Abstract
This paper explores the intrapsychic functioning underlying the acceptance of austerity imposed on southern European countries following the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. How does an external “There Is No Alternative” model become internalized into an internal one? Neoliberal economics produces shock and public disorientation among populations in order to impose economic shock therapy. This induces primitive anxieties and phantasies as a result of our incapacity to understand and to give meaning. In this state of mind, a great number of people become prey to authoritarian figures. This also leads to regression to schizoid-paranoid states where fear of the other and guilt-driven renunciation of individual and collective rights for the sake of a greater good duly follow.
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Neves, T.S., Ferraz, C. When shock is not shocking: Psychodynamics underlying the acceptance of austerity. Psychoanal Cult Soc 26, 129–140 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-020-00194-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-020-00194-1