Part 2: A Psychohistory of American Psychology: The Myth of Normal and the American Plague

When the Great Depression wiped out the myth of the rugged, self-made American hero, the country was left with a massive psychological void. Right on cue, Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis arrived in the U.S. with refugees fleeing Europe. Freud famously warned that he was bringing America a "plague," but America didn't catch it. Instead, we domesticated it.

In Part 2 of Psychotherapy on the Couch, Joel explores how the deep, messy, and uncomfortable theories of the human soul were repackaged to fit American consumerism. We look at how Edward Bernays weaponized his uncle Freud's ideas to invent modern PR and advertising, how a bizarre 1940s contest to find the mathematically "average" person gave birth to the suffocating myth of Normalcy, and how the brutal logistics of World War II forced the military to create a standardized checklist for human suffering—laying the exact groundwork for the modern DSM.

If you've ever wondered why we treat mental health like a checklist, the answer starts here.

#psychology history, sigmund freud, psychoanalysis, edward bernays, the dsm, mental health podcast, history of therapy, sociology, american history, great depression, world war 2, taproot therapy, cultural critique, mental illness.

 

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