“Not only was the science of psychology narrowly culture-bound; its emphasis on pathology largely precluded any careful study of the more pleasurable emotions, including the kind of joy – growing into ecstasy – that was the hallmark of so many ‘native’ rituals and celebrations.
“In the psychological language of needs and drives, people do not freely and affirmatively search for pleasure; rather, they are ‘driven’ by cravings that resemble pain. To this day, and no doubt for good reasons, suffering remains the almost exclusive preoccupation of professional psychology. Journals in the field have published forty-five thousand articles in the last thirty years on depression, but only four hundred on joy.”
Are we barely imagined beings?