Group Therapy on a National Scale

When I was a grad student many years ago, the crossroad of geography and psychology for me was the study of perception, both physical and behavioral. At that time, my studies applied to the individual. But I have always had a more than passing interest in perception and group behavior, the world of Marshall McLuhan, and marketing. The Islamofascist attack on the World Trade Center in February 1993 should have brought many aspects of those academic studies into focus. Both the Clinton administration and American media worked against that, and I waited until the 2001 disaster to be fully awakened.

In seeking answers to this dilemma facing the West, I was attracted to the sound reasoning of two pundits, both psychiatrists. One of them, Charles Krauthammer, is likely familiar to most of my readers. He has an ability to interpret the complexity of issues at hand and present them in sound bites appropriate to broadcast and mass market print media . The other doctor, blogging as Shrinkwrapped, also synthesizes the material well, but delves deep into the collective minds of the respective groups, explaining the how and why of the behaviors, and appropriate responses to them. Together, Krauthammer and Shrinkwrapped make for extraordinary reading at two levels. At this moment, the Gaza Strip conflict is the specimen in the lab, and Shrinkwrapped is writing a series on Hamas under the title, "Adolescence and Societies." Read it and you will have a better understanding why this and other radical Islamic conflicts present the West with a challenge it has not faced since the Battle of Vienna in 1683. If this battle is a new subject for you, your background reading begins here.