Being on the Cusp: Facing Psychological Impasse (part 1)

In this first of a two-part essay, Robertson explores the psychological experience of living through what he calls a cultural 'cusp' - a tipping point between two states, evoking both dread and fertile possibility. Drawing on Timothy Morton's concept of 'hyperobjects' (phenomena too vast to be fully comprehended, which dissolve the usual separation between observing subject and observed object), Robertson argues that climate change is not simply an unsolved problem but an unthinkable one, and that humans are entangled within it rather than observing it from outside. He explores an embodied, felt sense of 'cusping' as an alternative to conceptual abstraction, and connects the cultural cusp to personal experiences of symbolic death and transition - drawing on his own retirement after thirty years co-founding a psychotherapy training centre as an example of rupture, loss and renewal. The essay draws on Hillman, Bion, Winnicott and Freud's concept of the uncanny to explore what it might mean to stay present with radical uncertainty rather than seeking premature resolution or escape.