How Psychoanalysis Changed Society with Consumerism and Public Relations

Works Cited

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis and Edward Bernays theories that were derived by Sigmund Freud, changed society

Through psychoanalysis and Edward Bernays public Relations, our modern society is a product of both theories.

Back in the beginning of the 20th century there was no such thing as an American consumer. Before psychoanalysis and Edward Bernays applying Freud’s theories with propaganda all that exist was the American owner and the American worker. A creditable source states that “The rise of consumerism in the United States is also linked to the birth of Public Relations. At the time of 1915 the so-called father of modern Public Relations.” (Craig Willis) Sigmund Freud had devised a method he called “psychoanalysis”, by analyzing dreams with free association he discovered powerful sexual and aggressive forces which were the remnants of our animal past, feeling we repressed because they were too dangerous. (Sigmund Freud) In 1914 the Austrian Hungarian war Empire lead Europe into the war (http://en.wikipedia.org), as the horror mounted Freud saw it as terrible overwhelming evidences of the truth of his findings. This is exactly the way Freud should have expected people to behave from his studies in psychoanalysis. Freud under estimated the unconscious mind state of our powerful sexual and aggressive forces. “But as time went on Jung and Freud differed in ideals and in 1914 they terminated their correspondence. In that same year World War 2 broke out and brought the movement of psychoanalysis to a halt. The years after the war were seminal ones for psychoanalysis.” (http://www.logosquotes.org) Governments had unleashed the primitive forces in human beings and no one seems to know how to stop them. At th...

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... frenzy mob which had the power to destroy even Government. After reviewing everything on the unconscious mind and the modern society today with consumerism in a way it states that one of the guidelines principles of democracy was wrong, the belief of human’s beings can be trusted to make decisions on a rational basis. The leading political writer Walter Lippmann said the herd of citizens must be governed by “a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality."(The Phantom Public - 1925)

In conclusion what was beginning to emerge in the early 20th century was a new idea of how to run mass democracy. At its heart was the consuming self which not only made the economy work but was happy and throughout stabled and so created a stable society, so through psychoanalysis and public relations of Edward Bernays our modern society is a product of both theories.