1st Edition
A Political Psychoanalysis for the Anthropocene Age The Fierce Urgency of Now
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I
Chapter 1 Developing a Psychoanalytic Political Philosophy: The Emergence of Political Selves and Environmentally Destructive Illusions
Chapter 2 A Psychoanalytic Political Philosophy of Dwelling
Chapter 3 Psychoanalysis, Sovereignty, and Political Violence
Chapter 4 Psychoanalysis and Systemic Obstacles to Climate Action: Capitalism, Nationalism, and the New Imperialism
Chapter 5 Psychoanalysis, Political Change, and the Issue of Hope
PART II
Chapter 6 Socrates, Tiresias, and Freud: Reimagining Psychoanalysis and the Public Square
Chapter 7 Psychoanalytic Education and Therapy in the Anthropocene Age
References
Biography
Ryan LaMothe is a professor of pastoral care and counseling at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, USA. Over the last three decades, he has published books and articles in the areas of psychology of religion, psychoanalysis, pastoral counseling, and political theology and philosophy. He is Past President of the Society for Pastoral Theology and has served on several editorial boards.
"Ryan LaMothe ranks among the most penetrating, wide-ranging and illuminating interpreters of the onset of the Anthropocene age. No one surpasses him for crafting an acute and balanced analysis of the many political, ethical and moral issues that this turbulent new era entails. His sharp psychoanalytic insights make this an especially valuable contribution to our understanding of the unfolding crisis." - Kurt Jacobsen and David Morgan, co-editors of Free Associations
"In his at once expansive and finely detailed exposé of the illusions that are killing us and destroying our planet, Ryan LaMothe puts psychoanalysis, philosophy, and political science on the couch and arrives at a revolutionary understanding of a new psychoanalytic political theory. Radical to its Aristotelian roots and with all the "Urgency of Now," La Mothe’s carefully argued masterpiece of interdisciplinary scholarship is more than a riveting read. It is essential to our survival as a species." - Hattie Myers PhD -- Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR), Editor in Chief of ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action
"LaMothe makes a compelling case for the fierce urgency of bringing political philosophy into heated, constructive conversation with psychoanalysis. Crossing these and other boundaries, he shows, can allow us to begin to understand and address the multiple catastrophes of the Anthropocene. Philosophers, psychoanalytically minded practitioners, and anyone prepared for a bracing investigation ranging from theories of capitalism to theories of care, among other areas, will benefit from this interdisciplinary book. Our psychic stability and the stability of our planet make thinkers like LaMothe required reading." - Susan Kassouf, PhD, Licensed Psychoanalyst (National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis)
"In the current global political and environmental crisis, LaMothe’s book is a powerful call toward care and moral outrage on the behalf of a threatened planetary ecosystem." - Panu Pihkala, Theology Today 82(2)
“Ryan LaMothe provides a political pastoral and psychoanalytically informed approach to the broadest crisis of suffering, that of the climate emergency…LaMothe links our emotional, subjective, and communal wellbeing to the devastating effects of nationalism, capitalism, and imperialism. LaMothe indicates again that this is not a how-to, clinical practice textbook on attending to eco-emotions or anxiety, but a penetrating and expansive look at the sources of suffering. LaMothe carries forth the injunction to break through the illusions of Western notions of humanity’s superiority via the revelatory realities of climate-crisis via an anarchic and agnostic mode of care. Psychoanalysis must consciously reevaluate its operative political philosophies to properly attend to the climate crisis…If therapists continue to compartmentalize or ignore the climate crisis, they engage in unethical and uncritical work, unable to facilitate clients’ or patients’ capacity to critically confront the systems that are destroying us. The critically engaged analyst lives into their prophetic vocation, integrating the consulting room with the public sphere to confront the illusions that harm the earth.” - Christopher M. Hoskins (10 Apr 2026): Pastoral Care in the Anthropocene Age: Facing A Dire Future Now and A Political Psychoanalysis for the Anthropocene Age: The Fierce Urgency of Now and The Coming Jesus and the Anthropocene, Journal of Pastoral Theology, DOI: 10.1080/10649867.2026.2653948
