On Psychopolitics and Human Nature

As psychoanalysts we enjoy a particular and privileged position from which to learn about human nature through our engagement with our patients and ourselves. While we spend endless hours debating the nature of the processes involved, the fact is that we spend a lot of time in close relationships and have a lot of experience getting to know people in a deep way. Among the fruits of our specific labors has been a wide and creative array of ideas about what human beings need in general. From Freud's first formulations about instinctual urges we have added important ideas about the narcissistic aspects of human relatedness, and the importance of “object” relationships. To these we have added (thanks to Solms and Panksepp; Solms, 2018) an expanded range that adds seeking, nurturance, attachment and play. And, of course, we must not forget the role of guilt and the superego. Is there a way that what we can use our knowledge about human nature to be useful to society in general? Perhaps by placing a more nuanced understanding of human needs and defenses in a central position for evaluating forms and requirements of governance we can substitute a more meaningful set of metrics by which to measure the success of our efforts to govern ourselves.

The political narrative that informs the life of many of us in our American psychoanalytic community (but not all, thanks to our newly opened doors) is a reiteration of western European Enlightenment narratives about individual freedom, authority and governance. Their ideas were retrieved from the political philosophy of the ancient Greeks, who struggled with the issue of how human beings can best live together in a world of city-states. They gave us the terms Politics and Democracy, and it's worth noting that Plato and Aristotle both had skepticism about whether human nature, as they understood it, would allow for a just “rule by the people.”

It's important to note that while I am writing as one embedded in an “American” point of view