Why Our Closest People Hurt Us

A surprising amount of suffering is inflicted upon us by those who ostensibly love us. An explanation can be found by understanding the psychology of cruelty. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/8t_-h Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/mQ1Uu FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/34srQ3b “Part of why it is so hard to understand ourselves is that people are constantly doing things to us that defy the common-sense of view of how human beings might plausibly behave around people they claim to care about. We expect that those who might carry the title of mum or dad or husband or wife would, unless they had very clear reasons to do otherwise, show us kindness. And yet the brutal reality (which we must take on board for our own sanity) is that humans are frequently beset by feelings that are so intolerable and difficult, they develop urges to pass them on to others in a version of emotional pass the parcel…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Alix Bortoli: Direction, design, edit and Martin Leman: animation Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices