Psychoanalysis is a theory and treatment of the mind that focuses on the relationship between two people in an artificial situation designed to elicit and explore intense emotional states. By uncovering such states and unraveling their connections to past mental constructs, memories, relationships, etc, the goal is t enlarge the area of awareness for our patients of how their minds work. As a result our patients can behave more effectively in the world. It is worth noting that the focus is always on the inner world of the patient. Reality is acknowledged, but always as a derivative of the patient's experience. In other words, when a patient tells me that their mother was neglectful of them, I am always aware that this is a description of the person's current understanding of his past experience of his mother rather than an unconflicted description of past reality. In this way, a certain intellectual modesty can be preserved; I may understand Psychology better than my patient, but I can never understand his experience better than him.
Psychology is the broader term which covers all the various scientific approaches to understanding the human mind; note again, that the emphasis is always on the inner world of people and how that inner world is reflected in the outer world of external reality.
I emphasize Psychology's field of study as the inner world because a number of recent situations have occurred which suggest many people in the field (perhaps including me at times) are too comfortable using Psychology to discredit people they disagree with.
Recently, Psychology Today, a mass media news-magazine which has published for many years and attempts to popularize Psychological ideas, published The Ideological Animal, by Jay Dixit. The premise of the article is laid out in the subtitle:
We think our political stance is the product of reason, but we're easily manipulated and surprisingly malleable. Our essential political self is more a stew of childhood temperament, education, and fear of death. Call it the 9/11 effect.
The political orientation of the article will come as no surprise to people who have been paying attention to the manipulation of Psychological data. The article starts with a description of a Blog-friend, Cinnamon Stillwell, and includes this:
Stillwell, now a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, had been a liberal her whole life, writing off all Republicans as "ignorant, intolerant yahoos." Yet on 9/11, everything changed for her, as it did for so many. In the days after the attacks, the world seemed "topsy-turvy." On the political left, she wrote, "There was little sympathy for the victims," and it seemed to her that progressives were "consumed with hatred for this country" and had "extended their misguided sympathies to tyrants and terrorists."
The writer seems unaware of his own bias and the bias inherent in some of the studies that his conclusions rest upon. (I more directly addressed the reporting on the Block and Block article he cites in Social Science Mis-Reporting and the Value of Skepticism back in March.) Dixit reports favorably on the theory that it is fear of death that motivates people to become more conservative. The comments of Psychologist Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore and Dixit's conclusion are worth noting:
"People have two modes of thought," concludes Solomon. "There's the intuitive gut-level mode, which is what most of us are in most of the time. And then there's a rational analytic mode, which takes effort and attention."
The solution, then, is remarkably simple. The effects of psychological terror on political decision making can be eliminated just by asking people to think rationally. Simply reminding us to use our heads, it turns out, can be enough to make us do it.
Cinnamon Stillwell has written her own response to the article, Further Thoughts On Psychology Today's "9/11 Effect" Article, and points out a significant flaw in the reasoning:
Finally, the article's closing paragraph indicating that if one is simply encouraged to "think rationally" none of this political shifting (presumably to the right) would be required, is not only silly, but insulting. It was just such rational thinking that led me to reject the left and embrace those (most of whom, it turned out, were on the right) that fully understood the dangers of Islamic fascism. If it's irrational to want to fight against the great totalitarian threat of our day, then count me in.
Those of you who followed the long discussion in the comments to my post Changing A Mind: Mission (Near) Impossible Addendum will recall Dr. X, who offered some cogent remarks, but was undone when various readers went to his site and made note of his dismissive and insulting tone toward the very people he had presumed to engage in respectful discourse. He has continued to write about what he believes to be the difficulty Neocons have in changing their minds (back to "normal" Liberalism). His assumption seems to be that liberals have become Neocons in response to being terrorized by 9/11, and that the shift includes and reinforces a rigidity that prevents those of us who have negotiated such a shift from recognizing the irrational basis of our political awakening and thus returning to Liberalism. In Why Neo-cons Don't Change Their Minds About The War: Part II he summarizes his thesis and presents a well written and succinct description of the psychodynamics behind paranoia and projection:
In an earlier post, Why Neo-cons Don't Change Their Minds About The War, I presented an analysis of liberal to neo-con political conversion as a defensive reaction to a destabilizing narcissistic blow or a series of such blows. Like other converts, the neo-con|vert is highly resistant to changes in his or her newly adopted belief system because beliefs arising from conversion serve restorative and protective functions that ward off overwhelming feelings of weakness and vulnerability.
....
Aggression directed toward internal persecutory objects — the murderous 'Islamofacists' and their sympathizers — affords a degree of continuous relief from the pressure of an ongoing unconscious conflict triggered by the trauma of 9-11. Retaliatory murderous rage stirred by the attacks could account for some conversions among 'aggressive' liberals who had a significant narcissistic investment in denying their own primitive aggression.
The sense of a war within the self is clearly captured in the convert's perfect casting of liberals and Islamofacists as enemies who share an implicit underlying alliance with one another. Neo-con attacks on liberalism express the convert's unconscious alliance with the internal Islamofacist persecutor, while neo-con attacks on Islamofacism express the rage of the former liberal who can't be both a liberal and a retaliatory killer at the same time. The internal warring parties are both disavowed and a new 'externalized' war commences against both. Thus, the neo-con continues to be both victim and persecutor, but in a way that is more consciously tolerable.
...
In our present-day political debate over the war in Iraq, neo-con|verts must deny the escalating, ultimately self-defeating nature of these paranoid dynamics while demanding an escalating proxy war in the external world as a 'solution' to an internal problem. Many of those whose earlier support for the war was not fundamentally rooted in paranoia, have modified their views in reaction to the evidence coming from Iraq. It is becoming clear to all but a die-hard few that much blood is being shed to perpetuate an unwinnable war that may even have been doomed to failure from the start.
Dr. X simply ignores facts which contradict his thesis, for example, that the Islamofascists have stated quite explicitly that the Democrats (liberals) in the West are promoting policies that they would like to see implemented. His suggestion that the problem is purely internal (to Neo-cons) is unhelpful in every way. He suggests that Neo-cons are rigidly incapable of questioning the war, its conduct, or different approaches that might increase the possibility of achieving a salient outcome in Iraq, while at the same time offering nothing more than the idea that the war may have been a mistake and should be abandoned; even many on the liberal side of the political divide have grave reservations about that. However, that is a relatively minor quibble in terms of this discussion, since the entire edifice depends on a single point:
Those who are pathologizing Neo-cons believe that at best we are over reacting to a minor threat and at worst are creating the threat out of minimal evidence.
In other words, there is no real threat from Islamic fascism and by responding the way we have, we are actually creating the danger. There are two problems with this formulation and the manner in which it is promulgated. First, it may well be incorrect and the danger to the country if we are correct and Dr. X et al are incorrect is profound (as is the danger if we are incorrect and he is correct). Many people have written and argued in quite compelling terms that we are facing a clear and present danger from Islamofascism as dangerous as any ideological clash of the last century. Most recently, Victor Davis Hansen has presented the case in War?—What War? Dr. X and Psychology Today's entire argument is rendered nonsensical if there is a real threat.
[I wrote a post describing a woman who had been hospitalized for Psychiatric reasons, where the distinction between paranoia and reality was particularly difficult to make; there was a plausible external danger and she did not exhibit the stigmata of serious psychiatric pathology. The post was Conspiracy Theories: Fantasy, Delusion, or Reality.]
The second issue arises in ascribing psychological pathology to a political opponent, a practice much more often promoted by the liberal side of the political spectrum. By essentially resorting to sophisticated insults (and Dr. X's Part I is actually quite insulting), those who rely on such ad hominem arguments completely avoid grappling with the more difficult and more important question. Are we or are we not threatened by Islamic fascism? I have spent a lot of time on liberal and left wing sites. I have almost no recollection of posts attempting to support the argument that the danger from the Islamists is exaggerated. There is a great deal of assertion of the point, but no real debate or argumentation. It is simply enough to say we are not threatened and then blame Bush and the Neo-cons for our current parlous situation in the world. This is insufficient. If Neo-cons are wrong, rather than paranoid, please explain where we are wrong. Almost every Neo-con I know would love to be shown a good argument that we are overstating the threat. However, until you can at least build a cogent argument, even if it leaves many people unconvinced, then do not presume that you are doing anything more than mis-using Psychology to attack those with whom you disagree.
NB: For those who are interested, the Psychology Today article is a topic discussed in the most recent Sanity Squad Podcast, which should be available on line later today.
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