What if the deepest engine of group conflict is not fanaticism or tribalism, but a mistake in how we see ourselves and our “worlds”?

Falling on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and in the year of America’s 250th anniversary, Scott Gibbs draws from his new book, Toward the Turning: Rethinking the Meaning of 9/11, the Clash of Civilizations, and a Postmodern World, in a quest to find the deeper source of group conflict. Using 9/11 and the “War on Terror” as a touchstone, examined through an existential lens, he will explore the dynamics of identity—national, religious, political—and identification, and discuss how our sense of self narrows, hardens, and intensifies, particularly under threat, and how we try to make our “worlds” follow suit; how groups become locked in self-reinforcing “deadly dances” feeding off and into these self and social extremes; and how these dynamics ultimately rest on a misapprehension.

This is the fifth year of an ongoing seminar exploring how philosophical ideas can deepen, challenge, and enrich clinical practice. The seminar is grounded in the conviction that psychotherapy is not only a clinical endeavor but also a profoundly human one, raising questions about understanding, suffering, ethics, relationship, and the nature of experience itself. This year participants will read two thought-provoking texts.