In this chapter, I contend that neoliberal capitalism, which has become a dominant
social imaginary in the United States, functions as an inverted totalitarian system that
fosters psychosocial struggles of many citizens. The prevalence of this social-symbolic
system, along with the therapeutic narrative, leads to hermeneutical mystification as to
the political-economic sources of psychosocial suffering. I consider the hermeneutical
mystification to be a feature of the inverted totalitarianism of neoliberal capitalism, which
I explicate in terms of two psychoanalytic concepts, namely, internalization and weak
dissociation. I argue that these concepts help to understand the tendency of citizens (some
patients and therapists) to misinterpret their suffering and misidentify the sources of their
distress, while unconsciously accepting the dominant narratives and beliefs of neoliberal
capitalism. The implications of this argument for psychoanalytically informed therapies
follows, in part, Franz Fanon’s view that the aims of psychoanalysis are (a) to
‘consciousnessize’ [the patient’s] unconscious and (b) to enable [the patient] to choose an
action with respect to the real source of the conflict, i.e., the social structure.
The psychologist cannot avoid coming to grips with contemporary history, even if
his very soul shrinks from the political uproar, the lying propaganda, and the jarring
speeches of demagogues. We need not mention his duties as a citizen, which confront
him with a similar task. (Carl Jung, in Samuels, 1993, p. 4).