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

Course Overview: (Weekly Titles/Themes)

By the End of This Course You Will Be Able To:

• Define Cultural Complex
• Consider how the U.S. Cultural Complexes of Trauma, Truth, Race and Individualism drive Americans, psychologically and politically
• Address some of the roots of anxieties driving politics and polarization in the US
• Reflect rather than react to stirring topics and events in US politics
• Approach the 2024 Election season armed with psychological underpinnings of the major themes driving US politics
• List 3-7 Cultural Complexes which preoccupy Americans.
• Define Radical Openness.
• Explain the difference between a “syndemic” and a “pandemic.”

Course Outline:

I. Week 1: INTRODUCTION

1. Overview of the course
2. Tom Singer on the definition of Cultural Complex
   1. 7 + 2 American Cultural Complexes
3. Q&A / Discussion: On Cultural Complexes and the Soul of America

II. Week 2: ACKNOWLEDGING DEATH, TRAUMA & LOSS: How Unresolved Trauma defines U.S. History and Politics  

1. Sheldon Solomon’s Mortality Salience
2. Pauline Boss on Ambiguous Loss
3. Judith Hermans on Our Collective Trauma
4. Q&A / Discussion: How Unresolved Trauma Defines U.S. History and Politics

III. Week 3: WHY TRUTH MATTERS

1. On Anton Hart’s Radical Openness
2. Nancy Rosenblum’s definition American Conspiracism
3. William Davies on our “Nervous States” and dashboard culture
4. Q&A / Discussion: The Ways in Which Truth — or the lack thereof — Determines Democracy

IV. Week 4: ANXIETIES OF RACE & DOMINANCE

1. Eric Ward: “You don’t make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies”
2. Susan Fiske and Peter Glick’s model for discrimination
3. Liliana Mason on the roots of partisan politics
4. Q&A / Discussion: How Our Differences Stress Us, Psychologically and Politically

V. Week 5: DEMOCRACY AT RISK

1. Robert Jay Lifton on the Assault on Reality
2. Deva Woodly on the Politics of Care
3. Eric Liu and Nate Persily on Our Faith in Voting and Democracy
4. Q&A / Discussion: Our Faith in Democracy is Wavering — and Why

VI. Week 6: THE IMPORTANCE OF MYTH IN POLITICS & Conclusion

1. Betty Sue Flowers on the Economic Myth
2. Jules Cashford on Myth and History
3. Tom Singer and the Symbolism of Trump’s Wall
4. Q&A / Discussion: On the Underlying Myths that Drive Us — CONCLUSION

References:

MIND OF STATE: Conversations on the Psychological Conflicts Stirring U.S. Politics & Society co-edited by Betty Teng, Jonathan Kopp, and Thomas Singer. Chiron Publications, North Carolina.

Cultural Complexes and the Soul of America edited by Thomas Singer, MD, Routledge, London.

Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity Liliana Mason, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, Penguin, New York.

The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic Pauline Boss, Norton, New York

Christ for Unitarian Universalists: A New Dialogue with Traditional Christianity Scotty McLennan, Skinner House Books, Boston

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror Judith Lewis Herman, Basic Books, New York

“As White Supremacy Falls, White Nationalism Stands Up” Eric Ward, Pop Culture Collaborative

“Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism” Eric Ward, The Public Eye

Social Media and Democracy edited by Nathaniel Persily and Joshua A. Tucker

Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry. Robert Jay Lifton, New York: The New Press, 2019

The Politics of Common Sense: How Social Movements Use Public Discourse to Change Politics and Win Acceptance, Deva Woodly, Oxford University Press, 2015

Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements (Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities) Deva Woodly, Oxford University Press.

The Case for Radical Openness Anton Hart : https://apsa.org/apsaa-publications/vol51no1-TOC/html/vol51no1_09.xhtml.

Become America: Civic Sermons on Love, Responsibility and Democracy Eric Liu, Sasquatch Books, Seattle.

A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

The American Dream and the Economic Myth: Essays on Deepening the American Dream, Betty Sue Flowers, sponsored by the Fetzer Institute: www.hillcountryalliance.org/uploads/HCA/BettySueFlowers.pdf.

The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image Jules Cashford and Anne Baring, Penguin Books, London

Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans Michael A. Cohen and Micah Zenko, Yale University Press, New Haven