Shame and Power in a Winner/Loser World

Richard Hill is an international lecturer and keynote speaker on topics related to human dynamics, communication, the brain, neuroscience, and psychosocial genomics. In this course, Hill integrates his thinking about the “winner/loser world” we live in with the work of Jess Hill on power and shame. Hill describes how the prevailing mindset of externalised evaluation of individual worth affects brain functioning and consequent attitudes and behaviours. These, including shame and a felt need for power and control, spawn a “winner/loser world” pattern driven by the opinions and demands of others. It produces a toxic mix of violence, vengeance, and victimisation. Hill proposes instead a curiosity-oriented approach, in which we note phenomena with interest, see problems in a solution-oriented way as messages, and expansively, interactively, reframe to create new possibilities.