This three session seminar course will offer a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective on the current social/political realities and cultural factors at play during today’s perilous times. Discussions will draw upon the instructor’s recently published book by Phoenix Publishing House, Ruptures in the American Psyche: Containing Destructive Populism in Perilous Times, that examines destructive populism and large-group regression as exemplified by malignant cult-like elements in Trumpism. Psychoanalytic ideas on group dynamics, authoritarian and proto-fascist states of mind, malignant regression, and leadership highlight the dangerous fit between malignant, autocratic leadership and perverted group containment. Recognizing unconscious dynamics in the collective American psyche help to develop approaches that potentially decrease the potency of the nation’s destructive elements while furthering healthier containment through managing the body politics’ inherent tensions.
6 CEUs
Instructor: Michael J. Diamond
Dates: January 26, February 2, February 23, 2024
Time: 4:00–6:00 pm
Location: Online
Fee: $280, candidate: $100
Course Objectives:
After attending this program, participants should be able to:
1. Describe pathological dynamics in group relations, including aspects of group regression, malignant normality, psychotic functioning, cultism, thought control, and attacks on truth and objective reality.
2. Explain the role played by malignant leadership in fulfilling primitive unconscious group phantasies and furthering paranoid, conspiratorial thinking.
3. Summarize the social and psychological conditions that contribute to large group regression that entail the use of such mechanisms as splitting, projective identification, and omnipotence.
4. Identify the major tactics of demagoguery and hypnotic methods that facilitate group adherence to non-critical thinking.
5. Describe the gender-related factors that contribute to systemic divisiveness and proto-fascist movements.
6. Discuss and describe the characteristics of malignant narcissism, paranoia, and projective identification and utilize this information in diagnosis of leaders of social groups.
7. Apply this knowledge towards deepening the understanding of pathological dynamics in group relations, including aspects of group regression, malignant normality, psychotic functioning, cultism, thought control, and attacks on truth and objective reality
8. Identify more subtle aspects of the socio-political and cultural environment as they impact the frame and the therapist’s relationship to his/her own mind (and countertransference issues)
Course Outline:
Meeting #1 – Friday Jan 26th (2024), 4-6:00pm EST; Read: Preface; Chapter 1 Introduction: Exploring the non-rational, unconscious dimensions in American democracy; and, Chapter 2 Democracy and populism: Sociopolitical perspectives on the American Experiment
Meeting #2 – Friday Feb 2nd (2024), 4-6:00pm EST; Read Chapter 3,4,5, Psychoanalytic perspectives on destructive populism and large-group regression: The rise of Trumpism in the US; Psychotic processes, paranoia, and conspiratorial thinking in large groups; and, The malignant leader’s perversion of the containing function and the perils of cultism
Meeting #3 – Friday Feb 23rd (2024), 4-6:00pm EST, Read Chapters 6 and 7, Containing Trumpism and destructive populism: Addressing, encompassing, and restraining regressive malignant dynamics; and, Concluding Thoughts: A plea for hope in these uncertain times
For sign up, please RSVP to eskinassistant@gmail.com. We are currently only accepting payments via Chase Zelle at this time.
