Editorial

Howard Kogan, MSW, Executive Director

Howard Kogan, MSW, has been affiliated with the Training Institute for more than thirty years.

iving as we do in an increasingly complex and artificial society, it is easy to forget we are still very much part of the natural world. We, like every other living organism, evolved in a particular context and our development as well as many aspects of the self reflects our evolutionary history. We are mammalian primates and share ninety-eight percent of our genes with our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. That is not surprise to many, but did you know we also share twenty-eight percent of our genes with the banana plant. That is how deeply we are a part of the natural world.

Although humans have evolved over four million years, our own species-Homo sapiens-is estimated to be only 200,000 years old. Not that evolution was about us: we are a recent product of evolution-not the goal of it. The point is that while cultural evolution can happen very fast, the organism (humans) it is operating “on” or “with” already comes with significant 'hard-wiring'. It is in the context of this evolutionary makeup that we might consider our needs and practices.

For example, like other mammalian primates, we have extended, dependent childhoods, are members of a small, stable group/family, and are in (more or less) continual contact with other members of this group. Each group remains together over time, and exhibits some form of aggressiveness (or wariness) to other groups when they encounter them. The 'us and them' distinction seems part of their evolutionary hard wiring, and as a result it requires thoughtfulness (the use of considerable intellect) to overcome it.

For a small group primate, such as chimpanzees and humans, the worst circumstance is to be alone-and probably the next worse is to be among strangers. It creates great anxiety and fear and, if it persists, often leads to odd and self-injurious behavior. Isn't isolation, whether socially- or self-induced, also the root cause of so much human unhappiness and emotional stress? From this perspective, we should be paying more attention to loneliness as a cause as well as a consequence of emotional problems. In addition, the common practice of an 'away from the family' workplace (factory or office)-a feature of Western societies since the Industrial Revolution-could also be seen as an underlying source of stress. And just as the underlying motivation for shopping can be attributed to the evolutionary hunter/gatherer impulse, isn't the widespread popularity of cell phones just an attempt to restore a feeling of connectedness to our group? Isn't it, despite all the magic of the technology involved, simply a way of feeling a little less lonely as we wander about in an increasingly vast and alien world?

Something to think about as we sit with our patients and ourselves; who are we, where do we come from, and what do we really need?