If psychics could consistently predict the future with a more than 50% accuracy rate it stands to reason you would have a lot of extremely wealthy psychics walking around. But it is the business and the banking professionals that are currently harvesting our planetary wealth, not the psychics.

In understanding global affairs we may hold the same assumptions as held by many psychics: the common belief that the world mostly unfolds naturally, rather than being influenced dramatically by outside manipulative forces.  If you innocently believe the world unfolds rather than being significantly shaped by hidden agendas you will assume that all outcomes have an equal chance. You will strive to be fair in all your dealings. But the hidden manipulation of any event is not designed to be fair in return; if it is biased, if the game is rigged, then your innocence is being used against you.

And this is why I believe predictive psychic readings do not tend to be very helpful: the time line is constantly being changed and shifted, due to underlying agendas beyond our everyday awareness. Also, if you are organizing around a future event (the prediction) your energy will move away from the creative present moment and into the future. Your life will become future-orientated, not now-time-orientated.

Spotting patterns and trends is a powerful way to see how you are being used, manipulated, or “farmed” by another, or by a group or national energy field, and can lead you to begin to change the rules of the game to your benefit. It will help you to awaken to the truth of things, rather than continue to allow yourself to simply be a resource for others, often at great cost to your own needs.

To distinguish our Relational Energy Healing approach to psychic readings from other psychics I’ve renamed it as a Psychic Trend Analysis.

The Psychic Trend Analysis is about trend-spotting, not about psychic prediction. If we apply the three levels of the Astral world consciousness, and chakra and chakra cord functioning to an analysis of the existing patterns in our lives we can begin orientate ourselves in a new way. We can gain fresh insights into our lives.

Psychic Trends Analysis has three levels:

1 . At the Lower Astral level, trends follow the non-conscious unfolding of archetypal and primal energies running through your individual, family, and social templates. This is your personal energy system under the influence of Lower Astral energies.

2. Many current trends in our lives are made to occur, and follow a hidden agenda to actively change your life to be in service of the other. This is the realm of the Middle Astral: the manipulation of consciousness and events to produce a required outcome. Moving from innocent victim into informed adult shifts your life tremendously once manipulative trends are spotted. Any confidence trick will only work if you are unaware of it. Once awake and alerted, the con trick loses its power over you.

3. There are greater spiritual trends at work, possible best described as the higher spiritual perspective, those which can lead us towards greater evolution and spiritual growth. This is the influence of the Higher Astral.

Trending at the Lower Astral level is useful to us in our everyday lives, because it helps us place our lives in context, and orientates us towards getting the support we need, the relationships that need to change or grow, or to help us in move in a certain direction. For instance, if I consciously know I am in a contraction phase, where I am integrating and letting go of the past, I can actively participate by bringing my attention into letting go, and cleaning out my symbolic closet of all those things ready to be released from my life. Or, if I know I am in an expansion phase, and suddenly life is spontaneously full of wonderful opportunities, I can work extra hard to maximize that opening. Riding the wave of expansion will brings bounty and prosperity into my life, to balance the previous contraction wave.

Trending at the level of the Middle Astral is harder for the mind to grasp, because it requires a huge leap into the understanding that the world is not unfolding naturally; many events in the world are created, or contrived, with a dark agenda underlying them. A clear example of this is what has been termed disaster capitalism, where corporate interests swoop into a natural (or man-made) disaster, and take advantage of the trauma and disorientation of the local populace by buying up their resources, such as land or property (see Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”). Similarly, wars don’t just happen but are manufactured by the powerful groups running a country, and are usually triggered by a false-flag event to provide the excuse to attack another country so as to steal their resources. Anyone familiar with the tactics of the childhood schoolyard bully – who provokes you so as to give a “justified” response – will recognize this common trend pattern, even when applied at the global level.

At the Higher Astral level we have to look at long-term trends using the span of previous lifetimes. The context of this life-time as seen through the eyes of our soul growth may help an individual understand why they seem fated to move through specific experiences, and why they gain particular knowledge about themselves.

If we do a Psychic Trend Analysis of these three domains: Lower Astral trends (at the personal level), Middle Astral trends (what is being manipulated in us by others), and Higher Astral trends (incarnational events that reflect our evolutionary or spiritual growth).

In a 90-minute Psychic Trend Analysis Session we explore these three domains in your life, and look at where you are in regard to your life right now, and the Lower, Middle, and the Higher Astral. This should allow or help you to orientate yourself in a new way, and head in the right direction in your life. If we are lost all we need is a light, a compass, and a map. Then, we can begin to find our way home.

But most jelly fish – the nearest biological model for chakra cord structure – just don’t like it when you brush up against them in their natural environment. My arm now felt on fire, showing mottled red skin topped by a dangerous-looking welt. I momentarily considered returning to the mainland for treatment until a lifeguard ran over to help me, pulling an analgesic spray from his First Aid kit. He had watched many unlucky Westerners emerging from the ocean this week, grimacing. I did feel lucky that he had not offered me the local (and inexpensive) remedy for this kind of sting: fresh urine.

My body thankfully kicked into healing mode, responding to the pain with endorphins. But I also found myself dropping into an interesting state of consciousness around the injury. I wasn’t angry at the jelly fish (after all, I was the one invading his back yard, and not the other way around) and I was not in a life-threatening situation. But, it would have been human enough to blame the jelly fish for being bad, and to miss the obvious lesson: that life is a contact sport. We all play in the trenches of life, and we need to get our hands dirty. Being born human means learning to accept both pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort, as two sides of the same coin. When we organize our lives around seeking pleasure while resisting pain it can result in all sorts of imbalances in modern day life: from consumerism to various forms of addictions. We overly consume, I suspect, to avoid feeling emotionally empty, and to fill the emptiness with momentary pleasure. We blame, and get angry at those things that bring us pain, rather than to embrace the life energy that many painful events awaken in us.

One of the tenets of modern Western energy healing work is that, by exploring the issues around emotional pain, an understanding will naturally arise, and thus heal the discomfort. Once cured, we imagine we can again return to our usual pleasure-seeking ways. At least, that is, until the next misfortune befalls us, or an addiction returns to capture our attention. Of course, the problem will always return if the solution is never embraced. My solution? Shift from victim to spiritual seeker. Pain is not just misfortune; it can be an opportunity for personal development.

Since the Nineteen Sixties psychotherapy has merged with various forms of energy healing to offer a solution that is helpful and yet not fully curative: that awareness can lead to new behavior, or permanent change. While earlier forms of energy healing channeled Divine intervention and grace, or transmitted life-enhancing prana from healer to client, psychotherapy dips into a grab bag of vitally-useful research on what has been found to help, or heal, the human psyche.

But the merging of psychotherapy with energy healing does not always lead to an enhanced form of energy healing. The very act of closely dissecting or expressing any emotional issue usually results in energizing that issue within the client. Don’t get me wrong: I am not recommending denial here; I’m suggesting an adjustment in the application of psychotherapeutic methods when it is deliberately blended with the energy healing process. My point is to only use insight methods as but one avenue to gain access to the blockage or poorly-developed inner resource held within the client’s energy field. Then, quickly more towards energizing the solution, rather than obsessing about the problem itself. I suggest that we build more bridges and roads, rather than to excavate mostly for hidden ruins, many of which are lost from everyday consciousness.

I’m a big fan of psychotherapy, but its goals are not the driving force of my healing practice with my clients. I want to swim, not dig. I want my clients to evolve, not simply return to the status quo. The initial dialog with my client, prior to each distance healing session, is only for us to locate a relevant entry point into their issue … one that will build energy towards the solution, and not feed the “problem”. Since the problem is often a symptom of the mind’s preference for pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance, charging any issue with attention over time makes things worse, not better.

Now, placing my hand over my painful welt, I felt nothing but affection for my jelly fish mentor. I held my forearm carefully, in a place of acceptance for the sensitivity of my skin, as well as the reflexive defense of my tendrilled friend. He and I were in it together. The pain would soon subside, and both human and jelly fish would continue to go about their day, seeking nourishment from the ocean. I now need not avoid the ocean, so as to not experience this pain again. In sharing the world with other life forms in the universe there has to be a certain give-and-take… as well as making the choice to walk forward, on the road of life . If we only excavate the past, we will stay rooted in the past, and dominated by it. Let’s move forward, now, and towards freedom.

Similarly, we have chakra self-cords (internalized connections that help create our self identity) that anchor us to our inner energetic identity. In Relational Energy Healing the wiring of chakra cord connections (and our relational life that flows from these connections) also depends upon the Astral world: the fourth-dimensional reality that dances creatively with the material world. The fluid nature of the Astral energies balances the fixed layers of evolutionary progress hardwired into the chakra system. We see the Astral worlds as being essential to the creative expansion of the universe – and to we human beings – as it tirelessly creates novel ways to express reality, and to constantly challenge the consciousness held in our comparatively rigid and past-orientated chakra structures. The Astral modifies rigid structures of consciousness in order to evolve them.

Relational Energy Healing seeks to dance between these two expressions of the universal consciousness: structured relational energy connections (chakras and their cords), and the Astral energies that flow around them. Roots and wings are both needed for us to grow, and to heal our past wounds, or developmental challenges. This form of healing uses an evolving map of the chakra system that combines the wisdom of the East with important new developments in psycho-spiritual growth as taught in the West. It seeks to understand how consciousness grows through specific stages and states. And it looks to where any stage may be blocked, undeveloped, or traumatized, and where energy healing can effect a change. By clearing the auric energy system (including heritage/DNA cords, and past life trauma) of hindrances, or by “rebooting” any challenged state of consciousness development, Relational Energy Healing trusts that an individual can resume their impeded journey through life: to continue the evolution towards their true and authentic nature.

This system of energy healing seeks to re-initialize an individual’s chakra system, rather than to focus on solving any “problem”. It is not psychotherapy. It is a reflexive personal process system, as well as a trauma healing process. Our agenda is to orientate psychic healing work around the solution rather than the problem, in contrast with other healing systems that attempt to understand or to “process” an issue with a client. For Relational Energy Healing insight into any issue does not ultimately heal a client; it is only by clearing the hindrances in their blocked consciousness system that anything will significantly shift for them. Once this form of healing work has been applied our reward is to watch an individual move naturally into the next level of their personal or soul development. The human mind may later look back, to understand what has happened to them, but this is done from already standing in the place of change, rather than the position of hope. Insight without any real change only offers us unactivated potential; actual change presents us with a meaningful perspective, and adult choices. And, when we have a choice, we are free to evolve to the very limits of our creativity.

For instance, marriage ceremonies are a common initiation into the adult world. There are a series of invocations that culminate in the formation of a new state: the commitment of two individuals to share affection, resources, and to support each other. Ideally, such a ceremony brings together the aspirations of two people with the blessing of the community (wedding guests) and an officiating Ritual Elder (priest). Once the ceremony is over, the marriage begins. Actions follow, such as the creation of joint assets, learning to share money, and bringing children into the world. Each action brings its own challenges, but the end result should be a relational “container” where the needs of two people are supported, and personal development occurs.

Initiations are found throughout our lives, whether it is a graduation from college, a promotion to a leadership position in the workplace, or the creation of a work of art, the publishing of a book, or an athletic accomplishment. In the world of energy healing each practitioner must also move through a series of initiations that prepare them for the deeply soulful work of helping others. These specialized initiations follow the general theme outlined above but with one important addition: in order to take someone on a journey of self-discovery we have to have completed that journey ourselves. We mislead people when we attempt to initiate others into a container of growth that we have yet to complete for ourselves.

This is the Failed Initiation: where someone attempts to teach or mentor another in a process they, themselves, have not yet achieved. As Energy Healing is the transfer and interaction of one energy field (the healer) with another (the client) there can be important implications for any energy healer who has experienced a Failed Initiation. The issues of the healer’s failure  – whether a developmental challenge, an unhealed trauma from childhood, or an unresolved past-life pattern – are evoked within the container of their working relationship with a client. A client may be unable to complete their personal growth work if the Ritual Elder has not completed their own version of that growth.

There are several symptoms of energy healers acting as Ritual Elders for others, and who have suffered a Failed Initiation. The first symptom is a overwhelming yet unjustified sense of confidence in that healer’s abilities, despite a lack of mirrored success in the outside world. In other words, they become a legend in their own mind, rather than through actions that bring them verifiable results. Every initiated energy healer knows that the breadth of what they don’t know is staggering, and they are always seeking to gain new skills, new knowledge, and new insights in order to grow, and to improve themselves. A Ritual Elder who has experience a Failed Initiation rests confidently on the fruits of their past accomplishments, despite the flow of evolutionary progress going on around them.

The second symptom of the healer with a Failed Initiation is the hidden agenda. If I have any kind of plan for my client, if I try to mold my client into a form pleasing to my own world view, I am no longer functioning as a spiritual healer. I have become yet another force in the client’s life that seeks to use and exploit him. The initiated healer works to free the client of impediments to the flowering of the client’s personal development. The initiated healer’s only agenda must be to support the ultimate freedom of adult choice for their client.

Thirdly, a Failed Initiation healer recycles old material relentlessly: placing old wine in new bottles. In contrast, the initiated healer will attempt to flow with the Tao (to the best of their ability), to listen to the world around them, to track the hints of coming change emanating from the spiritual realms. Resting in the knowledge of the past, the initiated healer will move ever forward, into the future, and attempt to co-create new forms of healing work that address the needs of the modern individual.

To gain a successful initiation we must find an appropriate Ritual Elder who has successfully completed their initiation, follow the proscribed training, and be willing to drop through our conditioned preconceptions of the world into a deeper understanding of reality. Most importantly, we must choose to “take the drop”, or the fall from pride, by choosing to dissolve our old Egoic self via the initiation process. Our reward will be when the world appears to us new, because we, ourselves, have changed. When we find that we are no longer the same person who began the initiation process years ago.

But perhaps the most important end result of any successful initiation should be humility. This ancient virtue is what is gained by denying our self-importance as held in our Infant Mind (the Egoic self), and which allows us to accept what all initiates know to be true … that we are all only part of a vast movement of humans, only one of many who strive for healing, and for awakening. We are all in it together.

While energy healing should never be a replacement for psychotherapy many individuals find it a powerful adjunct to personal work, especially in healing a painful past. A psychic healer can step beyond the emotional or mental belief system of a client and help them see beneath the surface of their lives.

Much of popular psychotherapy makes three assumptions:

1. Authentic emotional expression helps release repressed feelings and beliefs;
2. Communication, and the empathic response by the other, can result in resolution;
3. Radical honesty (i.e., telling the truth at any cost) will somehow lead to an improved outcome.

In other words, the biblical pronouncement of “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32) is applied to psychological healing. But many healers have discovered that uncovering the repression of an emotion or belief system does not always bring effective healing and transformation into a client’s life. Yes, it helps a great deal, but it is not enough. The missing factor for clients is often the exploration of how hidden agendas may be affecting their situation.

Hidden agendas may run many of the psychological and emotional issues that we struggle with, either our internal beliefs (e.g., low self-esteem that sabotages growth) or external agendas that affect the natural development of our lives (usually through some form of trauma). While the dynamics between internal and external hidden agendas are different the result they give us is the same: the motives of any hidden agenda co-opt the client’s life energy. The hidden agenda essentially hijacks a client’s life force, leaving them subservient to something – or someone – else.

Both Shamanism and energy healing are familiar with this issue, often discovering lower astral influences running beneath the surface of the client’s personal process, or addressing a relational connection that must be removed before the client can move forward with their life. But it’s not all bad news. People find that the struggle to break free of hidden agendas brings the reward of inner growth. When you do escape from bondage, you become a stronger person.

Hidden agendas run rife in our modern societies, with their enormous social (and media-supported) emphasis in conforming to an orthodox world view where dissenters are labeled as either dangerous radicals, anarchists, or “conspiracy theorists”. Many of us are concerned that we are entering deeper into territory immortalized by George Orwell in his dystopian novel, 1984: a world of censorship where history is doctored, or manufactured, and where meaning is reversed while being treated as truth.

The Orwellian fantasy illuminates the core of many of our current social problems. The truth will not set you free if the information you believe to be true is distorted, manipulated, or incomplete. Only the hard, transformational work of searching for hidden agendas can ever hope to remove any toxic imprint forced (or foisted) upon us by others. Energy healing (and Shamanism) are important tools to reveal to us the true impact of unseen worlds, and to help us look with new eyes at our problems. We must come to see where others attempt to make us subservient to their goals, often causing us suffering, while they remain in hiding. We must, like Toto in The Wizard of Oz, get curious, and go over to take a look at the man behind the curtain.

But to excel at any profession we must undergo a training program, or improve upon our existing natural skills. Any good training process will do three things. One: teach us the different levels of healing – what it is, how it happens, and help us understand what will help a client. Two: gain an array of practical and effective tools – such as how to run various types of pranic energy, how to interact with the complex auric anatomy, how to remove the things that block a client’s progress, and much more. Three: we all need feedback and mentoring; an experienced guide that can point us in a constructive direction, provide us with training tools, and believe in our value when we become disheartened.

The best way to get Energy Healing training is to find a group or a class, and to have access to teaching aids, good lecturers, and practice clients. Of course, it is rare to find a good teacher close to home, and many of us have logged thousands of air miles in search of a good education. But if finances are tight, or getting time away from work or family obligations is difficult, there is another way to grow your experience and knowledge as a healer: Video Conference Tutoring. This personalized one-on-one training service is extremely cost-effective when compared to weekend/week-long training courses. Plus, you get individual attention from the teacher, and a series of sessions fine-tuned to your individual needs.

How does it work? First, download the free Skype software and link it up to a video cam and microphone on your computer. Broadband internet access is a must, of course. If you are interested in a trial session please email me with your questions. Currently, I’m running tutoring sessions at the same cost as my distance healing sessions. Let me know if you are looking for basic training, intermediate training, or advanced/post-Graduate training such as chakra cord work, or Astral healing skills. Now, no matter where you live, you can have access to advanced energy healing training in the comfort of your own home. How cool is that?

To read an example of a Video Conference Tutoring session follow this link.

Testimonials.

“Recently I began a series of video sessions on relational cord healing with Dean Ramsden.  Dean has a wealth of knowledge and expertise based on years of personal experience.  In his teaching through the video sessions there is a clarity and precision that comes through very effectively.  With this format I have enjoyed having the undivided attention of the teacher!  In addition the sessions are fun, as Dean has a wonderful sense of humor.  I can definitely recommend this method of learning to anyone wishing to learn more about relational cord healing.”
-H.L.S., Canada.

“As a practice client of my healer (see above) and as a non-computer person, this Skype session was a first for me but I felt completely safe, guided and connected to both healers: the student (my healer) and Dean Ramsden, the teacher.  Both healers were completely present for me during the session so that it became a profound, intimate and personal experience.  Dean’s honesty and authenticity were inspiring to me.  Dean demonstrated an ability to track my process in such a loving way, one that I, as a therapist, have not seen in many well-known therapists.  No nuance was lost as the session progressed.  Dean knows how much is enough.  As a result of this session of relational cord work, I was able to make a quantum shift and walked away feeling lighter, brighter, more clear and focused.  I would recommend Dean’s sessions on relational cord work to anyone.”
-A.M., Canada.

There is another tyranny of which to be cautious: scientific authoritarianism. The scientific expert, we are told, will tell us what is real over that which is primitive. The medical technician will tell us what medication we should take, not the shaman, or the wise woman. Herbal medicine is primitive, science tells us: take Prozac instead. Or Lipitor. We are encouraged to revere the scientist, despite knowing that the ability to create medical drugs or to manufacture advanced computer chips does not equate to an equivalent spiritual or moral development. We should always question any point of view that elevates the technician over the spiritual teacher, materialism over spiritualism, corporatism over tribalism. And, style over substance.

To train in depth to become a psychic helps release the grip of scientific imperialism on our lives, because the moment we deepen our connection to our soul nature we immediately realize we are, fundamentally, free. This realization alone takes us half-way to becoming a psychic human. The rest is just training and practice, done over time.

So, what are the steps to fully developing our psychic nature? If we have accepted that we have a soul, that others have a soul, and that our work on earth is to express our divine nature, how can we develop further?

In my view the first task is to begin to build increased awareness of yourself as an energy being. This does not imply any rejection of your physical nature, but does ask that you take on a physical and energetic personal practice that will charge – and clear – your energy body. Various styles of meditation, guided visualizations, yoga, and martial arts are examples of such private practices. The idea is to learn to shift from a body-centered awareness of self into the energy-body-centered awareness of our true nature.

Secondly, we must activate or further develop those aspects of our psychic nature that are the the building blocks of the psychic. Here’s a list of some essentials:

* Develop your intuition: learn to become aware of hidden forces, within and without.

* Track universal trends and adapt to these greater forces.

* Learn to shift and change habitual mental/emotional patterns in order to enhance your life.

* Commune with the spirit world, and build allies in the Astral realms.

* Gain awareness of the lower astral world and the ambivalent astral beings.

* Encourage the flow of prana between yourself and another, in either active or passive modes.

* Find teachers; put together a series of teacher-helpers who can activate your full potential.

* Release the bonds unconsciously dominating your life, and make new soul choices.

* Create a strong and healthy etheric double.

* Develop your inner eye: Agnya chakra.

* Draw upon the pre-existing wisdom of your soul: the Guru chakra.

* Develop discernment: learn where – and with whom- to invest your precious life force

* Find your life’s work in the world.

If this work interests you please join me on Monday February 9, at 9pm EST, for a teleclass exploring many of these important areas in your psychic development Each class will be a combination of lecture and exercise, as well as the opportunity to submit to me your personal questions and comments. As a bonus, you will be able to download a CD-quality archive recording of each hourly class, to review and practice the class exercises.

Parental Alienation Syndrom (PAS) is a painful condition I’ve experienced with my own children, and is an issue slowly making its way into public awareness. Parental alienation is considered a form of child abuse, deeply disturbing the emotional health of everyone affected by it. What is Parental Alienation Syndrome? It’s a disorder proposed by American psychiatrist Dr. Richard A. Gardner, who writes that it is “a disturbance in which children are obsessively preoccupied with depreciation and/or criticism of a parent. In other words, denigration that is unjustified and/or exaggerated.” The effects of one parent’s psychological warfare with their ex-spouse is played out in the lives of their children who often “choose” to reject or marginalize the victimized parent. The damage that can be done in turning children against a parent is often permanent, inflicting trauma on both the children and the victimized father.

Dr. Gardner also writes, “Many of these children proudly state that their decision to reject their fathers is their own. They deny any contribution from their mothers. And, the mothers often support this vehemently. In fact, the mothers will often state that they want the child to visit with the father and recognize the importance of such involvement, yet such a mother’s every act indicates otherwise.”

If you are a child of a family separated by divorce, and you were raised to believe your father (or mother) was always bad or wrong, or even potentially abusive, then you may be a victim of parental alienation. If you chose to reject your alienated parent, and no longer have them in your life, you may be unknowingly suffering from this socially-denied form of child abuse. While there are a small number of fathers who are recognizably abusive, many of them of good and loving men, and are damaged by PAS as are their children. Worn down by years of active – and passive – aggression and rejection by their children the heart-breaking result is often emotional capitulation, the acceptance that some things can never be changed. Many alienated fathers are shell-shocked and traumatized by years of ex-spousal abuse, and only a few will seek psychotherapy, or healing. Many fathers simply limp away, stoically shouldering their loss, traumatized for life as an unacknowledged victim of a hidden crime.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
-Goethe

]]> http://www.blog.deanramsden.com/emotional-slavery/feed/ 2 http://www.blog.deanramsden.com/transference-in-our-relationships/ http://www.blog.deanramsden.com/transference-in-our-relationships/#comments Mon, 05 May 2008 03:32:39 +0000 Dean Ramsden http://www.deanramsden.com/?p=33 One of the helpful concepts of mainstream psychotherapy is transference: the unconscious redirection of feelings from a childhood relationship to a current one. This knowledge is useful for Relational Energy Healing work because our focus is educating the infant mind (inner child) within us as part of improving all our personal relationships. Also, many of the spiritual ideals leading to gaining higher consciousness parallel this therapeutic education process of child becoming adult. It is an unrealistic fantasy that presupposes we can move from the infant self to a high level of soul awakening without first developing a functional adult self (see the extensive works of Ken Wilber). Despite being full of innocent promise, the infant mind is unprepared for the complexity and sophistication of the outer world. We must do inner – and relational – work in order to bridge our three inner psychic states of child, adult, and soul.

Transference is also where the infant mind within us projects or overlays infant-level needs and demands onto another person. Because the infant is natively narcissistic (self-orientated) rather than developmentally mutual (I/Thou orientated) it must attempt to force or seduce its will onto the mother (or “others” in the outside world) in order to survive. Two major strategies of the child consciousness are either assuming helpless cuteness (an evolutionary design to engage the mother and have her happily cooperate with the survival needs of the child) or the use of threats (tantrums, refusals to cooperate, withdrawal of love, etc). There are other strategies, of course, but it is seduction (“Give me what I want because I’m lovable.”) and coercion (“Give me what I want or you are in trouble.”) that are fundamental to the human psyche. Many of our adult actions with others are, in truth, actions taken by the infant within us, designed to seduce or impel the other to meet our real (or imagined) needs. Through these and other lenses the infant mind actively projects its survival strategies onto the other, with no regard for the psychic invasion that results.