Accordingly, the chapter explains why the sick behaviour of individuals can be a reflection not of chemical imbalances or dysfunctional childhoods, but of the degree of sickness prevailing in any given society. It argues further that the negation of universal human needs such as creativity, sociality and autonomy generates alienation in its technical sense, giving rise in turn to all manner of relational disturbances. The chapter maintains that the cultivation of hope, which, like all other emotions can be approached intersubjectively, depends on our capacity for recognising and responding to the psychological and material needs of our fellow South Africans.

No matter their theoretical orientation, when psychotherapists receive therapists with warmth and humanness, it is aimed at restoring a sense of connectedness and, by extension, faith in the human family. To have this basic intuition of one’s relatedness to other people - however tenuous - is to know on an almost visceral level what it means to be human.

Yet, when we reflect on the previous chapters, each of the core concepts - shame, envy and impasse - stand for a psychological state, or emotion, that involves a pathology of relatedness. The shameful person cannot tolerate - let alone respect - their own wound, so they inflict wounds on others. The envious person cannot accept their dependency, so they destroy the only source of goodness in their life. And the person who finds themselves at an impasse is incapable of authentic human relating unless the relationship in question is defined by a degrading form of power. It is my submission that these are the dominant emotional tones of life in South Africa.

Sometimes a complex that shows itself as a personality problem is resolved into a spiritual dedication much greater in scope. The solution is the enlargement and perfecting of a small personal issue into a serious contribution to society.

Rule Number Two: some things have to be healed. When people gather, there are many emotional wounds caught up in the discussion of social issues. You can see the pain on people’s faces as they desperately argue on behalf of their own needs and beliefs. It’s difficult to sustain a creative and happy society when the need for therapy is so strong and when little therapy is being offered.

It also helps to have a big vision of your work. You can raise humanity up to a new level of ethical sensitivity. You can help people become more self-contained and purposeful. You can assist people so that they won’t be acting out so much in their everyday lives. You can find the roots of rage and anger and ease jealousies. You could find ways to make your understandings more public and therefore socially therapeutic. You could see yourself, without egotism, as a therapist for the world.