Our Country Needs Family Therapy

Usually my prayers are personal petitions–peace and happiness and guidance and health for myself and loved ones; sunshine on the weekend; that sort of thing. Last night I prayed for the lost souls of South Carolina and for our country’s long-delayed evolution. We think we can ignore our racial wounds. Yet if Freud has taught us anything it’s that what happens in a family affects every generation to come until deep-level healing takes place. On a cultural scale, this is what we are dealing with when it comes to our shameful history of slavery. The terrorism of this week reminds us once again that a profound national self-reckoning is required if black Americans are ever to live safely on any level in this country. I send love to every one of us because that’s the only place to start.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy