Pseudo-activism: a relatively new neurotic adaptation.

Abstract

This is an attempt to describe a type of neurotic adaptation, that of making the central neurotic mechanism—in this formulation the idealized image—appear identical with the goal of an ideological group. In this country, this type of neurotic adaptation is relatively new because active ideological groups, except for religious ones, have been uncommon until recent years. Should such groups, liberal and conservative alike, accept a psychological, and particularly a psychoanalytic frame of reference, they would avail themselves of the only tool with which they could identify such an individual. However, from the experience of foreign cultures, such groups accept the psychological frame of reference only at a much later stage of their organizational maturity. In the initial stage, they reject it. This amounts to support for the mimic. Support of the young group is the first specific difficulty which faces the therapist and distinguishes the character of treatment of his patient from treatment of others. There are two other difficulties. One is that the therapist will be made to feel that he is making value judgments of the patient's beliefs. The last difficulty is that the analyst may shy away from looking at the problem at all for fear of being vindictively preoccupied with the whole issue in view of the group's rejection of psychoanalysis. Lastly, one must recognize that there is an explosive potential in the situation where the central neurotic mechanism of the individual blends with the goal of an ideological group. This is one extreme in a continuum of neurotic adaptation which demands discretion and caution in handling.