A lot of people on the left seem to hold The Authoritarian Personality by Adorno et al. and The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Reich in very high regard.
These are very old books. The Adorno book has been criticised for methodological reasons. The Reich book is very rooted in Freudian psychoanalysis. Yet they still seem to be widely read and discussed.
I am not a psychologist. Can psychologists please tell me if these works are still considered to be useful and supported by the available evidence? I feel awfully skeptical when someone backs their point up by citing them and I want to know whether I should unclench my arse.
Thank you :)
in Germany at least, there has been a huge shift in academic psychology from being a more or less liberal arts (Geisteswissenschaften?) subject to becoming much more grounded in the natural sciences (read: biology, neurosciences, medicine, experiments, statistics). thus, when i did my degree Reich was only mentioned in history of psychology courses, Adorno not all. my understanding is that Freud et al are still discussed in liberal arts subjects
Freud getting praised by everyone but actual psychologists always baffled me. Imagine if politicos started backing up their points with references to luminiferous ether.
Freudian psychology is only relevant as a therapeutic technique, not as a way of understanding. The evidence does demonstrate its effectiveness for certain people with certain diagnoses, but like other older methods, the doctor can often project their expectations into the patient.
The sad truth is that psychology is in its infancy, with our understandings getting rewritten at a rapid rate. It’s still the best tool we have, but it’s important to realize just how little we know.
I’m early gen z, but when I was a kid, I couldn’t even have gotten diagnosed with both autism and ADHD. We now know that most people with autism have ADHD, yet it wasn’t even possible to get dual diagnosed until 2011.
This isn’t because science was done incorrectly, but because it was done correctly. Any leftist ideas built on psychological frameworks will have the same challenge as the books you mentioned. Psychology just moves fast.
Freud started good things but his methods fell out of favor after Carl Rogers developed modern talk therapy. People do better when you don’t tell them what to believe, but rather help them figure it out themselves based on that they want fit their own life. whodathunk.
Freuds contributions are mostly theoretical. even psychodynamic therapy, which is the closest modern theory to Freuds practice, follows people like Adler or Jung much more than Freud.
mostly we have his language, the idea of the subconscious (which can be dubious), defense mechanisms, etc. he started something incredible. we’ve just improved upon it. remember that the “talking cure” was not really a thing before Freud
Lemmy doesn’t really have psychologists, maybe one or two. that’s a doctoral level title, mind you.
I’m a master’s level clinician who reads a lot. no one really talks about that kind of stuff in the counseling world. it’s there and it’s worthwhile, like most philosophy, but it isn’t informing practice regularly unless someone seeks it out. to draw a parallel, I see many people quote Frankl but I rarely see his books on their shelves. I encounter even less Adorno
I think not much had changed in the last few decades that would make Adorno’s points irrelevant, too.
