One of the psychoses of Safety is the identification as Safety. This occurs when people attribute offense to any criticism of Safety. What this does, is generate uniform compliance and any criticism of Safety must be deemed ‘an attack’ on Safety.

No-one is safety. Any personal identification as a representation of the system is a psychosis.

We don’t get this in any profession. If you criticise schools or education systems (eg Ken Robinson), teachers don’t think they are being attacked personally. Indeed, none of the professions act in this way, which is why Safety is not a profession. It is yet to take an ethic of professionalism seriously. In the professions, critical thinking is considered essential for the growth and maturity of the system.

So, when you criticise the Archetype of Safety, this has no relationship to the persons in the system.

Systems have their own life force and power unto themselves, way beyond the persons who work in that sector.

Last night I watched the Four Corners Program that was an interrogation of corruption in Australian Universities (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-30/campus-chaos/106513874).

I wonder how many lecturers and staff take this personally? I wonder how many think, I don’t just work in university, I am a University! Yet, without this interrogation how are things going to improve? Without this interrogation how much more harm will be caused? I wonder how many lecturers and staff say, how dare you criticise me?

Yet, this is the discourse I see constantly in safety. It is as if the curriculum and post curriculum culture of the industry cultivates this.

You criticised Safety, so you criticised me! I’m offended by such criticism.

Such is the culture of the industry and is even fostered deeply by such silly safety campaigns such as ‘make safety personal’. No, make safety professional.

In order to do so, Safety needs to unlearn much of this indoctrination and re-learn some of the basics of ethics required for professionalism. You can read more about this in our free book: The Ethics of Risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-ethics-of-risk/)

If Safety is ever going to be professional, it has to step away from this psychosis of identifying as safety.