Reflecting on hurt and grievance from a relational perspective, this paper draws on what’s happening in Ireland, the UK, the European Union (EU), and the U.S. to illustrate how our perilous and deeply disturbing times reflect a pervasive global employment of projective processes, denial, and splitting. Emphasis is given to the need for human kindness and the need to recognize the human in both our own selves and the other, acknowledging our shared vulnerabilities, insecurities, and anxieties, and the interrelated nature of our suffering. The current political climate crisis is co-created, which means that we share a collective responsibility for the perilous states that we find ourselves in. The urgent, vitalizing project of rehumanizing our own selves and our political enemies is very much a collective challenge, one which both psychoanalysis and literature can help us to address. In particular, the humanity and the defiant hopefulness in the poetry of Seamus Heaney is presented here as both a soothing balm and a source of inspiration in these polarized and troubled times.