R295.00
Provocative, insightful and brilliantly written by Professor Wahbie Long, Nation on the Couch explores life in our beloved country through the lens of psychoanalysis. By focusing on the idea of a ‘political unconscious’, it argues that there is much to be learnt from excavating the inner life of South Africans, which can illuminate the external problems that beset us from all sides. It will challenge readers to rethink the way we see ourselves, and help us understand why we do what we do to our fellow South Africans.
Nation on the Couch tackles the disturbing question which we normally treat as rhetorical: what is wrong with us South Africans, as a nation? With clinical wisdom, Wahbie Long shows us a way out of the morass. ~ Mark Solms, research chair of the International Psychoanalytic Association and author of The Hidden Spring.
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Nation on the Couch by Wahbie Long
Nation on the Couch: Inside South Africa’s Mind explores life in our beloved country through the lens of psychoanalysis. There are many political and social commentaries on post-apartheid South Africa but few – if any – psychological ones.
By focusing on the idea of a “political unconscious”, Long argues that there is much to be learnt from excavating the inner life of South Africans, to illuminate the external problems that engulf us from all sides.
The book reframes our troubling social issues as manifestations of darker emotional impulses – specifically shame, envy and impasse. It will challenge readers to rethink the way we see ourselves, and help us understand why we do what we do to our fellow South Africans.
