract

The dual problem addressed here is the increasing egocentric individualism in the Western world and the blind avoidance of facing the ecological crisis. This article uses ecosystemic thinking to explore the margins of our collective predicament. It posits a critical phase transition in the co-evolution of humans and the other-than-human world that constellates a rite of passage. While telling a story, it utilises story as both the conveyor of past constraints and the creative medium of transformation. This transformation entails loosening our attachment to conscious control and judgement and instead re-visioning problems as adaptations to an emergent paradigm including the need for self-regulation. The story entails an evolutionary trajectory that revisits our marginalised dangerous potency and challenges us to a reciprocal relationship with the other-than-human. It draws implications for both psychotherapeutic practice and for our responsibility to the ecosystems of our planet. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.