Robert Waelder and the application of psychoanalytic principles to social and political phenomena

This presentation reveals a little-known area of Robert Waelder's work. As his literary executor, I have been privileged with access to his unpublished material, notes, and correspondence. And, of course, I am familiar with his mode of thinking. I wish to pass on some of this knowledge. What cannot be passed on, however, in some abstract intellectual way, are psychoanalytic principles themselves. Therefore, while this paper sheds light on a very particular aspect of Robert Waelder's work, it is also in some ways a cautionary tale, a plea that the reader understand what is behind the psychoanalytic point of view and its basic concepts--namely, clinical experience.