Preface
It is a great honour to be asked to pen a short preface for the latest publication
written by the distinguished child psychiatrist and dear friend of mine, Dr Veysi
Ceri. His latest work arrives at a point in history that both Ibn Khaldun and
Machiavelli would describe as at ‘an end of an age’. Our age began in the 16th
century and it is commonly referred to as modernity.
Over the last 250 years of our age, man has gradually been in the process of
destroying the natural world with the mindset that he has to dominate it for
the purpose of profit. This has resulted in the poisoning of the seas, the soil,
the air and the animal kingdom. Man has not only destroyed our natural world,
he has also destroyed the socio-political world that we, as human beings,
function within. As a consequence the modern state, once driven by politics in
consultation with the citizen body for the protection of our civil liberties , has
been replaced by the driving force of capitalist economics. Which has, not only
curtailed our civil liberties but has also reduced the human being to a ‘thing’ to
be administered in the new modern state for the purpose of maximising the
most amount of profit for the supra-national corporations-webbed-to-finance
that have hijacked it.
The capitalist technocratic state has not only led to why some have more and
others less, but also why so few people now have stable lives and a sense of
well-being; why so many have to scramble for precarious work, juggling
multiple jobs with fewer rights, protections, and benefits, while going heavily
into debt. But that is not all. Equally fundamental questions surround the
deepening stresses on family life: why and how the pressures of paid work and
debt are altering the conditions of childrearing, eldercare, household relations,
and community bonds – the entire organisation of social reproduction.
Capitalism has, in short, become an entire system that has shaped our culture,
family dynamics, right through to the individual unconscious. Therefore, it is a
major contributing factor to the increase in anxiety, depression, ADHD,
schizophrenia, addictions and an array of associated mental disorders.
The family is a social witness to society. Therefore, what we are witnessing
today is the destructive effects it has had on childrearing, and the transition of
of the child to adolescence.
We know from ancient and modern research that the child inherits not only the
physical attributes and characteristics of the parents but also memories and
feelings the child’s parents or grandparents had experienced in their own
lifetimes. These memories and feelings could determine the child’s future
without the child being aware of it. If those memories and feelings were
traumatic or full of complexes they could torment the child’s present. This type
of imposition from our past has to be made conscious in the child’s lifetime in
order for him or her to live an overall balanced and fulfilled life.
The imposition of the past on the present, coupled with the imposition of how
we should live our lives from the modern capitalist state, its culture, education
and work place has forged the modern human being into an ‘Broken image’ or
in the words of Dr Ronald Laing, ‘the divided self’.
Dr Veysi’s latest publication has come as a rescue for the human being. His
work focuses on the early development of the human being, its first years in
this world. Dr Veysi’s guiding principles are for parents who wish to rear and
encourage the child’s identity to be balanced and wholesome. This will allow
the child to be ontologically secure and cultivate its own flourishing. And, allow
it to handle the vicissitudes of life with knowledge and wisdom.
It was the British author, William Wordsworth, who said "The child is the father
of the man”. Dr Veysi’s text is an important manual for the rearing of that man
and woman from birth - therefore for the health and vitality of our society.
Zulfiqar Awan
Director, Human Lifelong Learning
Istanbul, 2020