Program Description
What you will receive:
- 6 Live Webinar Sessions with Q & A
- 6 Links to the Recordings
- 6 CECs
“Mind of State: Politics, Psyche and Soul in Turbulent Times” is a six-week course based the recent book, MIND OF STATE: Conversations on the Psychological Conflicts Stirring U.S. Politics and Society. Timed to run through the heart of the 2024 presidential election season, this course is aimed to help participants make sense of what has often felt like sociopolitical nonsense.
A reframing of conversations from the Mind of State podcast (2019–2021), this series offers insights from our guests — experts in politics, psychology, social psychology, political science, and climate justice, to name a few — whom we invited to help us understand the confusing complexities of American political psychology.
Unlike traditional political analyses, which often overlook the psychological aspects, or psychological studies that neglect the political context, our course navigates the intertwined nature of psyche and polis. Through lecture and discussion focused on each of the six sections of our book, participants will gain a deeper understanding of how psychology and politics influence each other in contemporary American society.
Drawing from the layered conversations in the Mind of State podcast, this course works with a myriad of clinical and psychological concepts, from cultural complexes to attachment theory, from trauma-informed treatment to scapegoating. With these tools, we explore the anxieties, biases, and motivations underlying our social and political behavior, shedding light on the complexities of human nature in the political arena.
“Mind of State: Politics, Psyche and Soul in Turbulent Times” offers a unique opportunity to reflect, analyze, and make sense of our psychopolitical landscape, empowering individuals to engage in challenging times with empathy, critical thinking, and the much-needed space to reflect.
This Course is Ideal for:
- Students: undergraduates, graduates and psychoanalytic candidates
- Mental Health professionals: therapists of any modality working with individuals or groups in community mental health, hospital, private practice and/or university settings
- Any individual interested in exploring the intersection of psychology and politics — how psychology drives politics, and vice-versa — in the US
About the Teachers
Betty P. Teng – MFA, LCSW is a psychoanalyst and trauma therapist who has worked with survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and childhood molestation at Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s Victims Services Program in Manhattan. She is one of the co-authors of the New York Times bestseller The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump and a contributing essayist to Adam Phillips’s The Cure for Psychoanalysis. A new book she co-edited (with Tom Singer and Jonathan Kopp), titled Mind of State: Conversations on the Psychological Conflicts Stirring U.S. Politics and Society has been recently released by Chiron Publications. It is based on the psycho-political podcast, MIND OF STATE, which she co-founded and co-hosted. On the faculty of the Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis’s Trauma Studies program and its One Year Program on Psychoanalysis in the Sociopolitical World, Betty currently sees couples and adults in private practice in New York City.
Thomas Singer, M.D., is a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst in private practice in San Francisco. Dr. Singer’s newest book is entitled Mind of State: Conversations on the Psychological Conflicts Stirring U.S. Politics and Society which has been co-edited with fellow contributors to The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. Dr. Singer is the editor of a series of books which explore cultural complexes in different parts of the world, including The Cultural Complex, Australia (Placing Psyche), Latin America (Cultural Complexes of Latin America), Europe (Europe’s Many Souls), North America ( Cultural Complexes and the Soul of America), and Southeast Asia (Cultural Complexes in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) In addition he has edited Psyche and the City, The Vision Thing, co-edited the Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche series and co-authored A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Fever. Dr. Singer currently serves as the President of National ARAS which explores symbolic imagery from around the world.