case of hartley and sarah

Question 1

overview: hartley and sarah

Answer 1

Hartley: 3 attempted suicide in 5 years - dependant on wife sarah, thinks of words such as kill, blood, cut, hammer
-wife answer all questions, speaks on behalf of hartley,
-says it would be easier without hartley
-says it’s her duty to care for him rather than love – see it as she wants to be dominant over him – wants to parent someone for the child she never had
-hartley-pasive-taker not giver, follower not leader,
Relationship: like child clinging to mother. hartley was a child in adults clothes (b/c poor parent role models, sarah wantinga child/someone to take care of)
-• Once the relationship started, the vicious cycle began, thus intensifying their sickness – her dominion strengthened his submissiveness and his weakness fed her desire for power over someone

Question 2

evil - hartley and sarah

Answer 2

• Evil was defined as the use of power to destroy the spiritual growth of others to preserve and protect the integrity of our own sickness – scapegoating – however, instead of scapegoating the powerful, we scapegoat the weak. For evil to misuse power, we must have power in the first place.
-Adults are also victim when they too are powerless – whether it be a gun to their head, or being herded into gas chambers. They can also be powerless by virtue of their own failure of courage. Ex: Hartley could physically escape from Sarah, however, he had bound himself to her by chains of laziness and dependency, and through an adult, he had settled for the child’s mindset

Question 3

naming of evil

Answer 3

• To name something correctly means you have power over it – through its name we identify it – such as diseases (we name diseases although we may not have a cure)
• The denial of suffering is a better definition of illness than its acceptance
 The evil deny the suffering of their guilt – the painful awareness of their sin, inadequacy, casting their pain onto others through projection and scapegoating
• An illness or disease is rather any defect in the structure of our body or personality that prevents us from fulfilling our potential as human beings.

Question 4

is evil an illness? no. emotional and rational aspects:

Answer 4

emotional: a. for instance, we are accustomed to feel pity and sympathy for those who are ill, but the emotions invoked by evil are anger, disgust and even hatred.
-It is often the most spiritually healthy people who are called upon to experience the most agonizing suffering. It is the unwillingness to suffer emotional pain that usually lies at the root of emotional illness.
Rational:
a)not ill unless suffering pain or diablity
b) The notion that someone who is ill must be a victim – we tend to believe an illness is something which befalls on us, we have no control of. This is true for some, but not the majority (ex: kids running out on street and being hit by car). This issue is similar to evil. An individual’s evil can almost always be traced back to the circumstances of their childhood – the sins of their parents and the nature of their heredity.
c) c. The final argument against labelling evil as an illness is that it’s deemed untreatable. This argument ignores the fact that there are several diseases which have no cure. Perhaps we call them diseases b/c we hope to find a cure. Rather than being an effective argument against, the fact that we do not currently do not know how to treat evil is the best reason to designate it as a disease

Question 5

characteristics of evil

Answer 5

 Consistent destructive, scapegoating behavior – often quite subtle
 Intolerance to criticism, usually covert, and other forms of narcissistic injury
 Pronounced concern for public image/self image. Pretentious and denial ocf hateful feeling s and motives
 Intellectual deviousness – mild schizophrenic like disturbances during times of stress