The difficulty is that she used her philosophy and the attention it attracted to justify her excesses of self aggrandisment and selfish behaviour.  Her’s was the philosophy of the narcissist.  Rand opposed every grouping that was not hers.  There had only ever been three great philosophers; the three A’s, Aristotle, Aquinas and Ayn Rand.  Her followers were disciples of a personality cult. 

Ayn was a formidable personality.  The film of the same name focussed on her love affair with the young Nathaniel Brandon, who together with his wife Barbara, had fallen under Ayn’s spell while callow psychology students.  Nathan was in thrall with Ayn and she soon exploited his infatuation to seduce him, but she insisted that they inform their partners and limit their relationship to a year, a strategy Ayn justified philosophically.  Of course,  it went wrong.  Barbara, not long married to Nathan, was deeply unhappy and found somebody else.  Nathan tired of Ayn’s demands and in turn exploited one of his own students.  When Ayn discovered this ‘infidelity’, she was furious.  How dare anybody betray her?   She slapped him across the face and excommunicated him from the Ayn Rand foundation;  assuring him that he could be nothing without her.

Ayn was so fascinating because she was so dangerous and forthright.  She demanded absolute devotion and control.  Hyperbolic and emotional, she possessed the passion of the hysteric.  She held her disciples in a vice-like grip of life and death; such was the unyielding power of her personality.  She could be effusive and kind to those who worshipped her, but woe betide anybody who ignored or betrayed her.   And her disregard for society was ruthless and uncompromising.  ”What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?”  

 Ayn, was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum in St Petersburg  and grew up during the revolution,  escaping to America in 1931.   The alienation of the Russian jew,  the insecurity and danger of the civil war, the mobile allegiances, escape to a foreign culture; all of these had implanted a backbone of steel;  the single-minded self-centered determination of a remarkable survivor.  Her philosophy emanated from a unique and unusual experience.  It is worth studying as an idiosyncratic social commentary, but so dangerous to adopt as a template for western society. 

But I wonder how much influence she has had.  Doesn’t her attitude justify the narcissistic culture and the decline in community and society over the last 50 years.   Hasn’t ‘because you’re worth it’ has become the catch phrase for the material meaninglessness of a generation?

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There was George W. Bush, the rich privileged son of a previous senator and president, the playboy, the drunkard, the ne’er-do-well, who went into politics by default.  He was governor of Texas for a time but really didn’t have to do very much.  He went into the presidential race with no experience in national government whatsoever. He might have been a quiet reflective president who slipped into the job and worked well with people, but I doubt it.  He was too much of a maverick, too much of a loner; he wanted to be a hero too much.  He was dangerously out of his depth, reliant on the same hawkish advisers that his father had when he was in power.

Then there was Blair.  Again, not a committed politician.  As a student, he was an actor.  He performed in a rock band, he enjoyed the limelight.  The law initially gave him his theatre; he could master a brief quickly and deliver the essence of it with skill and eloquence.  When Blair entered politics, he found his true vocation.  He had great appeal.  He could dress something up as if it was brand new and exciting.  He introduced the concept of New Labour.  He was the man of action and change, a complete contrast to John Major’s grey man.

Then there was God.  George W. had found God during a visit to Billy Graham in the 1980s.  From that moment he realised that God had singled him out to be President.  It was God who suggested he send  troops into Afghanistan.  It was God who commanded him to send troops into Iraq.  But this was introjection;  George W had assumed messianic qualities.  “It wasn’t me Guv, it was God.  He commanded me to do it”. 

Tony Blair was more reserved about his religious convictions.  But like Bush, he was born again.  He was an Anglican who became a Catholic.  He was convinced of the moral righteousness of war in Iraq.  It was his duty to get rid of evil dictators whenever he met them.  Again, one wonders why he didn’t attempt to do anything against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.  But with God on his side, how could his troops fail? 

Then there was 9/11.  The sense of outrage was felt throughout the American continent and around the world; George W. had to do something.  So he declared war – war against terror!   Blair was much better with words than Bush was.  He became Bush’s  PR manager.  They convinced each other they could conquer the world.  They were a hubristic duo, both convinced of their moral rectitude. They didn’t listen to counter arguments. They disparaged those who opposed them, even those in their own governments.  Blair disbanded the cabinet government and set up his own foreign affairs and defence departments within Number 10.  His foreign minister, Jack Straw, was side lined.  Blair wanted his place in history and so did Bush.  So they ignored international law and opinion.    

The war went as predicted.  It was over in about 6 days.  Saddam Hussein went into hiding, but was eventually caught and assassinated.  Bush went on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of California wearing a flying jacket and was photographed with the words ‘Mission Accomplished’ emblazoned on the bulkhead behind him.  But they both failed to plan for the peace. 

There was widespread looting and destruction. The lawlessness went on for several years and engaged hundreds of thousands of troops at great expense to both countries.  But the American provisional governor had disbanded  the Iraqi army and police force and isolated the more reasonable elements that might form a new government.  The Americans and their British allies knew best.

The Hubris Syndrome; Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power was written by David Owen, the former  British foreign secretary in 2007 and published by Politico’s.

They were made for each other,  weren’t they?  Not so much a marriage made in heaven as an accident waiting to happen. 

There was George W. Bush, the rich privileged son of a previous senator and president, the playboy, the drunkard, the ne’er-do-well, who went into politics by default.  He was governor of Texas for a time but really didn’t have to do very much.  He went into the presidential race with no experience in national government whatsoever. He might have been a quiet reflective president who slipped into the job and worked well with people, but I doubt it.  He was too much of a maverick, too much of a loner; he wanted to be a hero too much.  He was dangerously out of his depth, reliant on the same hawkish advisers that his father had when he was in power.

Then there was Blair.  Again, not a committed politician.  As a student, he was an actor.  He performed in a rock band, he enjoyed the limelight.  The law initially gave him his theatre; he could master a brief quickly and deliver the essence of it with skill and eloquence.  When Blair entered politics, he found his true vocation.  He had great appeal.  He could dress something up as if it was brand new and exciting.  He introduced the concept of New Labour.  He was the man of action and change, a complete contrast to John Major’s grey man.

Then there was God.  George W. had found God during a visit to Billy Graham in the 1980s.  From that moment he realised that God had singled him out to be President.  It was God who suggested he send  troops into Afghanistan.  It was God who commanded him to send troops into Iraq.  But this was introjection;  George W had assumed messianic qualities.  “It wasn’t me Guv, it was God.  He commanded me to do it”. 

Tony Blair was more reserved about his religious convictions.  But like Bush, he was born again.  He was an Anglican who became a Catholic.  He was convinced of the moral righteousness of war in Iraq.  It was his duty to get rid of evil dictators whenever he met them.  Again, one wonders why he didn’t attempt to do anything against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.  But with God on his side, how could his troops fail? 

Then there was 9/11.  The sense of outrage was felt throughout the American continent and around the world; George W. had to do something.  So he declared war – war against terror!   Blair was much better with words than Bush was.  He became Bush’s  PR manager.  They convinced each other they could conquer the world.  They were a hubristic duo, both convinced of their moral rectitude. They didn’t listen to counter arguments. They disparaged those who opposed them, even those in their own governments.  Blair disbanded the cabinet government and set up his own foreign affairs and defence departments within Number 10.  His foreign minister, Jack Straw, was side lined.  Blair wanted his place in history and so did Bush.  So they ignored international law and opinion.    

The war went as predicted.  It was over in about 6 days.  Saddam Hussein went into hiding, but was eventually caught and assassinated.  Bush went on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of California wearing a flying jacket and was photographed with the words ‘Mission Accomplished’ emblazoned on the bulkhead behind him.  But they both failed to plan for the peace. 

There was widespread looting and destruction. The lawlessness went on for several years and engaged hundreds of thousands of troops at great expense to both countries.  But the American provisional governor had disbanded  the Iraqi army and police force and isolated the more reasonable elements that might form a new government.  The Americans and their British allies knew best.

The Hubris Syndrome; Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power was written by David Owen, the former  British foreign secretary in 2007 and published by Politico’s.

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But for the young, a week can last forever.  Remember how we measured our age in fractions of years.  ‘I’m seven and a quarter’, I’d reply if asked.  And that 13 weeks I boarded at school felt like 13 years.  Mathematicians have suggested that our perception of time is relative to the duration of life.  A year is 10% of our life when we are 10, but only 1% when we are 100. 

Personal time is perceived according to what new happens.  For children, the milestones are much closer. Their days are so packed with novelty, life is a constant stream of stimulation; their attention span so short that expectation seems endless.  As we get older, and accumulate responsibilities, the thrill of anticipation is replaced by the burden of obligation. There is little novelty, just more associations to work through, organise and file away. Too much to do; too little time!  With the end on the horizon, there is neither time nor inclination to look forward, so we tend to look back, reminisce, regret a bit and try to put it right. Events and thoughts collapse in on each other until time itself is confused. 

Although our perception of time passing can alter through life, our body has a remarkable ability to mark time. It knows exactly when it’s time to go to sleep, time to eat and time to defaecate, and when we change time zones, it is some time before this body clock can be reset.  So.do we have some kind of accumulator in our brain that records the oscillations of temporal neurones, or the beats of the heart?  Probably not!  Nobody has identified a cerebral clock, but neuronal and hormonal activity is responsive to environmental cues or zietgebers like day/night cycle, day length and temperature.  So while real time is relatively static in our bodies, our perception of time is elastic.  When I am running, the same route goes much more rapidly if I am in a relaxed meditative state than if I aware of my performance, even though my pulse rate is much the same.  Time is like a river; the flow may be constant, but the calms, rapids and waterfalls of our thoughts can make seem to slow it down or speed it up.  

It has been suggested that our perception of time depends on our degree of arousal.    During extreme arousal, time slows down and intensity of experience is magnified, our memory expanded.  The more energy the brain spends in representing an event, the longer it lasts.  We can get more done in the morning when our level of arousal is at its optimum.

Think of how slowly time goes during a crisis. If we are going to crash, everything seems to go into slow motion. You have an argument with your lover and then part; you remember every word, every gesture, every look. Time dilates.  Psychologists call this amydala memory.  When the panic button is pressed, the brains cine film speeds up.  If you’re laying down a lot of memory, time goes by a lot more slowly, but does it just seem that way in retrospect because there’s more to play back? 

Generally time passes much more slowly if you are waiting for something, but that too depends on your perspective. Take two men at a football match. The score is 1-0. There are ten minutes to go.  To the one whose team is ahead, that ten minutes is an eternity of dread, but to the others desperation to score accelerates the final whistle.

It would seem that our perception of time is an emotional quality.  Time is suspended when you are in the thrall of love, but if you know you must part, then it speeds up alarmingly.  Samuel Johnson said that there is nothing like a hanging to concentrate the mind, but he could have equally transposed ‘time’ for ‘mind’. 

So is our perception of time a factor of the emotional energy of our thoughts.  The more energy we devote to things, the more we are conscious of time. Take boredom, for example, or depression.  Boredom is not passive or boring. Far from it, boredom is an active state of anticipation and frustration; an urgent need for something to happen, a  desire to kill time and attack your situation. Similarly most depression is a highly aroused state of anxiety and despair.  Driving my car down the motorway is the most boring thing I do. A journey to London is like a trip to the moon.  But if I listen to an audio-book at the same time, then I hardly notice it.  Children (of any age) who can lose themselves in creative play are rarely bored.  Boredom more usually applies to administrative tasks that I resent, like writing a grant application, filing a report or completing the tax return. Such a waste of time! But if I am preoccupied by some concern, that anything that takes me away from it, becomes boring. Perhaps time passes so slowly for the young because their lives are so occupied by the anxious frisson of change, that for nothing to happen is intolerable. .      

Time races by if we’re absorbed in a task.  It’s a form of meditation. I have spent two hours writing this article and yet it seems I have only just started. The same phenomenon occurs if we watch a good film or when we’re relaxed at a dinner party, talking to friends.  This acceleration of time is enhanced by alcohol and recreational drugs.  I can lose time having a good time. During therapy, the 50 minute hour goes very quickly when the client is engaged and relaxed, but if he’s defensive and resistant, it drags.  We can spend seven hours asleep completely unaware of time yet if anxiety keeps us awake all night,  the slow blind slither of night-time is exquisite torture.  

So how should we spend time?  Should we seek solace in creative activity and allow time to speed by unnoticed?  Or should we seek to extend it with stimulus and novelty in an accelerating desperation to avoid the end?   What is the bigger waste of time?

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Nevertheless, attempts to bring the different therapeutic disciplines together has been beset with difficulties, so much so that the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy has relinquished the effort and claims instead to supports diversity, whatever that means.  Clearly integration is seen as a bridge too far. 

Separation cuts deep into the human society.  It exposes enormous ambivalence.  While we desire to belong, at the same time we wish to also be separate, independent, autonomous.  Donald Winnicott captured the resolution of that dilemma, when he said that the aim of our psychological development is have ‘the confidence to be ourselves in the company of others’.  But the company of others implies belonging to certain professional groups, societies or teams that encompass a particular set of interests or attitudes. 

That immediately introduces a split. If we belong to a certain group, we don’t belong to other groups.  While Pi, in Yann Martel’s wonderful allegory, The Life of Pi, might practice as a Christian, a Moslem and a Hindu, he causes consternation among all three sects.  He must choose; he can’t be all three.  The same seems to apply to the psychotherapies.  Psychoanalysts tend to dismiss cognitive behavioural therapy with ill concealed disdain, yet they would agree that the goal of psychoanalysis is for an understanding that brings about a change in thought and behaviour. 

Even the most inclusive societies seem to demand we make a choice.  This starts early in life.  At the age of 14, I had to decide whether I was going to study arts or sciences.  Later I decided to be a doctor, which meant not dedicating myself to my first love, zoology and ecology.  Then I chose gastroenterology and not neurology.  More devastating in its consequences, although I discovered it was possible to love more than one woman, I had to choose one and abandon the other.  To fudge, to be indecisive or deceptive challenges the social order, even though it might make perfect psychobiological sense. 

So perhaps separation is part of our encultured identity.  Society demands difference, encourages diversity.  There must be something about agreement, sameness that does not lead to progress.  Society is like a shark; if it doesn’t keep moving forward, it dies!  Difference and the anxiety and competition this induces, keeps society alive.  If The Government were not continually being challenged by the opposition, then there would be no recovery.  The only time coalitions thrive is when there is an overwhelming external threat.   

So each of us embodies a certain set of beliefs and attitudes that make us who we are and sets us apart from others.  That is socially acceptable as long as understanding and tolerance exists between groups.  It’s when different groups feel attacked for their beliefs and are forced to adopt adversarial positions and ever more extreme attitudes,  that difficulties ensue. 

Unfortunately psychotherapy, which purports to be the most understanding of professions, is riddled with sectarianism to the detriment of therapists as well as their clients. 

We need to built bridges, not broad bridges that reduce everything to its lowest common denominator, but bridges with a café in the centre of them that facilitate communication and understanding.      

At the last meeting of The Hallam Institute of Psychotherapy on July 1st, Keith Tudor, a Humanistic Psychotherapist and co- founder of  Temenos, a Sheffield group promoting Person Centred Therapy, delivered a seminar entitled Building Bridges over Troubled Waters;  regarding humanistic and psychodynamic psychotherapies. 

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