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Obama on the Couch

Inside the Mind of the President
Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Tulsa City-County Library.
Nov 08, 2011floy rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
This book required a lot of tolerance from me but had some interesting things to say. The author is a psychoanalyst and previously wrote a book titled "Bush on the Couch". Both books apply the theories of Sigmund Freud & Melanie Klein to political figures and even voters. Some of it was hard for this non-Freudian and non-Kleinian to accept. For instance, the author maintains that by killing Osama Bin Laden, Obama killed a man who embodied some of his parents' most hateful attributes and that enabled him to be decisive and at peace with his "murderous" decision. The psychoanalyst thinks that Obama has unexpressed rage against his mother for not raising him herself throughout his childhood and that he identifies with her to avoid his rage and thus turns around and disappoints others (as she disappointed him), in this case, Obama disappoints his left wing supporters. He may also sometimes be unconsciously identifying with his father who also frequently disappointed and subsequently abandoned his family. According to psychoanalytic theory, Obama's psychological need to reconcile the various wings of his family and the various aspects of himself (including his biraciality) leads Obama to work too hard to compromise with his opposition. This, the author believes, leads Obama to gravely minimize the risk of the Tea Party, the Birthers, and the racist haters. More acceptable to me were some other ideas. Obama's childhood was marked by three major absences or losses that may have felt like desertions to a child. His natural father, his stepfather, and his mother all went in and out of his life at a fairly rapid pace. Thus change to him was often an emotionally wrought occurrence that he handled by being intellectual, curious, and calm. But these life events may make him actually somewhat unconsciously anti-change. This is a surprise considering the motto of his 2008 campaign: Change We Can Believe In. The author feels that Obama is good about talking about change but is less effective in the follow-through. Although it's clear that the author respects and likes Obama, he sometimes compliments and critiques the same behavior. For instance, although he likes how smart and deliberative this President is, he also feels that his calm demeanor is more accurately described as a kind of paralyzed dissociation. His belief in bipartisanship is like trying to reunite his family, trying to unite the black and white people. Although the author is highly appreciative of the President's writing skills, he also believes that Obama has a belief in the "magical power of words", sometimes to the detriment of actions. However, he was in awe of Obama's speech on race, writing that he perceived Obama in that speech as functioning as the nation's master psychologist.