Hedy Dichter - Ernest Dichter's wife: If you identify yourself with a product it can have a therapeutic value. It improves your self-image and you become a more secure person and have suddenly this kind of confidence of going out in the world and doing what you want successfully. And it's believed that would then improve the whole of our society and become the best society on this planet.
By the early fifties the ideas of psychoanalysis had penetrated deep into American life. The psychoanalysts themselves became rich and powerful. Many had consulting rooms overlooking Central Park in New York. Politicians and famous writers like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams became their patients. They were seeking not just help, but to understand the hidden roots of human behavior.
Professor Martin Bergmann - New York Psychoanalyst: We were sought after. Washington was interested in what we think. The important writers, important politicians were undergoing psychoanalysis. We had waiting lists because there were so many patients that wanted to be analyzed. So it gave us a little bit of a swelled head.
And as the psychoanalysts ideas took hold in America, a new elite began to emerge in politics, in social planning, and in business. What linked this elite was the assumption that the masses were fundamentally irrational. To make a free market democracy like America work one had to use psychological techniques to control mass irrationality.