Episode 23: On the Psychoanalysis of Conspiracy Theories

Lives of the Unconscious

Summary: Conspiracy phantasma derive their power from affects, not from arguments. They cannot be understood by differentiating them from some supposedly reasonable normality – for normality may not be so reasonable after all – but only in the reflection of their affective cohesiveness. In fact, they are a social psychological phenomenon of extraordinary proportions: and a case for depth psychology. In this episode we will hear more about the role conspiracy theories can play for the psyche and why they cannot be easily abandoned.

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Literature Recommendations:

• Adorno, T. W. (1997). The Stars Down to Earth: The Los Angeles Times Astrology Column. Telos, 1974, 19, 13–90
• Bion, W. (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London: Tavistock Publica-tions.
• Green, R. & Douglas, K.M. (2018). Anxious attachment and belief in con-spiracy theories. Personality and Individual Differences. Volume 125, 15, 30-37
• Blum, H. (1981). Object Inconstancy and Paranoid Conspiracy. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 29:789–813
• Lantian, A. et al. (2017). »I Know Things They Don’t Know!« The Role of Need for Uniqueness in Belief in Conspiracy Theories. Social Psycholo-gy, 48, pp. 160-173. Hogrefe Publishing.
• Rosenfeld, H. (1971). Contribution to the psychopathology of psychotic states: The importance of projective identification in the ego structure and the object relations of the psychotic patient. In: Doucet, P. & Lau-rin, C. (eds.): Problems of Psychosis. Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica