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My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization
What is the relationship between addiction and the ecological crisis? How can we use the lessons of individual recovery to address our collective need to heal society and the Earth? Chellis Glendinning goes beyond the personal to the very heart of Western civilization to answer these questions, and she shows how we can use trauma recovery and deep ecology, along with the wisdom of native cultures, to reclaim our innate wholeness.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
February 14, 2015
I found this book to be quite frustrating. On the one hand, the author comes across as being sincere, passionate, well-intentioned, and kind (also confused and wounded), and I totally agree with her basic premise: our modern, industrial, consumerist society is pathological (destroying the environment, engaging in wars, encouraging apathy and anomie, etc.), to the extent that many of its citizens suffer from at least some degree of dysfunction (addictions, depression, abuse, workaholism, fractured families, interpersonal conflict). So I really wanted to like this book and perhaps even find some inspiration in it. Instead, I found myself picking apart sloppy arguments and getting annoyed at her assumptions.
Glancing over reader reviews here and at Amazon, I can see that many people have really connected with this book, and felt it has helped them to heal and renew their connection to nature. However, it's safe to say that I am clearly not the right audience for this book. For one thing, the author is a therapist, and I'm not a big fan of psychology. I found the recovery/therapy metaphor to be a bit heavy-handed, and I don't believe that all of us modern folk are suffering from post-traumatic stress. A lot of the theories she mentions (including the reliability of recovered memories) are controversial or simply out of date. On the other hand, if the recovery paradigm resonates with you, you may respond to this book much more favorably than I did.
Second disclosure: I am a historian by training, which means I value documented, verifiable facts in an argument. For instance, I was curious what aspects, exactly, of "Western Civilization" she found so problematic, and why. It turns out that she has a bone to pick with civilization, western or otherwise, tracing the roots of our pathology to the adoption of agriculture and pastoralism, and the end of the paleolithic era. She praises "nature-based" societies, which she equates with hunter-gatherer tribes, and sees anything else as something unnatural and traumatic which has been inflicted upon us. And...that's not exclusively Western, is it? Just off the top of my head, I can think of several societies--the ancient Chinese, the Aztecs and Mayans--who developed stratified, agricultural societies, complete with wars and atrocious human rights violations, without any influence from Western Europe whatsoever. Perhaps her title should have been My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from the Neolithic Era.
Speaking of which, I found her discussions of "nature-based" societies to be equally imprecise. She states that she does not want to idealize tribal, indigenous cultures, and then proceeds to do just that, depicting all of them as peaceful, democratic, egalitarian, completely sustainable, in which all members are equally competent, valued, and satisfied. Obviously, we can only speculate, based on scant paleontological evidence, what the earliest hunter-gatherer societies were actually like, and can't state with any certainty that these early peoples were free of unhappiness or pathology. As for historical or current indigenous peoples, many aren't hunter-gatherers (e.g., they practice agriculture or herding) and aren't entirely peaceful (some were positively feared by their neighbors.) Nor did they always live harmlessly on the Earth; the Australian aborigines, for example, hunted the large, flightless birds of that continent to extinction. Don't get me wrong--I am very respectful of native cultures, and would love to know more about their ways of perceiving the world. But they are/were not perfect, and if you try to tell me otherwise, I have to call BS.
Finally, towards the end of the book, she seems to imply that only native peoples are qualified to have a real connection to nature or participate in mystical experiences. In fact, she mentions a talk where a member of the audience asked, What about European paganism and Goddess traditions, and was basically told that those are irrelevant. To be honest, out of everything that was problematic in this book, that was probably the one thing that annoyed me the most. Not all of us of European descent feel estranged from nature, uncomfortable with transcendent experiences, or ashamed of our origins. To imply that we are (or should be) seems awfully arrogant.
In sum: there's some interesting content here, and the author seems like a great person, but I can't really recommend this book (unless you are really into psychology).
Glancing over reader reviews here and at Amazon, I can see that many people have really connected with this book, and felt it has helped them to heal and renew their connection to nature. However, it's safe to say that I am clearly not the right audience for this book. For one thing, the author is a therapist, and I'm not a big fan of psychology. I found the recovery/therapy metaphor to be a bit heavy-handed, and I don't believe that all of us modern folk are suffering from post-traumatic stress. A lot of the theories she mentions (including the reliability of recovered memories) are controversial or simply out of date. On the other hand, if the recovery paradigm resonates with you, you may respond to this book much more favorably than I did.
Second disclosure: I am a historian by training, which means I value documented, verifiable facts in an argument. For instance, I was curious what aspects, exactly, of "Western Civilization" she found so problematic, and why. It turns out that she has a bone to pick with civilization, western or otherwise, tracing the roots of our pathology to the adoption of agriculture and pastoralism, and the end of the paleolithic era. She praises "nature-based" societies, which she equates with hunter-gatherer tribes, and sees anything else as something unnatural and traumatic which has been inflicted upon us. And...that's not exclusively Western, is it? Just off the top of my head, I can think of several societies--the ancient Chinese, the Aztecs and Mayans--who developed stratified, agricultural societies, complete with wars and atrocious human rights violations, without any influence from Western Europe whatsoever. Perhaps her title should have been My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from the Neolithic Era.
Speaking of which, I found her discussions of "nature-based" societies to be equally imprecise. She states that she does not want to idealize tribal, indigenous cultures, and then proceeds to do just that, depicting all of them as peaceful, democratic, egalitarian, completely sustainable, in which all members are equally competent, valued, and satisfied. Obviously, we can only speculate, based on scant paleontological evidence, what the earliest hunter-gatherer societies were actually like, and can't state with any certainty that these early peoples were free of unhappiness or pathology. As for historical or current indigenous peoples, many aren't hunter-gatherers (e.g., they practice agriculture or herding) and aren't entirely peaceful (some were positively feared by their neighbors.) Nor did they always live harmlessly on the Earth; the Australian aborigines, for example, hunted the large, flightless birds of that continent to extinction. Don't get me wrong--I am very respectful of native cultures, and would love to know more about their ways of perceiving the world. But they are/were not perfect, and if you try to tell me otherwise, I have to call BS.
Finally, towards the end of the book, she seems to imply that only native peoples are qualified to have a real connection to nature or participate in mystical experiences. In fact, she mentions a talk where a member of the audience asked, What about European paganism and Goddess traditions, and was basically told that those are irrelevant. To be honest, out of everything that was problematic in this book, that was probably the one thing that annoyed me the most. Not all of us of European descent feel estranged from nature, uncomfortable with transcendent experiences, or ashamed of our origins. To imply that we are (or should be) seems awfully arrogant.
In sum: there's some interesting content here, and the author seems like a great person, but I can't really recommend this book (unless you are really into psychology).
December 19, 2007
One of the big themes that I took away from this book is the idea of "dissociation." Chellis talks about the similarities between dissociation and post-traumatic stress (forging a link between personal healing and the healing of our relationship with the Earth). Dissociation involves a fragmenting of what Chellis calls the "primal matrix": the interconnectedness we inherently share (as worldly beings) with the natural world as well as the psychological wholeness that constitutes personal integrity (so, for example, a Cartesian mind/body split is an instance of a dissociated self; another example is a fragmented identity).
In the first part of her book, Chellis talks in detail about the psychological and social characteristics of nature-based people which nurture a self that is engaged with the primal matrix. She also describes the process of our historic dissociation from nature beginning with the advent of agriculture and moving up to our present, mass technological society.
People who have experienced trauma enter into a state of dissociation (which can be mended; Chellis describes her own ongoing process of weaving herself back into the primal matrix). But even people who have not experienced major psychological trauma are compelled to participate in our widely-dissociated and fractured society, and that also constitutes a state of oppression and denial. In our society, we are prevented from knowing, from a very early age, our true place and purpose, our real belonging, intertwined with the web of life.
In the latter section of the book, Chellis introduces some ideas for solving this dilemma. She notes that such a solution cannot take place on a merely individual psychological level; that it must involve interwoven restoration efforts on personal, social, and ecological scales.
I'm running out of time here, so in summary - I highly recommend this book. It's a seminal work of eco-psychology, well-researched, on point, intelligently and poignantly written.
In the first part of her book, Chellis talks in detail about the psychological and social characteristics of nature-based people which nurture a self that is engaged with the primal matrix. She also describes the process of our historic dissociation from nature beginning with the advent of agriculture and moving up to our present, mass technological society.
People who have experienced trauma enter into a state of dissociation (which can be mended; Chellis describes her own ongoing process of weaving herself back into the primal matrix). But even people who have not experienced major psychological trauma are compelled to participate in our widely-dissociated and fractured society, and that also constitutes a state of oppression and denial. In our society, we are prevented from knowing, from a very early age, our true place and purpose, our real belonging, intertwined with the web of life.
In the latter section of the book, Chellis introduces some ideas for solving this dilemma. She notes that such a solution cannot take place on a merely individual psychological level; that it must involve interwoven restoration efforts on personal, social, and ecological scales.
I'm running out of time here, so in summary - I highly recommend this book. It's a seminal work of eco-psychology, well-researched, on point, intelligently and poignantly written.
October 7, 2008
Chellis Glendinning is an "ecopsychologist" --- one who believes that connection to nature and living a life not too different from the kind of life humans have lived over most of the course of their 2-to-3-million-year history lie at the heart of mental health. She also believes, and spends much of this book espousing, a corollary to this belief: that modern industrial civilization actually induces mental illness.
Unfortunately, the book is not very well written. Its organization is chaotic, more a collection of loosely related meditations than a cogent, sustained argument, and her prose is murky, jargon-laden and unmemorable. There are a number of brilliant, "Aha"-inducing insights scattered throughout this book, but they are tucked away deep within pages and pages of psychobabble.
You'll get something out of it if you have the patience to wade through that, definitely, but for the most part I would recommend seeking out other, more lucid, writers on the same subject.
Unfortunately, the book is not very well written. Its organization is chaotic, more a collection of loosely related meditations than a cogent, sustained argument, and her prose is murky, jargon-laden and unmemorable. There are a number of brilliant, "Aha"-inducing insights scattered throughout this book, but they are tucked away deep within pages and pages of psychobabble.
You'll get something out of it if you have the patience to wade through that, definitely, but for the most part I would recommend seeking out other, more lucid, writers on the same subject.
December 15, 2020
Stanley Diamond once wrote that “the average primitive …is more accomplished, in the literal sense of the term, than are most civilized individuals.” When primitive villagers were shown glass, they were impressed and asked the foreigner to show them on the beach the next day how to make glass. The villagers later said they had been sent an incompetent, because the foreigner with the glass didn’t know how to even make it. Pre-state peoples and indigenous people have stable populations that don’t spiral out of control like civilized cultures. Part of the secret is that most nature-based peoples don’t feel the need to cut down every damned tree or take every salmon or deer. People who honor nature simply don’t do that. In Northern California, the Yurok say that white people “disrupted nature’s balance with their greed.” Our original trauma as civilized people is our separation from the Earth. You can see this trauma everywhere, “Since the Vietnam War, three times as many U.S. soldiers have killed themselves by their own traumatized hands as died in combat.” Even Freud saw it when he wrote that, “Men have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would have no difficulty in exterminating one another to the last man.”
Marija Gimbutas, Riane Eisler and Merlin Stone see the “abrupt introduction of hierarchy, weaponry and monotheism as the turning point of western history.” The new sedentary behavior made women lose their “contraceptive-on-your-hip” nomadic living with children and ovulation was sped up to a level it had never been previously. All this came from “that initial act of severing the human world from the wild.” After respecting nature for eons, civilized man began to slash and burn the Earth in order to subdue it. Natives remarked that civilized man had no magic at all, no union with the Earth and “only the ability to hurt and kill.” Freud wrote in 1919, “Some civilizations or some epochs of civilization – possibly the whole of mankind – have become neurotic?” Erich Fromm wrote, “That millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make those people sane.” Chellis writes, “A native American man I know, whose tribe was nearly decimated in the 1600s, told me he is happy to be alive today because he can use a computer to research the demise of Indian people.” Even political centrist Al Gore has said, “I believe that our civilization is, in effect, addicted to the consumption of the Earth itself”. Lewis Mumford called it “the myth of the machine”. In another great book by Chellis (“When Technology Wounds”) she writes of the many people injured medically from tech “advances”. In 1900, 1 out of 33 Americans got cancer. Now thanks to tons of new chemicals and radioactive materials let loose on the biosphere, 1 out of 3 Americans get it. Now that’s progress! The purpose of EPCOT was “to prepare visitors to accept the next phase of technological development”.
An Anishinabe (Ojibway) Prayer: “Grandfather, sacred one, teach us love, compassion, and honor that we may heal the earth, and heal each other”. Western civilization sure isn’t going to do that. The term “hooker” comes from the Union Army sent trainloads of women out to General Hooker to keep Hooker and his men satisfied. But did you know why Lincoln sent Hooker out west, when you would expect Civil War action to be in the South? He was sent there to secure minerals for the war effort from Native held land, “a crucial job but one, apparently, suitable for a loose cannon.”
This was a good book, but I preferred her other books “Off the Map” and “When Technology Wounds” more. Chellis had the same horrific childhood trauma as Derrick Jensen, and it is a gift to the world that both allowed their deep trauma to allow them to reach deep insights into the true nature of civilization. What a father can do wrong to a child is what a patriarchal culture can do to a planet. I’m deeply indebted to both Chellis and Derrick for their analysis of western civilization.
Marija Gimbutas, Riane Eisler and Merlin Stone see the “abrupt introduction of hierarchy, weaponry and monotheism as the turning point of western history.” The new sedentary behavior made women lose their “contraceptive-on-your-hip” nomadic living with children and ovulation was sped up to a level it had never been previously. All this came from “that initial act of severing the human world from the wild.” After respecting nature for eons, civilized man began to slash and burn the Earth in order to subdue it. Natives remarked that civilized man had no magic at all, no union with the Earth and “only the ability to hurt and kill.” Freud wrote in 1919, “Some civilizations or some epochs of civilization – possibly the whole of mankind – have become neurotic?” Erich Fromm wrote, “That millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make those people sane.” Chellis writes, “A native American man I know, whose tribe was nearly decimated in the 1600s, told me he is happy to be alive today because he can use a computer to research the demise of Indian people.” Even political centrist Al Gore has said, “I believe that our civilization is, in effect, addicted to the consumption of the Earth itself”. Lewis Mumford called it “the myth of the machine”. In another great book by Chellis (“When Technology Wounds”) she writes of the many people injured medically from tech “advances”. In 1900, 1 out of 33 Americans got cancer. Now thanks to tons of new chemicals and radioactive materials let loose on the biosphere, 1 out of 3 Americans get it. Now that’s progress! The purpose of EPCOT was “to prepare visitors to accept the next phase of technological development”.
An Anishinabe (Ojibway) Prayer: “Grandfather, sacred one, teach us love, compassion, and honor that we may heal the earth, and heal each other”. Western civilization sure isn’t going to do that. The term “hooker” comes from the Union Army sent trainloads of women out to General Hooker to keep Hooker and his men satisfied. But did you know why Lincoln sent Hooker out west, when you would expect Civil War action to be in the South? He was sent there to secure minerals for the war effort from Native held land, “a crucial job but one, apparently, suitable for a loose cannon.”
This was a good book, but I preferred her other books “Off the Map” and “When Technology Wounds” more. Chellis had the same horrific childhood trauma as Derrick Jensen, and it is a gift to the world that both allowed their deep trauma to allow them to reach deep insights into the true nature of civilization. What a father can do wrong to a child is what a patriarchal culture can do to a planet. I’m deeply indebted to both Chellis and Derrick for their analysis of western civilization.
December 5, 2015
I was in Alaska when this book was published and it's been on my "to read" list since then. Sadly, she could have written it last week. Nothing's changed and in fact, things have gotten worse. It was interesting to read it after reading Derek Jensen's tomes. I need to look but I don't think Jensen cites this book which also correlates abusive human behavior with abusing the earth. Like Chellis, Jensen was also abused by his father in horrific ways. Jensen calls for the end of western "civilization" by breaching big ass dams. Chellis wants to do it by going back to a hunter-gatherer society and ending agriculture. Cold day in hell I am afraid but still, we are fat but not happy mammals since we "sheltered in place" and then accumulated a lot of stuff all the while pumping carbon into the air to do it and now here we sit, surrounded by our stuff on a dying planet. The accumulation of stuff came in with the Industrial Revolution where instead of taking a month to make one hat, suddenly through mass production, 500 hats could be made in month and 500 of everything else and then they needed places to put all this new crap they never really needed=bigger houses...so as always, it all hinges on the Industrial DE-evolution.
I liked this book very much since I see all the same things Chellis does but she wrote it from a perspective of someone who never really spent any time in nature. Never really spent any time even thinking about nature and she describes how being IN nature changed her--permanently. This gets to Ed Abbey's assertion about authenticity...and being in nature provides something being in the modern world does not--authenticity. The feeling of being truly alive. Connections with our evolutionary roots. Our biological evolution kicking the ass of what passes for cultural evolution now (pathetic).
Her description of abuse from her obviously demented father was a little hard to take but it had to have taken courage for her to disclose this and I admire this. Your heart goes out to this little girl--as she describes herself, the innocent victim of a sick man as we are the innocent victims of a sick narcissistic society but unlike Chellis who 'got out', we can't get out. We probably will not get out.
I tried to find Chellis on the Internet and since she, like me, disdains the tendrils of the social media machine (yes, I know I would prob sell more books if I engaged in it), I was not totally surprised to find she has moved to Bolivia. Chellis, if you are reading this, can I visit you there? Please, before the world goes completely f--ing insane?
I liked this book very much since I see all the same things Chellis does but she wrote it from a perspective of someone who never really spent any time in nature. Never really spent any time even thinking about nature and she describes how being IN nature changed her--permanently. This gets to Ed Abbey's assertion about authenticity...and being in nature provides something being in the modern world does not--authenticity. The feeling of being truly alive. Connections with our evolutionary roots. Our biological evolution kicking the ass of what passes for cultural evolution now (pathetic).
Her description of abuse from her obviously demented father was a little hard to take but it had to have taken courage for her to disclose this and I admire this. Your heart goes out to this little girl--as she describes herself, the innocent victim of a sick man as we are the innocent victims of a sick narcissistic society but unlike Chellis who 'got out', we can't get out. We probably will not get out.
I tried to find Chellis on the Internet and since she, like me, disdains the tendrils of the social media machine (yes, I know I would prob sell more books if I engaged in it), I was not totally surprised to find she has moved to Bolivia. Chellis, if you are reading this, can I visit you there? Please, before the world goes completely f--ing insane?
January 3, 2022
I couldn't get past the buzz-word laden intro. Painfully new age (rhymes with sewage) and too, too.
September 30, 2010
This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Mainly, this is because of the place I am in life right now. Chellis was one of the folks who led to the creation of eco-psychology. She is a psychotherapist, a writer, and an activist for this planet.
Reading this book gave me the words I had been searching for. Chellis really zoomed in and fleshed out many pieces of awareness I had begun to understand around our current world. Of course, these are still concepts, but I really admire her wisdom and courage to speak so many truths about our current way of life.
She takes indigenous wisdom and the indigenous mind and compares and contrasts this with our modern way of life and modern mind. She writes about her own healing experience and its connection to the 'bigger picture.'
A survivor of intense childhood abuse, her work shines with compassion and clarity. This is a must read!
Reading this book gave me the words I had been searching for. Chellis really zoomed in and fleshed out many pieces of awareness I had begun to understand around our current world. Of course, these are still concepts, but I really admire her wisdom and courage to speak so many truths about our current way of life.
She takes indigenous wisdom and the indigenous mind and compares and contrasts this with our modern way of life and modern mind. She writes about her own healing experience and its connection to the 'bigger picture.'
A survivor of intense childhood abuse, her work shines with compassion and clarity. This is a must read!
February 1, 2012
This is one of those rare books that asks the big questions, and I think Glendinning's questions and answers are the right ones. As a Shambala product the book certainly reached the New Age indigenous appropriation market, but Glendinning rises above that cohort by genuinely listening to indigenous peoples and challenging the deep sicknesses of settler society. It's a brilliant move to use the self-help format to address an entire society's irrational clinging to an omnicidal lifestyle.
October 20, 2008
A truly excellent political/philosophical memoir that traces her own and her family's history as colonizers, the pathology of civilization, and her own rejection of it as she attempts to find a place in a samll New Mexico community. Really stellar--if you haven't been able to handle any anti-civ books for what ever reason, give this one a chance.
March 5, 2011
Well written and well thought out, yet I couldn't get past the dissociation business, and I would set it aside and continue, but in fact, I gave it away without finishing it.
December 31, 2014
Entertaining and informative.
August 25, 2014
I cry every time I attempt to describe this book. It's a must read for those who know that something is broken and your soul yearns for nature and belonging.
May 27, 2015
A little dated. great ideas but seems like a personal rant...
April 1, 2017
Leaves me with the things to think about, probably deserves a better rating but I did struggle to get through it.
January 24, 2016
I read this in 2002(?). Reading this book provided me with my first opportunity (taken?) to connect to the Earth. I must re-read.
March 23, 2015
Chellis Glendinning grew up in a wealthy and respectable family in Cleveland. Her father was a caring doctor and a brutal child abuser. She and her brother were raped, beaten, and tortured. Her pain was swept under the carpet by the magic of dissociation — a portion of her personality split off and became unconscious. Memories of her traumatic childhood were forgotten for 40 years. Amnesia allowed her to function in the world. She earned a PhD and became a psychotherapist.
One day, in a therapy session, her childhood traumas suddenly began to return to consciousness. Chellis was determined to fully understand them, resolve them, and recover a healthy state of wholeness. She wanted to heal herself 100 percent.
Understanding matters of great importance often requires the use of a powerful medicine called history. To know who we are, we must know where we came from. Trauma and pathology are almost the norm throughout today’s society. A daunting number of people are in therapy, or taking medication, or hobbled by untreated mental imbalances. These problems are frequently passed from generation to generation.
Chellis explored her family tree and discovered patterns of ancestors who were damaged by alcoholism or mental illness. She strongly suspected that her father had also been abused. She learned about her Puritan ancestors in colonial times. Reverend Thomas Hooker lived in what was to become Connecticut. On Sundays, he preached the sweet love of Jesus to the faithful, and then he spent the rest of the week as a bloody terrorist, determined to exterminate the diabolical Native American savages.
Looking even deeper into the past, the trail of trauma kept unfolding. Prior to the invasion of America, Europe was also a realm of intense craziness. For 300 years the skies were darkened by the smoke of burning witches. Insane leaders routinely led their people into countless wars. The written history of Europe was insane from page one. By and by, Chellis came to comprehend that her father’s madness was just a wee speck of pathology in an enormous tsunami of pathology that spanned many centuries and regions.
Very importantly, she also came to comprehend that this torrent of pathology did not in any way represent the normal human condition. It was obvious that nature-based societies, like the Native Americans, inhabited a fundamentally different spiritual universe. They did not devour the land and leave wreckage in their wake. She could see that nature-based societies more closely represented balance and normality. They suffered little from mental illness. Their reverent relationship with the Earth was rooted in a million-year tradition — 35,000 generations of low-impact living.
It became clear that the madness of modern technological society could readily be traced back to a recent fork in the human journey that occurred about 10,000 years ago, just 300 generations back — the domestication of plants and animals. “This was the purposeful separation of human existence from the rest of life,” and the fence was its symbol. It divided the world into two new realms: wild and tamed. This shattered the ancient wholeness, and replaced it with chronic traumatic stress.
The transition to domestication blindsided human societies. It was completely out of balance with our traditional, time-proven way of life — living with respect and reverence for the natural world. The new game was about owning and controlling nature. Eventually, these unlucky people forgot what it meant to be human beings, and they ended up living like fish out of water — flippity-floppity-flappity. Gasp! Gasp! Gasp! It was a temporary way of life with no future.
The last six generations have witnessed the horrific transition to industrial civilization. The nightmare shifted into fast forward, and we are racing toward a future where nature has been erased by endless shopping enterprises, clear-cuts, crumbling pavement, rotting cities, eroded farms, toxic wastelands, and endless flocks of zombies entranced by glowing cell phones. Billions of traumatized people perceive this living death as being the normal human existence. It is no coincidence that our era of flourishing ecological annihilation is also an era of flourishing mental illness.
“Well-being and wholeness depend on, and exist in constant and complex intimacy with, the well-being and wholeness of the Earth,” according to Chellis. “It’s well past time for us to come home, to return to the matrix from which we came, to recover what we have lost, to remember again the wisdom and balance of the natural world.” To explain this process, she sat down with a wooden pencil, and wrote a book called My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization.
Readers salivating to finally discover the simple, no sacrifice, silver bullet solution to the Earth Crisis will be reduced to sobs and sniffles once again. Chellis describes a healing process that will likely take generations to complete. It’s not about healing individuals, it’s about healing the entire society. I must say that this book truly does provide readers with general guidelines for not only ending the Earth Crisis, but also restoring humankind to genuine sustainability, boundless joy, and complete wildness and freedom.
There are seven-point-something billion people alive now, many of whom are victims of traumatic stress — paranoid, hyperactive, infantile, powerless, alienated, fearful, depressed, near-comatose beings whose mental wholeness has been shattered into many pieces. Imagine for a moment repairing this mess — the individuals, the society, the ecosystem, and our history. Imagine unlocking the shackles of technological society and walking away. Imagine guiding humankind to a point where we are willing and able to abandon our exploitation of domesticated plants and animals. Imagine returning home, to the family of life, to wholeness.
Many thinkers have concluded that the reason we got into this mess was a combination of excessive cleverness and inadequate foresight. Chellis adds another chapter to the story — the immense, highly-contagious, psychological damage resulting from our terrible plunge from balance. When we become aware of the corrosive presence of this madness, we can more fully comprehend the anatomy of our predicament.
Chellis has given humankind an important Big Vision, a potent idea to explore. Obviously, the healing process will not be quick or simple. Our challenge is simply to take a deep breath, roll up our sleeves, and take the first step.
One day, in a therapy session, her childhood traumas suddenly began to return to consciousness. Chellis was determined to fully understand them, resolve them, and recover a healthy state of wholeness. She wanted to heal herself 100 percent.
Understanding matters of great importance often requires the use of a powerful medicine called history. To know who we are, we must know where we came from. Trauma and pathology are almost the norm throughout today’s society. A daunting number of people are in therapy, or taking medication, or hobbled by untreated mental imbalances. These problems are frequently passed from generation to generation.
Chellis explored her family tree and discovered patterns of ancestors who were damaged by alcoholism or mental illness. She strongly suspected that her father had also been abused. She learned about her Puritan ancestors in colonial times. Reverend Thomas Hooker lived in what was to become Connecticut. On Sundays, he preached the sweet love of Jesus to the faithful, and then he spent the rest of the week as a bloody terrorist, determined to exterminate the diabolical Native American savages.
Looking even deeper into the past, the trail of trauma kept unfolding. Prior to the invasion of America, Europe was also a realm of intense craziness. For 300 years the skies were darkened by the smoke of burning witches. Insane leaders routinely led their people into countless wars. The written history of Europe was insane from page one. By and by, Chellis came to comprehend that her father’s madness was just a wee speck of pathology in an enormous tsunami of pathology that spanned many centuries and regions.
Very importantly, she also came to comprehend that this torrent of pathology did not in any way represent the normal human condition. It was obvious that nature-based societies, like the Native Americans, inhabited a fundamentally different spiritual universe. They did not devour the land and leave wreckage in their wake. She could see that nature-based societies more closely represented balance and normality. They suffered little from mental illness. Their reverent relationship with the Earth was rooted in a million-year tradition — 35,000 generations of low-impact living.
It became clear that the madness of modern technological society could readily be traced back to a recent fork in the human journey that occurred about 10,000 years ago, just 300 generations back — the domestication of plants and animals. “This was the purposeful separation of human existence from the rest of life,” and the fence was its symbol. It divided the world into two new realms: wild and tamed. This shattered the ancient wholeness, and replaced it with chronic traumatic stress.
The transition to domestication blindsided human societies. It was completely out of balance with our traditional, time-proven way of life — living with respect and reverence for the natural world. The new game was about owning and controlling nature. Eventually, these unlucky people forgot what it meant to be human beings, and they ended up living like fish out of water — flippity-floppity-flappity. Gasp! Gasp! Gasp! It was a temporary way of life with no future.
The last six generations have witnessed the horrific transition to industrial civilization. The nightmare shifted into fast forward, and we are racing toward a future where nature has been erased by endless shopping enterprises, clear-cuts, crumbling pavement, rotting cities, eroded farms, toxic wastelands, and endless flocks of zombies entranced by glowing cell phones. Billions of traumatized people perceive this living death as being the normal human existence. It is no coincidence that our era of flourishing ecological annihilation is also an era of flourishing mental illness.
“Well-being and wholeness depend on, and exist in constant and complex intimacy with, the well-being and wholeness of the Earth,” according to Chellis. “It’s well past time for us to come home, to return to the matrix from which we came, to recover what we have lost, to remember again the wisdom and balance of the natural world.” To explain this process, she sat down with a wooden pencil, and wrote a book called My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization.
Readers salivating to finally discover the simple, no sacrifice, silver bullet solution to the Earth Crisis will be reduced to sobs and sniffles once again. Chellis describes a healing process that will likely take generations to complete. It’s not about healing individuals, it’s about healing the entire society. I must say that this book truly does provide readers with general guidelines for not only ending the Earth Crisis, but also restoring humankind to genuine sustainability, boundless joy, and complete wildness and freedom.
There are seven-point-something billion people alive now, many of whom are victims of traumatic stress — paranoid, hyperactive, infantile, powerless, alienated, fearful, depressed, near-comatose beings whose mental wholeness has been shattered into many pieces. Imagine for a moment repairing this mess — the individuals, the society, the ecosystem, and our history. Imagine unlocking the shackles of technological society and walking away. Imagine guiding humankind to a point where we are willing and able to abandon our exploitation of domesticated plants and animals. Imagine returning home, to the family of life, to wholeness.
Many thinkers have concluded that the reason we got into this mess was a combination of excessive cleverness and inadequate foresight. Chellis adds another chapter to the story — the immense, highly-contagious, psychological damage resulting from our terrible plunge from balance. When we become aware of the corrosive presence of this madness, we can more fully comprehend the anatomy of our predicament.
Chellis has given humankind an important Big Vision, a potent idea to explore. Obviously, the healing process will not be quick or simple. Our challenge is simply to take a deep breath, roll up our sleeves, and take the first step.
September 23, 2019
the very simple argument that, for about a million years, humans lived completely in harmony with the earth until the advent of agriculture some several thousand years ago is enough to prove to me that this life we live is unnatural. well, that and all the disease and mental illness and violence and trauma coloring every single facet of our society. consider the violence of colonialism, and how deeply steeped all of human civilization is in its legacy. consider what we know of the physical differences between pre-neolithic and modern human beings, especially the effects our domesticated, sedentary lifestyle have had on our minds and bodies. we are undeniably unself-sufficient, unskilled idiots unable to do even basic things ourselves.
despite how one might wish to wail against this book and the sentiment it expresses, you cannot deny that human beings lived in harmony with the earth for nearly a million years, and only started destroying and killing it following the original trauma. we may never be able to go back to the way things were then, but we MUST change the way things are now, and right now. as soon as possible.
despite how one might wish to wail against this book and the sentiment it expresses, you cannot deny that human beings lived in harmony with the earth for nearly a million years, and only started destroying and killing it following the original trauma. we may never be able to go back to the way things were then, but we MUST change the way things are now, and right now. as soon as possible.
November 24, 2023
Very interesting proposal that a lens of addiction and PTSD are well fit for our modern society writ large. And we inherit this legacy of multi-generational trauma in our day to day slog. But one thing I disagree with is was that domestication was the root cause evil of our upset. I know lots of farmers who are living in a wonderful harmony seeing themselves and their missions exactly mirroring the abstract "gatherers" she longs to be. Not a domesticator or commander of nature, but a facilitator. I like that she proffers that by doing the work, getting back in touch with nature that we all have capacity to heal. But beyond that there's little on the way of solutions and lots of aspersions. Carries a little smack of holier than thou smugness. Her broad brushes are at times a little tough. Yet she was very prescient as well. And I agree the technoapologists won't let us "go back", but that more and more of us can create the culture we know can have roots in rightness with nature and experience less friction in our souls, making evil tradeoffs and sacrifices in the name of capitlism and a vague statement of "standards of living".
September 14, 2021
I can't believe this book was written in the early 90s. It is so relevant and important for the times we find ourselves in, or the holes we've dug ourselves into, more like. Glendinning's insights on the trauma of technology and domestication, the importance of nature-based cultures, and the importance of understanding our roots (ancestors, their practices, and their atrocities) provide direct instructions for saving our planet and ourselves.
If you care about the environment, trauma, technology, psychology, anthropology, or if you want a terribly good nonfiction read that will make you think and feel deeply, I suggest this read.
If you care about the environment, trauma, technology, psychology, anthropology, or if you want a terribly good nonfiction read that will make you think and feel deeply, I suggest this read.
July 31, 2020
26 years after being published, this book is more relevant than ever. We live in a traumatized society full of traumatized people committing further traumatizing acts towards each other, our more-than-human kin, and Earth as a whole. We need to break this vicious cycle, and Chellis does a fantastic job of providing insight into how we got here, explaining why we urgently need to change our ways of living and thinking about the world, and offering guidance as to how we each can go forwards in both our personal and collective recoveries from western civilization. 💚
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March 6, 2023As a 23 year-old living in Cambridge, MA, I joined an intergenerational book group called Recovery from Western Civilization, which centered around this text. Two older women, a couple, convened the group and hosted us in their home. Over the course of weeks, the group absolutely imploded. I’m talking tears, shouting, people storming out one by one and others quietly departing in solidarity or confusion. It was a completely wild experience, quite comical in retrospect, and my introduction to the harsh impact of purity politics.
July 5, 2019
Part over-romanticizing humanity's common ancestry, part telling you, "It's OK. We're all crazy here." Heartbreaking/precise/eye-rolly.
March 16, 2020
Must read
June 1, 2022
I will come back to this again and again.
December 26, 2022
It’s dated and her ideas and analysis good but not well developed. Read Bill Plotkin’s books if these topics interest you.
February 14, 2017
I liked it a lot when I read it. I should read it again as it's been years and I have forgotten much of it. Highly recommend it if you love the earth and want to heal in some personal way while helping it...
May 29, 2012
This book is terrific. It is out of publication and hard to find, but well worth locating. Glendinning does a wonderful job of tracing the separation from nature that we in modern society have experienced. She correlates this to trauma, illustrating the consequences and tolerances for things like child abuse, domestic violence, sickness, depression, and disconnection. As one of the consequences of this separation, various types of addictions develop to fill the hole that exists as a result of the emptiness. A great read.
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November 19, 2015I at first found myself uncomfortable with the notions in this book, because frankly who was to be told, "hey, you are dysfunctional." I also don't want to be told to discard thousands of years of my history. I really can't go back to hunting & gathering.
So. The end of the book, I feel, gives a traditional therapy. Talking, having a witness, support groups, etc. There's more to healing than therapy.
I suppose this book is more of a starter to healing, bringing into awareness what our real trauma as a society is. We can do what we will after the first step.
So. The end of the book, I feel, gives a traditional therapy. Talking, having a witness, support groups, etc. There's more to healing than therapy.
I suppose this book is more of a starter to healing, bringing into awareness what our real trauma as a society is. We can do what we will after the first step.
June 23, 2009
The theory presented is very interesting and vital. Such ideas necessitate more exploration. The only thing I found lacking were any solutions, or answers to the problem of living in a trauma-laden world. Maybe that was not her goal. Otherwise a decent presentation and discourse of increasing importance. This book has me thinking in a different light.
November 16, 2015
Thank goodness Chellis helped me give a framework to what I was waking up to in my life at the time I needed it. If you are not suffering from some form of secondary post-traumatic stress, you are not paying attention. If you don't read Chellis, you might not understand this and know what to do with it. It's difficult to live aware these days. Chellis helps.
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