Today my therapist said that she didn't believe that anyone was themselves bad, but only that people's behavior is bad. She said she had worked with men in prisons who were convinced they were bad people, but she said they were not bad people at all - they had just done bad things.
I actually felt as if I'd slipped into a parallel universe for a moment where everything looked the same but was subtly different. I absolutely believe that bad people exist, and I thought - well, I wasn't aware that the jury was out on that.
Can you really make such a sharp distinction between people's behavior and their characters? While I certainly believe that sometimes good people do bad things, I think our actions are driven by who we are. Didn't someone say, "We are what we repeatedly do?"
Anyway, the idea that no one is bad is a wild, out-there idea, for me. Maybe my therapist has been lucky enough to be surrounded by mainly gently, loving folk in her life.
What do you think? Are there no bad people...at all?
I actually felt as if I'd slipped into a parallel universe for a moment where everything looked the same but was subtly different. I absolutely believe that bad people exist, and I thought - well, I wasn't aware that the jury was out on that.
Can you really make such a sharp distinction between people's behavior and their characters? While I certainly believe that sometimes good people do bad things, I think our actions are driven by who we are. Didn't someone say, "We are what we repeatedly do?"
Anyway, the idea that no one is bad is a wild, out-there idea, for me. Maybe my therapist has been lucky enough to be surrounded by mainly gently, loving folk in her life.
What do you think? Are there no bad people...at all?