Dependence

Dependence is a psychological mechanism that is found in most common situations: dependency of parents, dependency of a boss, sexual dependence, dependence on money, comfort, eating habits, a place of life, etc.

It is necessary to distinguish between real dependency, that which comes from the need for certain elements to live and flourish, and the feeling of dependence which is entirely subjective. You can depend on an external factor and feel that you do not depend on it, or that you do not depend on it and still feel dependants. One will think that he is in control of his eating habits, and will not discover his dependence until he is deprived of it. Another will feel dependants on his car to do his shopping, while he might very well do them on foot.

Subjective dependence varies from one individual to another, depending on education, trauma, psychological functioning (e.g. under the effect of psychotropic). However, it plays an important role in our relationship to everything around us: our dependence on objects, comfort, the thousand gadgets supposed to make our life more enjoyable, to the opinion of our neighbours, determines our purchasing decisions, our fragility in the face of advertising, the urgent impression that one can have of possession of an object. Conversely, the majority of urban dwellers experience a sense of independence from the natural environment, to the point of forgetting that they are totally dependants on it…

The feeling of dependence plays a major role in the whole ecological problem, both in terms of consumerism and environmental indifference. It is necessary to look at the factors which may affect it, in education, in our western way of life, or in the environment itself. For example: what role does the lack of contact of small urban dwellers with nature, confined as they are in their world of macadam and buildings, or small country dwellers who see more tractors and ground shaved than deer in primary forests… Shepard was already asking this question decades ago.

To what can be added all kinds of psychoanalytical factors, determining the psychic structure on a mode of excessive dependence on parental images and therefore on society, to the detriment of what a personality would be both autonomous, sensitive to others and sensitive to the environment…