Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T01:41:15.579Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 1 - Psychoanalysis, Media, and Politics from the Rise of Hitler to the 1950s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2020

John Martin-Joy
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
Get access

Summary

In the 1930s, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, mental health professionals grew concerned about the future of Europe and sought an understanding of Nazism. Psychoanalysts Walter Langer and Erik H. Erikson formulated the psychology of Hitler for William Donovan and the OSS. Langer emphasized Hitler’s psychodynamics, while Erikson focused on cultural issues in Germany and on Hitler’s appeal to his followers. Psychiatry and psychoanalysis triumphed after the war, yet as Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare came to dominate the landscape, liberal émigré psychoanalysts came under suspicion. A few, like Erikson, declined to sign loyalty oaths or became critics of American society. Newspapers seemed to flourish, but circulation actually lost ground in relation to population growth. The rise of television changed the news business, but like traditional media, it had differential effects by region. TV was available sooner in the urban areas of the East, and the liberal editorial stance of the large urban dailies had less appeal in the small towns of the Midwest and West. Drawing on these regional differences, Barry Goldwater came to prominence as a presidential candidate.

Type
Chapter
Information
Diagnosing from a Distance
Debates over Libel Law, Media, and Psychiatric Ethics from Barry Goldwater to Donald Trump
, pp. 16 - 44
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×