1st Edition
America’s Psychological Now Enlivening the Social and Collective Unconscious in a Time of Urgency.
This book explores the causes behind Trump's victory in the 2016 US presidential election and asks how a psychoanalytic understanding of the social unconscious can help us plot a new direction for the future in US politics and beyond.
It first describes the social/psychological threads that are the now of American culture. Seeds of hope are discovered through an in-depth examination of the American idea of excess as represented by Trump, its archetypal figure. Essential psychoanalytic ideas such as, the fundamental human condition of living with both individual and social unconscious, the psychic feminine principal, the notion of psychic valence and more are illustrated as psychic integrations necessary for America to move towards a redemptive positive social change. This book combines feminist exploration with playful illustrative imagery and mythic story—aiming to awaken minds across generations.
America’s Psychological Now is key reading for psychoanalysis, psychologists, political theorists, and anyone wishing to understand better how the social and political systems could be changed for the future.
Part 1: Threads 1. In the beginning 2. Living in denial: Our multi-dimensional Unconscious 3. Cracking the geode of Excess 4. Indispensable invisible foundations: Our feminine roots 5. Excess as Access: Foreshadowing unconscious knowledge 6. A tipping point? Part 2: Changing the Narrative 7. A return of the repressed: Lilith arising 8. Moving forward: 20th century Boomers to 21st century Millennials 9. Flight paths: Hillary Clinton & Angela Merkel 10. Warrior work: Ground Zero—ERA passage 11. Warrior work: Ground Zero 2.0--Digital Worlds 12. A call to arms: Re-sistering 13. A Myth for now and going forward: The KVM Chronicles 14. In the end…a beginning
Biography
Mardy S. Ireland, PhD, psychologist, psychoanalyst, and educator, retired in October, 2023. She is the author of: The Art of the Subject: Between Necessary Illusion and Speakable Desire in the Analytic Encounter and Reconceiving Women: Separating Motherhood from Female Identity, and a wide range of book chapters and articles.
Teri Quatman, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology in Santa Clara University’s Graduate Program of Counseling Psychology and is a psychologist in private practice. She has authored multiple academic publications and two books for clinicians: Essential Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: An Acquired Art and Accessing the Clinical Genius of Winnicott.
"This highly accessible book sheds a developmentally attuned, psychoanalytic perspective on the phenomena of excess in America and shows how it has permeated our culture and collective unconscious. It’s wide-ranging critique; from Eve to Lilith, from Hilary Clinton to Angela Markel, and from the baby boomers to generation Z allows the reader to consider the darker aspects of our culture’s relationship to excess from a variety of angles, while calling upon the contributions of 21st century Feminist Theory as a path to address the crisis of democracy in America."
Hattie Myers Ph.D. is a training and supervising analyst at (IPTAR) and founder/editor of ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action.
"Ireland and Quatman explore the hidden recesses of our national psyche, shedding light on the unconscious forces currently shaping and fragmenting our country. With passion they urge us to embrace a new feminist perspective, one they call “warrior work”, to confront the forces that perpetuate sexism, racism and acquisitiveness. This book is a must read, a rallying cry for a society urgently in need of healing."
Kerry Malawista PhD, psychoanalyst, author of When the Garden isn’t Eden and Meet the Moon, and co-chair New Directions Writing Program.
