Fundamentalism, Psychoanalysis, and Psychoanalytic Theories

A psychoanalytic interpretation of fundamentalism is offered in this paper, which is an effort to grasp the meaning and dynamics of fundamentalist psychology on the basis of what we know about development and pathology. However, my purpose goes beyond understanding fundamentalist movements. My intent is to use the achieved formulation to link fundamentalist psychodynamics with anxieties and adaptive strategies commonly experienced in the modern world. To bring the analysis as close to home as possible, I examine the divisions in the psychoanalytic movement to demonstrate that the anxieties and defenses of fundamentalists can be seen in the battles among competing psychoanalytic theories. In this process, I hope to show that psychoanalysis has faced anxieties comparable to those that threaten fundamentalists and has reacted in remarkably similar ways.

The term “fundamentalism” originated from a set of books published in the early twentieth century called The Fundamentals, which advocated resisting the influence of modernism by returning Protestantism to its founding beliefs. While fundamentalist perspectives are by no means confined to the Protestant church, this conflict with modernity has remained a guiding theme of fundamentalism in each of its religious manifestations. Religious fundamentalism aims to return a religion to its original principles, thus implying that the faith has strayed from its founding precepts and, therefore, has lost connection to the intent of the founders. Because the wider religion no longer represents the