Psychoanalysis, the Behavioral Therapies, and the World of the Future

Psychiatry is being attacked for failing to develop a program eradicating mental illness, violence, and economic parasitism. The behavioral therapies are now in the process of offering such a program. If it is accepted, a large number of people may willingly or unwillingly submit to procedures aimed at the modification or control of their behavior in the not too distant future. This could be accomplished through the use of conditioning therapies, through direct intervention on the brain, and eventually through alteration of the genes. Should such a plan be established, the use of these interventions would conceivably be extended to a larger and larger number of people in order to suppress undesirable behavior.

It is true that human beings have shown a continuing tendency toward destructiveness. This tendency is even more frightening now, because we have acquired means which make us more capable of mutual destruction. There is some reason, then, why some insist that behavior control and modification are timely, and why an increasing number of people are taking these arguments into consideration. They suggest application of methods, not only for the treatment of destructive tendencies, but also for all the emotional disorders which they feel are not being successfully treated through the various forms of traditional psychotherapy.

The purpose of this paper is not to condemn the behavioral therapies, even though I strongly object to the drastic therapeutic solutions that some of the behavioral therapists have suggested. An attempt will be made here to formulate theses on the predicament of the peoples and nations of the world and to explore the possibility of fruitful cooperation between behavioral therapies, psychoanalysis, and other behavioral sciences.

If one were to give an opinion about treating a dictator like Hitler with lobotomy or with implantation of electrodes in his brain in order to change his behavior, one