Understanding and treating human mental health is a type of analysis and
activity that is extremely political and culturally conditioned. Thecritical branch of psychology, psychotherapy and psychiatry has always
placed the value of freedom, the analysis and challenge of all
oppressions, inequalities and social injustices at the centre of mental
health (e.g. Fanon, Basaglia, Foucault). This critical school has been
more interested in trying to understand together with the suffering
people how oppressive, geopolitical, economic, social, cultural,
religious and gender aspects had an influence on people's discomfort
rather than their DNA, way of thinking, or the modality and styles of
attachment with their families.
Mental health is indeed an experience lived inside our bodies but it is
at the same time also and above all social and collective, we see it
from the increasingly widespread epidemic of depression, anxiety and the
increasing number of suicides. Mental health, however, also has to do
with understanding who we are, with identifying ourselves or not with a
group and with nationalism! In fact, in light of an ever-growing and
worrying fascist shadow both in Europe and in the rest of the world
(e.g. Israel, Ukraine) and the imminent danger of a global war, I think
it is useful to review some concepts related to collective (or group)
narcissism, its connection with nationalism according to the vision of
Erich Fromm (of the Freudo-Marxist current) and how the Liberation
Psychology of Martin Baró can be, together with other forms of struggle,
a possible political and potentially therapeutic tool for the
emancipation of peoples from nationalism in favor of a libertarian
vision aimed at an awareness of who we are starting from a historical,
economic and political analysis.
What did Fromm mean by collective narcissism?
An insidious social dynamic that leads to exaggerating the positive,
almost idealistic image of the group to which one belongs or has decided
to belong while at the same time strongly devaluing any other group
different from one's own. When, for example, a group, a population
believes itself to be the chosen one, the children of the only possible
God, or the Aryans, the people of good, of the only fair and possible
democracy... the step towards hating the other is short.
Fromm explains that this human need for collective narcissism arises
above all within those people with extremely low self-esteem, often
linked to the enormous difficulties in achieving certain objectives that
this society imposes on us. Fromm says:
"He is nothing, but if he manages to identify with his nation, or
manages to transfer his personal narcissism to the nation, then he is
everything. . . The individual satisfies his own narcissism by belonging
to and identifying with the group. He is not the nobody who is great,
but he is the member of the most wonderful group on earth". And he
continues... "Nationalism is our form of incest, it is our idolatry, it
is our madness. 'Patriotism' is its cult... Just as love for an
individual that excludes love for others is not love, love for one's
homeland that is not part of love for humanity is not love, but
idolatrous worship.
This dynamic is particularly worrying in a global context with some 59
wars underway, where it is very easy for unscrupulous states to convince
their populations of Japanese manga idiocies such as being "the axis of
good against the axis of evil" phrases we have heard far too often from
imbeciles like G. W. Bush, T. Blair and Berlusconi, or other idiots like
Netanyahu who defines the Palestinians as animals and them (the
Israelis) as the chosen ones. Typical examples of collective narcissism.
The techniques of collective manipulation of public opinion and
propaganda are now the order of the day and arise precisely from the
wrong use of psychology not for the people but in favor of the powerful,
the oppressors and the states.
How do we get out of this collective madness? We need to work hard on it
both on a personal and collective level. We need to free ourselves from
the need to overwhelm or feel better and start seeing ourselves as
loving beings and not hoarders, as beings aimed at care and not
consumption, being skeptical of any power, group and propaganda that
professes to be the best (even of our own group). Experiences such as
Liberation Psychology can bring into everyday political and social
practices tools to combat the rampant collective narcissism, nationalism
and fascism associated with them and at the same time direct political
actions such as the creation of popular counseling centers or popular
community moments aimed at analyzing the systems of oppression on
individuals, communities and territories.
What is Liberation Psychology?
Liberation Psychology was born in El Salvador thanks to the work of
Martin Baró (father Nacho), a psychologist and theologian of liberation
killed by the Salvadoran troops trained by the Americans on the
university campus on November 16, 1989. Like Pino Puglisi (killed by the
mafia on September 15, 1993) he also annoyed the powerful and wanted to
help the oppressed, the campesinos, who Baró saw as having surrendered
to themselves against the corruption and violence of the Salvadoran
government. This narrative and this attitude reminds us so much of home.
Liberation Psychology is a body of thought and practices that deals
primarily with the experience, knowledge and action of those who have
been excluded and marginalized. In the practice of liberation
psychology, the effects of dominant power and its structures on the
oppressed are explored, along with the lived impacts of poverty, social
injustice, censorship, repression and violence. Baró had also done so by
creating a small social research institute aimed at highlighting
oppressions and not the "disorders or diagnoses" of people. Liberation
psychologists aim to listen, amplify and incorporate into their theory
and practice the voices and knowledge of those "others" most affected by
types of oppression such as economic, geopolitical, gender, religious.
Liberation psychology goes beyond a therapeutic approach to trauma,
connecting the personal journeys of those affected with social struggles
against impunity, for the recovery of collective memory and for ethical
social transformation. As such, it is a response to the rampant
individualism largely belonging to traditional psychology that always
and only points the finger at the individual and never at the political,
social, economic system as the cause of discontent. It draws from
liberation philosophy and theology, Marxist, feminist and decolonial
thought, critical theory, critical and popular pedagogy (Freire and
Boal), as well as critical social and community psychology. In some ways
it also refers to concepts expressed by Michel Foucault according to
which the main goal of psychology is not so much to discover what we are
but rather to reject what we are, to reject the narratives that are
given to us by oppressors, for example, of being the best civilization,
the best democracy, or lazy southerners, or the chosen ones of God... etc.
The work of anarchists has never been only political but above all
individual, psychological, social and collective. You don't have to be a
psychologist to practice psychological liberation but be skeptical of
authorities, even those within us, understanding our history frees us
from propaganda, understanding our needs frees us from false imposed
needs, understanding the needs of others so as not to overwhelm them
frees us from being oppressors, understanding what a human being really
needs frees us from being capitalist propaganda machines ready to kill
for a flag, to overwhelm each other for a salary or for a border, a
state or a religion.
Gabriele Cammarata
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
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