![]() ![]() ![]() In the 1980s, “one began to appreciate that prejudice was inherent in the very structure of all groups.” 1 This was a major psychological discovery. Although, like social-science and human-science theories in general, psychoanalytic theories cannot be tested with the same rigor as natural-science theories, they can help illuminate such crucial human issues as war and peace, politics, racism, anti-Semitism, and genocide.ĭuring the 1960s and 1970s the focus of the psychological explanations of racial, ethnic, and religious prejudice – including anti-Semitism – began to shift from the individual to the group. The earlier emphasis on unconscious individual defensive processes has been augmented by a new emphasis on the large group’s psychological processes – for example, its conscious and unconscious needs for identity, boundaries, allies – and enemies. Over the past few decades, the focus of the psychoanalytic study of anti-Semitism has gradually shifted from the individual to the group. ![]() The latter are of paramount importance for understanding anti-Semitism. Racism and anti-Semitism are highly complex human phenomena, having multiple causes including psychological ones. Jewish Political Studies Review 18:1-2 (Spring 2006) ![]()
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