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

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.