Politics on the Couch: Introduction

What follows is the introduction to my new book, Politics on the Couch. Because we live in an interactive world and this election is an interactive process, I am conducting a new experiment: I'm posting sections of the manuscript twice weekly on my blog here at HuffingtonPost.com and am inviting readers' comments which may be folded into the final print edition to be published by HarperCollins.

Each section will describe psychological forces that affect our thoughts, perceptions, and actions. While the introduction is long - my apologies - subsequent sections will be brief. Since this election changes moment-to-moment, your comments will help us all better understand ourselves, and the voting process.

I look forward to your ideas and comments and invite you to subscribe to my blog so that you'll receive an e-mail alert as new excerpts from the book are posted. My thanks to Arianna Huffington, Colin Sterling, David Flumenbaum and the team at HuffingtonPost.com for their support.


Politics on the Couch

Preface

Change is taking place in America. John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Barack Obama gave it voice fueled by the misery of millions - the young men and women dying and maimed in Iraq; the victims of Katrina; the families whose homes are lost to foreclosure; the medically uninsured.

And it is more than human misery that drives so many people toward change - it is institutional as well as spiritual: our Constitution and American traditions are in tatters. Our pride at being Americans has diminished, as has our respect in the world. Even our fundamentally open-hearted attitude to one another is at risk. We cannot trust our leaders to tell the truth or to protect us from our enemies.

The push for change has emerged - in many - from the state of mind America got into after 9/11. That state of mind, following our experiences of vulnerability, grief, and rage, affected our leaders, the press, and all Americans - and almost led us into totalitarianism. That state of mind still exists, despite the new press for change, and the possibility of totalitarianism has not yet passed. We need to push beyond our adhesion to simplistic solutions and to the restricted thinking that invariably emerges in times of dissonance.

How can we think about that state of mind, especially if many of us are still in it? We certainly can't think about it without knowing what elements make it up. For instance, do we always latch onto slogans linked with patriotic disdain for groups and nations that are different from us? Do we have a natural proclivity to be swept away by certain dangerous modes of thought? Is there an "us" in Bush? And what is that state of mind, ultimately? All of us, voters as well as non-voters, would benefit from thinking about how we have been changed, not just that we want change from the way we are now. Put another way, do we want to change ourselves, or do we just want to have someone else make the changes?

Broken trust can lead to cynicism and apathy; it can also lead to outrage and demand for political reform. Frustration comes from a sense of betrayal - by our leaders, our institutions, the press, and ultimately by each other - we/they the people. We are complicit in letting it come to this. One way we are complicit is that we make mistakes based on powerful factors about which we are unaware. These unconscious states of mind often determine how we vote - not always in our best interest.

That Powerful Connection

All of us have had the experience of feeling strongly about public figures, from movie stars to world leaders. Whether we love or hate them, our feelings and reactions are based on projecting aspects of ourselves onto them.

Our relationships with political candidates are particularly interactive and never more important than in 2008. Our favorite actor wants us to buy tickets to his new movie, but he's unlikely to knock on the door asking for our support. Political candidates say they seek to serve us as they fill the airwaves while also holding numerous large and small rallies. Our relationship with candidates is more interdependent than with movie stars, and therefore our reactions to them reveal a great deal more about us, about who we are. We also relate to our leaders based on childhood relationships - real and imagined - that are kept alive in our unconscious. These feelings, impacted by the media, contribute powerfully to how we experience each candidate.

If a patient came into my office railing against a woman candidate he thought was too pushy, ambitious and without scruples I would think about two things - his childhood experience with his mother and his adult feelings about authority figures (including his psychiatrist), which he is now projecting onto the candidate.

Over the years I have tracked my own reactions to various political leaders from Eisenhower - when I was in middle school and high school - through GWB. I even suffer from legislative envy - a disenfranchised resident of Washington, DC, I have no representative in Congress. Over the years, I noticed things inside myself that I projected onto the candidates. When I wrote Bush on the Couch, I noticed even more.

Then there is the media and what it chooses to emphasize - often influenced by campaign gurus whose own inner worlds are dominated by unconscious fantasies which help them target voter fears and prejudices. Political strategist Karl Rove is a master manipulator in this realm. In 2000 and 2004, he advised Republican candidates to tie their campaigns to banning gay marriage, knowing that such sexual practices are uncomfortable childhood taboos for many people. And who better than Karl Rove to formulate such a plan, having lived through his father's coming out of the closet when he was a boy.

Of course, the real agenda of those candidates was an economic one that would find those same voters losing their homes to foreclosure in 2008. But we didn't realize that until it was too late, and lost our adult security by clinging to our childhood homosexual anxiety. People don't only cling to prejudices out of bitterness - as Obama so famously said in San Francisco - they cling because of private hates and fears.

Understanding a candidate's policies is important, but it is also important to understand our own emotions and experiences and how they shape us as human beings and as voters. I approach this project from my professional psychoanalytic understanding of individual and group psychology, focusing on how unconscious preconceptions, formed from our childhood experiences, affect our perception of the world and also influence our voting choices. Our emotional reaction to candidates is based on these preconceptions; we may even feel that particular candidates are speaking directly to our concerns and to us.

What do we choose to focus on when we choose a candidate? And what does our choice of focus say about us? Are we limited to choices presented by the media? Are we now dominated by particular blogs we choose to read? And what do our past relationships - with former office-holders as well as with members of our own families - have to do with perception?

I am not solely a psychoanalyst; I am also a citizen with my own feelings and memories. As a little boy, I overheard my parents and our neighbors - some of whom were childless - speak with pride about the quality of our local public schools and the taxes they paid to support them. Later, I became a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and then an active member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. I am a Democrat and a patriot who is heartbroken about the state of our union.

We share a collective responsibility for this country, and we exercise that responsibility in the voting booth. While many believe that a stacked Supreme Court chose our president for us in 2000, and that electronic voting machines are subject to tampering, half of all voters still preferred the candidate who was fundamentally flawed and who was bad for all of us - and we chose him twice.

While it remains true that too few of us vote, the number of voters in the 2008 primaries has been at record levels. Yet those who do cast their ballots are often unaware of unconscious preconceptions and the fantasies that affect them, so they don't spend enough time making thoughtful decisions about who best represents America's values and interests at every level of government. Ironically, they act out of irrational self-interest.

In addition to general principles of unconscious life that are relevant to voting, we will look at how our own family history and our relation to group phenomena influence decision-making. We will also look at ways the media distorts information - and at our complicity in that distortion. We can discover what it is in us that particular candidates seem to speak to - a process that evolves from understanding who we are, where we came from, and what we want.

Comments

[Chipster]

Dr. Frank laid out Bush on the Couch; now Vincent Bugliosi prosecutes the case of Bush as a mass murderer, providing the legal framework and blueprint to try Bush:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRlJk1qhWVw

And what about the American political process? Will prosecutors across the nation demonstrate that no man is above the law? If not, why not?

Why have no presidential candidates been asked, let alone answered questions about their position on impeachment?

[Michale32086]

Probably because there is no cause for impeachment.

The causes for impeachment live only in the court of public opinion.

Even Bugliosi's commentary has to pre-suppose one vital aspect.

"**IF** Bush lied..."

That one line permeates Bugliosi's entire commentary...

"**IF** Bush lied, then this this this...."

"**IF** Bush lied... then that, that that.."

But, as has been stated by 3 different commissions (2 US Bi Partisan commissions and one British commission) and has been stated again in McClellan's book..

The Bush Administration did not lie or attempt to deceive the American public.

The Bush Administration was wrong.. Pure and simple..

Just as all the sports pundits were wrong when they claimed that the NE Patriots would go undefeated for the season...

No lies were involved...

It's really THAT simple...

Michale.....

[TomR]

----
Do we have a natural proclivity to be swept away by certain dangerous modes of thought?
----

I"ve looked into the distorted thinking pattern known as "catastrophizing." This is where a person takes the most extreme outcome possible, no matter how remote, and bases his/her decisions on that outcome. When the world is framed in stark, catastrophic, black and white terms, it makes it easier to manipulate others" perceptions of reality. In the case of the Bush administration, "We cannot wait for the smoking gun, that may come in the form of a mushroom cloud." When presented with this framing by our president, it was very difficult for Americans to make a sound decision about going to war in Iraq. Catastrophizing is the basis for Vice President Cheney"s "1% Doctrine."

George Lakoff states that people cannot reason without using their emotion(s). In addition to using logic and rational thought, there"s an emotional component or comfort level associated with decision-making. It seems quite easy for emotion to trump facts and logic in the decision-making process. And since manipulation tactics work against a person at the emotional level, people remain vulnerable to them as Rove well knows.

Awareness and education is the key. If people learn and understand how this works, they"ll be less apt to be swept away by dangerous modes of thought. For more on manipulation, see:

http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2008/3/8/103948/4418/Diary/Fighting-Effectively-Against-Dirty-Rovian-Tactics

- Tom

[Anaximander]

Dr. Frank,

I came across this. Seems intuitive, until you get to his conclusions. Regarding your search for group phenomena...

"Men prefer to forget how many possibilities are open to them. They like to be told that there are two worlds and two ways. This is comforting because it is so tidy. Almost always one way turns out to be common and the other one is celebrated as superior. Those who tell of two ways and praise one are recognized as prophets and great teachers. They save men from confusion and hard choices. They offer a single choice that is easy to make because those that do not take the path that is commended to them live a wretched life. To walk far on this path may be difficult, but the choice is easy, and to hear the celebration of this path is pleasant. Wisdom offers simple schemes, but truth is not so simple. Not all simplicity is wise. But a wealth of possibilities breeds dread. Hence those who speak of many possibilities speak to the few and are of help to even fewer. The wise offer only two ways, one of which is good, and thus help many." Martin Buber

[Chipster]

There's a certain synergy of irony in that the publication of Politics on the Couch coincides with Scott McCollum's expose of Bush's White House. For those of us who were always suspicious of Bush, his motivations and objectives, the long years of atrocious mismanagement , the bald bold larceny of the public treasury, the sneering mockery of the citizens as our best died in an unnecessary and immoral war while the so-called Commander in Chief derisively mocked their service in a feeble search for WMD's under his desk has lead us to a crisis of authentic American patriotism. For years, some of us languished in the superficial haze of ersatz, jingoistic Americanism: Shock and awe! Shock and awe!

And finally, someone who has witnessed the instability in Bush's character has written about it in a matter of fact tone:

In Bush's second term, as news from Iraq grew worse, McClellan says the president was "insulated from the reality of events on the ground and consequently began falling into the trap of believing his own spin."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/WireStory?id=4952098&page=2

Insulated, Delusional = What ID he?

And, who are we? Do we have the courage to examine the realities of Bush-Cheney crimes though our constitutionally-mandated impeachment process to reclaim our national integrity as a nation built upon rule of law - that we are a nation of laws, not of men?

There is no statute of limitations on the Constitution.

[gingergroup]

Yipee! A real psychologist is taking this on, and doing it in the public sphere! It's a shame and a sham that agenda-driven consultants and pollsters are continually asked to weigh in on what makes voters tick ,deep down, vis a vis race, gender, class, etc. Most aren't genuine experts on how people think; they are experts on how to win votes (with all due respect to those of you who really take your work seriously, you aren't the ones blathering away on cable TV). While I think psychology has certain limits (all social sciences do, they choose their objects of study and miss some important context or other), and I hope Dr. Frank will check in with some sociologists and anthropologists as he pursues this analysis, overall, I am dee-lighted to see this work unfold at Huffpost. Good call and lucky us!

[outnow]

Dr. Frank,

Your articles and book about Bush's sociopathic personality have been very enlightening and in accord with my own observations. The question is how could the Americans ever select such a person as President. Even if the elections were stolen, what makes Americans so inept at making such an important selection?

The answer lies in many decades of indoctrination. The United States is a civilization in crisis, and it may well lack the ability to face. The "shadow" side of America that has always come with America's promise of individualism and reliance on the market technology - a pervasive deficit of empathy and caring for others and for the public good - has profound implications for its decline as a nation as well as its reckless militarism abroad, according to Gareth Porter, author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.

Certainly our nation has entered a dangerous phase in its historical development, from which there is no return. As the corporate-consumer juggernaut that now defines our nation rolls on, the very factors that once propelled us to greatness - extreme individualism, territorial and economic expansion, and the pursuit of material wealth are now the factors that prevent our decline. These factors will contribute to the United States being marginalized on the world stage as corruption and hypocrisy drive us toward a police state run by multinational corporations who buy politicians.

Bush is as much a symptom as a cause of that decline.

[frustratedinohio]

"If a patient came into my office railing against a woman candidate he thought was too pushy, ambitious and without scruples I would think about two things - his childhood experience with his mother and his adult feelings about authority figures (including his psychiatrist), which he is now projecting onto the candidate."

Ever read some of the anti-Hillary comments out here. Pick any posting. The comments immediately become about Hillary, even if the post wasn't specifically about her. One commentor described them as "rabid" and they are. If you really want to put America on the couch, please, start here.

[magen]

2 problems-

The media having an agenda other than just reporting.

The American people's lack of critical thinking.

Solutions-

Break up media conglomeration.

Fund education.

[lutznancy]

Justy,
Now I know what you have been working on! I wondered why we haven't heard from you here. I look forward to reading more.....I'm reading the new book by Glen Greenwald entitled Great American Hypocrites and he posits another interesting theory, which ties in with yours as well. My only frustration is that the people who should be looking at this, reading your book, probably will not. Ahh, but we keep trying. Congratulations.
Nancy in Florida

[MalleusMaleficarum]

America badly needs its moment on the couch deeply engaged in free association with a competent analyst. In his final years, Freud turned to metapsychology when he produced some of his most perceptive works including Moses and Monotheism, a analytical tour de force of the origins of monotheism. As a nation, America is a perfect subject for pschoanalysis. Today, in our time of crisis and upheaval - we are searching for a catharsis. America needs to understand what has taken place in order to forge ahead on its own mission. No rational or dispassionate analysis is available to Americans via the media. While it might be shocking, it cannot be denied that America is now ranked 53rd on the World Press Freedom Index where it is tied with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga. Our media culture has failed to provide competent reporting and analysis, and a new approach is fully justified. The opening comments about Edwards, Kucinich and Obama opening a new level of dialogue for fundamental change builds confidence in your ability to provide a coldly objective analysis. I look forward to reading more about this fascinating project.

[robeson]

We must look back at the 2000 election and the candidates to make accurate assumptions about the 2008 political campaign. One item that desperately needs review, how did someone as unqualified as GW Bush become President. My own suspicion is that big money promoted him, and big media protected him. Why did they, and why in collusion? GW Bush had a long list of personal failures in his resume, too long to list here. One of his most telling failures was his decade of addiction, alcohol and possibly cocaine. A decade of abuse that was accepted and put off limits by both the Bush camp and MSM. It is difficult to believe that someone could attain the most powerful position in the world and exclude ten years from his life. Is there any employer who would forgive a 10 year gap in someone"s resume? Wasn"t GW Bush"s nomination a failure of our political system?

[bracken]

I have to agree with Herrington: this all has been done before. What was that Vance Packard book of the fifties, what did Edward Bernays teach? Don't books like those and Groupthink and The Organization Man cover it too? How To Make Friends And Influence People?

I would rather read of that stimulus that strikes wonder in a person, that jolts him or her OUT of their preconceptions, even if only for a moment. This was expertly done in a PSA showing a photo of a black man and narrating a tale of armed assault, until the perp was "arrested by Officer John Robinson--shown here."

Greater complexity, or even awareness thereof, is not what the average person seeks in life--or if it is, it's in small, digestible doses. Ever-expanding elaboration, analysis, explorations, explanations may be an avoidance technique in itself. Not you personally.

[Herrington]

It has been done and done again sir. What subliminal, primal hind brain sight, sound or smell will move us has been studied to death. Babies are hard wired to smile and hang on. Adults remain hard wired to mistrust the unusual. The limits of the influence of personal makeup equate to the limits of the median human experience. It might be interesting, in a voyeuristic sense, to correlate childhood experience with voting patterns, but it is a moot point. The result could only be candidates who artificially target the emotions of a median citizen, something they already do.

The solution for a better world does not lie in discovering our inner child of the past, but in discovering adulthood. We are influenced in the main by our subconscious when our conscious mind cannot deal with the complexity of the question. We just guess. Bush was elected twice on a guess, or rather in response to an overload of complexity for which we sought a simple minded solution.

If it were possible to call bullshit, on whatever basis, on an underperforming mind and have a productive outcome, it would have been done by now and we would not be dealing with Republicans at all.

Greatness at oratory moves the best minds and those minds then move the remainder. The key to moving people is the moving of someone in whom they have invested respect, childhood traumas nothwithstanding. Independent we may be, but we are not so independent as we assume.

[frustratedinohio]

"The solution for a better world does not lie in discovering our inner child of the past, but in discovering adulthood. "

So true and it's really about better education for all. No Adult Left Behind.

[Dap]

Dear Dr. Frank,

That's an unique aproach, best wish with it. I'll try to keep up and help if I can. Agape.

[Lonestarmom]

Your premise will be interesting to watch unfold. I can tell you that I considered myself an Independent until a few years ago when I heard Senator Obama speak at a democratic rally here in Dallas soon after he became a senator. He spoke of his vision of America and how we were all interconnected. I felt he embodied what is best about the Democratic Party. The inclusiveness, the openess to new ideas, protection of our environment, and hope for the future of us all. I knew that day that I would commit to being a democrat and if he ever ran for President I would support him. I will be looking forward to reading more of your book.