Sara Ekenstierna, PhD

Published July 10, 2025 @ Blog of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

In this blog article, Dr Sara Ekenstierna argues that humanity’s tragic yet creative struggle with inner conflict and duality holds the key to both our suffering and potential for transformation: 

Thinking of it this way; without the proper resolution of previous conflicts, which would enable transition to ultimately new shared realities, history is doomed to repeat itself. This is possibly not due to a deterministic destructive drive in itself. But rather to our mindset and agency, with respect to the at-once enviable and pitiable conditions that constitute human reality. The upside is, like Erikson observed, that for each new crisis we get yet another chance to manifest a different reality.