Shared fantasies produce psychic pathologies which, however, are not recognized as psychopathology because everyone shares or buys into them. Leaders put forth psychotic fantasies that come to DEFINE OR CONSTRUCT ORDINARY SOCIAL REALITY, thus rendering people who share or embrace these fantasies no longer psychotic.

Fantasies that define politics are contained within ORDINARY STRUCTURES OF CULTURE--in symbolic constructs such as “the nation,” “protecting the nation,” “the enemy,” “rescuing the nation,” etc. Psychotic political fantasies may be contained within normal ideological and institutional structures.

Why have we been unable to conceive of behaviors such as war, genocide and terrorism as forms of psychopathology? This is the question I've raised for one many years. Why are massively destructive forms of behavior--killing of millions of people--not viewed as pathology or psychopathological.

 My jobs is to analyze resistance that prevents people from bringing psychological concepts to bear upon political phenomena. Ideologies of war, genocide and terror function as forms of resistance that disconnect the human psyche--the desires of actual human beings--from the political domain.

Richard Koenigsberg