Behaviour

Anyone who's read Richard Dawkins' books will realize that a large amount of our behaviour is driven by our genetic ancestry

We are each and every one of us descended from an unbroken line of successful ancestors - two lines actually - one from our father, one from our mother

Every single ancestor back in that chain, through human beings, and if you believe in evolution, back through other mammals, back through whatever creatures mammals developed from, through some sort of sea creatures, perhaps millions of generations. Every single ancestor managed to survive childhood, have children, look after themselves and those children, and survive long enough that those children could continue the chain

Our ancestors were comitted and dedicated and successful. They passed successful behaviours down to their descendants - all the way down to us. Unsuccessful peers didn't make it. We are descended from success

But at what price? Much of the success must have been based on fierce competition to survive, to secure the essential resources, food, warmth, somewhere to live, for themselves, their families and children. We have inevitably inherited the ruthlessnes, the single-minded ambition to survive, even at the expense of others, from our ancestors

It's there in our genetic ancestry, and we can't change it...

...but we can, because we have the capacity to learn totally new things, learn to moderate and to some extent control these built-in drivers we inherited

All therapy and counselling is about making us aware of our real selves - understanding our instinctive drivers is a stepping stone to controlling them...