When the politician becomes a psychologist

Brexit, Trump, terror and trauma – many phenomena in public life can only be explained by an excess of emotions. Politicians should consistently confront this challenge with a method from psychology.

Are we living in toxic times?

It’s a question I wouldn’t ask myself, but I’m not quoting it either. Nevertheless, I could have asked such a question, given the omnipresence of psychological terms that are bandied about on a daily basis. Is psychology the new leading discipline? What’s more, should it be? This question has been on my mind ever since more and more political decisions and developments have become difficult to explain – at least in terms of reason.

A few years ago, ‘Brexit’ and ‘Trump’ were the common buzzwords used to diagnose the demise of democracy – indeed, the values of the Enlightenment per se. During the coronavirus pandemic, the number of people subscribing to conspiracy theories was perplexing. Individual feelings play the main role in the Woke movement, and radicalised activism is now part of the standard repertoire of political action.
Despite the caution of psychologists, whose professional ethics prohibit remote diagnoses, there are numerous assessments of both Trump and Putin that issue warnings: of Trump, who may be empathetic but is ultimately a manipulator, and of Putin, who is clearly destructive but does not act irrationally if you ignore questions of ethics.

The most recent example of the importance of psychology in politics is the war between Hamas and Israel. Psychologists on both sides diagnose collective traumas of annihilation, extermination and expulsion that are deep-seated and have now been reopened. The effects of these wounds are even measurable: based on the cortisol level in the blood, which no longer falls under chronic stress.

Emotions can determine politics…

Measured by the standards of reason, such developments raise questions and pose huge problems for democracies, as neither facts nor ‘sensible’ programmes aimed at objective living conditions such as security, stability and prosperity seem to be a guarantee for successful politics. Instead, more and more people seem to be following their feelings and the people who skilfully instrumentalise them – with consequences for people, societies and the world as a whole.

How can psychology explain such phenomena? A study published by Princeton University in spring 2017 – six months after the Brexit decision and a few months after Donald Trump’s election as US president – showed that it is primarily feelings of exclusion and despair that lead people to believe in ‘miraculous’ stories that cannot be true.

After experiencing disappointment and rejection, these people would become increasingly distant from their families and friends and thus fall into a vicious circle of alienation and the search for new support, which drives them into the arms of conspiracy theorists.

… and politics is made with emotions.

Militant activism can also be explained and assessed psychologically. Whether ‘climate stickers’ or violent pro-Palestinian rallies: According to forensic scientist Jérôme Endrass, militant ideologues are often people who tend to think in black and white terms and who have a low threshold for violence. The ideology, i.e. the content of their rebellion, is of secondary importance; it is more important to represent it in a martial manner.

In these and many other examples, the findings are clear: feelings can determine politics, and politics is made with feelings. This is nothing new. The only question is: what can politics do? What can politicians who are serious about serving their societies do to give people a better life and protect them from false promises and themselves?

Modelling and regulating

In his book Emotions Make Politics, published in 2023, Bremen-based psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Hans-Jürgen Wirth shows which emotions dominate public debate and what dynamics they can trigger.

Using the success of populists, the Brexit decision, the success of conspiracy theories during the coronavirus pandemic, the reactions to the refugee crisis in Germany, the contrasting views of the world and people held by the AfD and the Greens and the turnaround, he demonstrates the extent to which negative emotions such as fear, shame, envy and disgust, as well as bitterness, resentment and hatred, determine political behaviour.

According to Wirth, feelings are ‘the neurobiological substitute for instincts’; they provide orientation. Thus, feelings of rejection also serve to protect us from dangerous confrontations, and conversely, people are dependent on positive feelings such as love, respect, recognition and compassion – which is presumably also reflected in the need to have one’s opinion confirmed rather than criticised.

Reading feelings

However, the psychoanalyst does not offer a solution as to how politics should deal with such strong feelings in both individuals and societies. However, the author does make an important point. Feelings play a central role in human interaction, which is precisely why they need to be ‘read’.

Psychology can help, politicians must act.

What psychology describes as ‘mentalisation’ means observing and analysing the feelings of others as well as one’s own in order to ‘model and regulate’ them. We know from our own experience that growing up has a lot to do with controlling our emotions – which in turn requires us to be aware of them.

So, as strong as feelings can be, we always need a rational approach to them in order to be able to assess them and, as the jargon goes, ‘integrate’ them so that we are not helplessly at their mercy.

In this respect, it is also the task of politicians to recognise moods and atmospheres that emerge and become strong in a society and to react to their possible causes. In other words, even strong emotions require political rationality in order to contain them instead of letting them explode. Psychology can help here, but politicians must act.

BORDER CROSSINGS Op-ed by Katja Gentinetta, published at PRAGMATICUS