To understand how our adaptive processes are poorly suited to our complex minds/societies, we need to go back to the very origins of life.

Before psychology, thought or emotion, there is boundary maintenance - life constantly trying to preserve internal coherence against the constant possibility of dissolution.

Biology and environment were never separate.

Part I is about the origins of defence mechanisms - how ancient protective processes become the mind’s way of trying to survive.

Part 2 will explore - how these processes, along a continuum become maladaptive, self-reinforcing, rigid loops that lead to mental distress, dysfunction and disorder.