Richard Gillett: The high cost of divisiveness and how to deal with it

Richard Gillett is the author of It’s A Freakin Mess: How to thrive in divisive times. Here, we talk about how personal and social divisiveness manifests and its huge costs to our physical and mental well-being. We talk about how to change the pain of polarization, and how we feel so much better and become so much more effective when we do so. Physician, psychiatrist, keynote speaker, and author Richard Gillett received his medical degree from Cambridge University, England, and is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. His work is based on a lifelong personal and professional quest—what does it take for a human being to lead the best possible life, even if circumstances are rough? This quest took him all over the world—he has lived on four continents—and led him to settle in New York State in 1991, where he was granted residency as a “professional of extraordinary ability” before he naturalized as a U.S. citizen. He came to the understanding that much of our suffering is created by a common habit—divisiveness—a mindset that is relatively easy for us to change once we see how we’re doing it. He wrote the book: “It’s A Freakin’ Mess: How to thrive in divisive times.” See website. Published October 2020. See also: How to depolarize political conversations