In his essay (“Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” 1920) Sigmund Freud contended that people repeat traumatic events over and over again. This type of re-living represents an attempt at mastery and control. According to neo-Freudians, corrective emotional experiences can repair the trauma.
History keeps repeating itself in an effort to learn from mistakes and correct events in order to achieve stability and security. And yet, if we do not learn from our mistakes, there is obviously a masochistic element to this process.
On Wall Street, it appears that the envelop is always pushed to its bursting point, because people want to squeeze the most out of any product or service in order to maximize profit and gain, thereby threatening the elasticity of the actual membrane of any bubble.
My purpose with this book is not to dispel, nor even to debate, the concepts of Ferguson, Freud, or any other authority. Both my practice and my prose are aimed at enabling the individual to cope with crisis, survive, and grow.
To do that, I seek to enlighten the reader to re-examine key concepts, not just from financial or economic perspectives, but through the lens of psychology and, to an extent, sociology.
When you learn to look at the psychological factors and influences behind market machinations, you have a more comprehensive knowledge base from which to draw informed conclusions, and function optimally for yourself and for your clients.