They are not in themselves a target. I do of course not claim to know what every member of the respective group thinks or does. This form of sentence is about general trends that can indeed be observed, but any psychologist, any reader must decide for himself if, and possibly how, he has any part in this trend or not. For the young man in the saga, things were straightforward. Starting point and goal, home and world, were unambiguous opposites.
Psychology is in a much more complicated situation.
It prefers to stay in exile, feeling truly at home in the very alienation from itself. However, this does not mean that its task would simply be a movement in the opposite direction, from the world out there to its home. Psychology has to live with and within these contradictions. They are both its plight and its distinction, and it will be the task of the following discourse to find a way into them. The course of my reflections proceeds in concentric circles, as it were.