FSEP teach-in Dec 5th and 12th

Brutal Compliance: Linking Fascism, Masculinity, and Emotional Abuse

To register, simply send an email to: criacaopsicanalitica@gmail.com

Description:

This teach-in will discuss how the collective draw toward authoritarianism and neo-fascism is born of the intrapsychic linking of fragile masculinity, simultaneously demanding and helpless, as the intergenerational remainder and result of emotional abuse which demands the victims deny their own singularity for a measure of psychic, and physical, safety, as well as the false promise of an existence without anxiety.

The demand for fealty in exchange for the safety from the threatening other (and Other), a reprieve from the anxiety of being a singular, alienated individual, is a fantasy of homogenous existence where, womb-like, all is nurturing and all threats have been deported, banished, or eradicated. This brutal compliance has, on a collective level, brough us closer to realistic descriptions of the end of humanity through technology, war, religion, or nature.

As a group we will consider how we, as clinicians, activists, educators, and theorists, address the projective identification of authoritarianism which justifies itself as self-defense is perceived as an attack on authority, further justifying the violence of the powerful.

Bio:
Zak Mucha, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He spent seven years working as the supervisor of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, providing 24/7 services to persons suffering from severe psychosis, substance abuse issues, and homelessness. Mucha has worked as a counselor and consultant for U.S. combat veterans undergoing training for digital forensic investigations in child pornography. He is the author of Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense and Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work as well as two collections of poetry. Before entering the clinical field, Mucha worked as a freelance journalist, truck driver, furniture mover, construction worker, and union organizer.