In Dark Times: Psychoanalytic Praxis as a Form of Resistance to Fascist Propaganda

ABSTRACT

Elaborating on Adorno’s observation that fascist propaganda is psychoanalysis in reverse the author demonstrates that psychoanalytic praxis and ethics are diametrically opposed to fascist propaganda and to fascistic states of mind. The article demonstrates how Fascist states of mind rely on inventing enemies and on using massive projective identification to lodge hated aspects of the Self in these enemies who are then attacked and destroyed. The inclination to rush into action instead of reflection, the proclivity to create false certainty and remove any traces of doubt in fascistic states is examined. The attack on truth and complex thinking in these malignant states is also explored. Using Trump’s rhetoric and the rhetorical devices employed by American ultra-right-wing agitators during the Roosevelt administration, the author demonstrates that the very practice of psychoanalysis can be viewed as a form of a steady, thoughtful and a peaceful resistance to the destructive seduction of fascistic states of mind.

KEYWORDS:

• Fascistic state of mind
• propaganda
• fascistic leader
• genocidal language
• -K link
• lies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ This paper is a version of two talks with a similar title that I gave in Austin, Texas in 2018 and in San Francisco in 2020. See references (Loewenstein, 2018b and 2020) for more detail.

² While this statement is often attributed to Adorno it is hard to locate an exact reference to it. This statement is attributed to him in the short editorial introduction to his 1951/1982 paper The Freudian theory and the patterns of fascist propaganda. Lowenthal (1987) in his memoir of Adorno wrote “I am proud that Adorno approved and used my shorthand definition of fascist agitation as well as culture industry as ‘psychoanalysis in reverse,’ that is, as more or less constantly manipulated devices to keep people in permanent psychic bondage, to increase and reinforce neurotic and even psychotic behavior culminating in perpetual dependency on a ‘leader’ or on institutions or products” (p. 186).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Era A. Loewenstein

Era A. Loewenstein, Ph.D., is an adult, child, and adolescent psychoanalyst and Training and Supervising Analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. Era is in private practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in San Francisco. She has been writing and teaching about fascistic states of mind since 2016.