A psychological approach to the study of society seeks to identify the sources and meanings of its cultural formations. For any ideology or institution, I pose the question: “Why does it exist?”

To understand an element of culture requires uncovering the psychic function that it provides or performs. An ideology or institution comes into being—is embraced and perpetuated—insofar as it does something (psychologically) for individuals within that society.

Cultures are social constructions, but constructed for what purpose? A psychological approach to the study of society poses questions revolving around the creation and perpetuation of specific cultural forms. For any belief-system or institution within a society one may pose the question: What psychological work does this element of culture perform for members of society?

The fundamental flaw of  cultural theory is the assumption that there is a reality “out there” (constituted by language, discourse, etc.) that exists and can be studied separately from the minds of the human beings who create, embrace and perpetuate it. Human beings are born into symbolic systems that already exist. Still, the question remains: Why does a particular symbolic system exist in the first place?

Based on our experience of symbolic systems as overwhelming in their impact, we imagine that they constitute “objective realities” separate from human beings. We experience society as an entity “out there,” above us. We forget the human source of our cultural world. Why do some elements of culture become stable and persist, while others fade and disappear? One “explains” the existence of a cultural form by interrogating the psychological gratifications it provides and psychic functions it performs.

Freud's analysis of dreams, slips of the tongue, and psychosomatic symptoms was guided by the principle of psychic determinism, asserting that there are no accidents in the life of the mind. Our unconscious mental life is the source of the images we dream at night, the mistakes and blunders of our everyday life and the pains in our bodies. A psychological approach to the study of culture extends the principle of psychic determinism. We examine belief systems, institutions and historical events assuming that these cultural creations have not come into being by chance.

Why do people pretend that ideologies and institutions have a “life of their own,” as if they keep on keeping on independently of the people who create and embrace them? Why do we imagine that culture or society descends upon us from above, as if emanating from another domain of existence? Why do people believe that cultural ideas and institutions are separate from human beings?

I theorize that society is created by human beings and serves a human purpose. Cultural forms exist to the extent that they allow us to externalize, work through and come to terms with our deepest desires, fears, conflicts and fantasies. Cultural ideas and institutions are not separate from the psychic functions they perform. Indeed, ideologies and institutions exist and are perpetuated precisely by virtue of their capacity to perform psychological work.

Norman O. Brown (1959) stated that “culture exists in order to project the infantile fantasies into external reality where they may be seen and mastered.” According to this view, culture constitutes a vehicle for externalizing and working through unconscious fantasies. Brown views culture as a “transference screen”—a vast canvas or tableau onto which the psyche projects and dramatizes fundamental conflicts and existential dilemmas.

Brown spoke of the “human neurosis,” viewing history as a form of collective psychopathology. Indeed, the extraordinary record of slaughter in the twentieth century (an estimated 200 million deaths caused by political actions undertaken by societal groups) suggests that Brown's diagnosis was kind. Yet in spite of the grotesque historical record, people rarely conceptualize historical events from the perspective of psychopathology. We continue to idealize societies: avoiding focusing on the ugliness and sickness that emanate from within the very fabric of civilization.