CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Towards a Revolutionary Psychoanalysis

Cover art for the book From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures by Lara Sheehi

Psyops are part and parcel of warfare, especially in modern times. Familiarly called winning hearts and minds during Washington’s war on the Vietnamese, one can argue that the incorporation of modern psychology into what might be termed propaganda exercises enhanced those “exercises”. Whether or not bringing psychological insights into the combat for the hearts and minds of non-combatants made war propaganda more effective is up for debate. However, its use in convincing the people back home—the ones paying for the war with their money and their children—seems to have been very effective. The evidence for this statement lies in the support wars tend to get by those governments waging them; a support that waxes and wanes often according to how the killing is presented.

That being said, there is another possible use of psychology that rejects the underlying goal of mainstream practice, that is, to get people to adjust to the structure of control and repression the state and its system of servitude demands. This alternative use of psychology is one that encourages liberation, in fact sets liberation as its goal. In a manner similar to the understanding championed by R.D. Laing and other rebel psychiatrists and psychologists that, generally speaking, insanity is a reasonable response to an insane society, a psychology that suggests a revolutionary struggle is an appropriate response to the current structure of capitalism, militarism and empire.

It is this........

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