Against Psychology: Reiterating the Communist Alternative -nazariya for debate

 

Against Psychology: Reiterating the Communist Alternative

By nazariya123 on January 14, 2026

“The brain is more dangerous than the body,” said the Indian state’s lawyer to the Supreme Court in relation to Dr. G.N. Saibaba who was 94% disabled. A hundred years prior, Mussolini’s fascist state had said something similar in relation to the imprisoned Antonio Gramsci. The ruling class has long recognized what Marxists have emphasized: the potential of a class conscious people to change reality. It is the fear of this consciousness, spreading like Prairie fire, which they are referring to in Comrade Saibaba’s case, not the physical brain itself. This fear is then encapsulated in the core principles of the bourgeois pseudo-science termed psychology, which the ruling class considers as the science of studying human motivations, the development processes in thinking to explain why humans exhibit various behaviours. Psychiatry, on the other hand, is the medical practice of altering individual behaviour through application of psychological theory. Historically, psychology has served to mystify class behaviour among the people and give way for idealism under the cloak of ‘intellectual-speak.’ It should come as no surprise that Comrade Stalin himself has been the subject of some of the worst attempts at psychological rewriting of history, as a way of turning the two-line struggle led by Com. Stalin against the capitalist roaders into Stalin’s personal desire for “psychological compensation” for not being as popular as Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev,or Kamenev. By just one swoop of wordplay, the intense class struggle in USSR which saw various ideological debates as well as real ramifications on the lives of lakhs of people in the USSR and across the world, is reduced to the personal struggles of one man for a little bit of fame. Psychologists can make this plot even more entertaining, by adding a bit of childhood trauma in Stalin’s past to tie it all in a truly Freudian sense! The same has been done with Mao Tse-tung, with amateurish attempts at “scholarly” research in various books such as Mao: The Untold Story by Jon Halliday and Jung Chang, which were thoroughly exposed as imperialist fairy tales in the book The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution by Mobo Gao. Before the advent of scientific method within the intellectual circles, first intellectuals of class society were priests, magicians and the Sophists, all activities which require theatrics, idealism and fashionable nonsense to win over their audience. In the present day, idealism finds itself in the magic tricks and wordplays of pseudo-scientists like psychologists and sociologists, who are the priests of imperialism. In semi-colonial semi-feudal societies like India, things are even more complicated because unlike the modernity of bourgeois societies, the actual priests and magicians were never swept away. Instead, mirroring the alliance of feudalism, imperialism and comprador bureaucratic capitalism that rules the country, the priests of old and new function in unity to dump onto the masses a lethal dose of idealism. To uncover this, we will undertake a review of the history of bourgeois intervention into the realm of consciousness to establish why psychology is a reactionary theory of the ruling class in preserving their class rule, how post-modern identitarian thought has enhanced psychology and simultaneously, has attempted to tutor people to think in psychological terms, instead of seeing things in terms of their social relations. Finally, we will elaborate on what alternative do communists have to offer on this question. Why Psychology is a Pseudo-Science? Before we negate the scientific credentials of psychology, it is important to explain what a science is. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary gives the commonly given definition as “a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study” and “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method.” It becomes crucial to define what a scientific method is as well: “principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.” Firstly, since all sciences are developed as a means to organize and explain a given set of data, it requires organizing theories which develop into principles when they successfully organize and explain this data. Out of these, one principle would have the capacity to explain all other theories and play a central role. Chemistry, for example, relied on atomic theory as its central principle, which developed further into quantum electrodynamics. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, on the other hand, bases itself on dialectical materialism. There is no such attempt at establishing a central organizing principle within psychology. It violates the definition of science because it lacks the systematic pursuit of knowledge through a scientific method and therefore, lacks knowledge which cover general truths and laws. Instead, the role played by psychology and other social sciences is that of obscuring the truth. The fundamental contradiction within capitalist mode of production is between the social nature of production and the private appropriation of the fruits of this production into the few hands of the capitalists, leading to anarchy within the realms of resource distribution, political economy etc. This is similarly true for psychology, which deals with problems whose basis is social, yet, offers individualized solutions which do nothing to change the cause of the problems. By severing the causality from effect, or obscuring the causes entirely (turning them into individual problems rooted in genetics or childhood trauma), psychology does the opposite of what a science does and is therefore a pseudo-science. That is, a theory that may position itself as a science and maintain some general surface-level appearance as a science, but in fact, does not utilize the scientific method. Psychology and other such pseudo-sciences develop their own jargon to purposefully mystify and obscure objective analysis so that the general masses are unable to decipher what conclusions psychologists are putting forward. This in turn, gives these pseudo-sciences the surface-level appearance of an “elevated thought” which the “lesser” masses can hardly understand. It is worth pointing out that all sciences develop some kind of linguistic jargon of their own, but the purpose of these terms is to concisely explain and concretely define various phenomenon. Take for example, the Marxist usage of the term “proletariat” instead of the term “working class.” Engels concisely defined the proletariat as “the class of modern wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor-power in order to live.” While prior to Marx and Engels, this term would most definitely be described as simply the mass of industrial workers employed upon wages. The usage of precisely defined terms becomes relevant because non-Marxists continuously try to shift the goal-posts on who the proletariat is, even terming the petite bourgeoisie as “working class” on various occasions due to them being employees in a company. Another example is the categorization of prostitutes into “working class” under the guise of the word “sex workers.” In terms of political organizing, this incorrect analysis would spell the death of a political movement. In contrast, psychological jargon such as“Self” or “Being” (turning the words into proper nouns by capitalizing the first letter and giving it a personality of its own) have no properly defined categories, with different thinkers giving different (and each more complicated) analysis of what this means. Social sciences, be it something like sociology or economics in general, are bourgeois pseudo-sciences which have developed in fear of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the ruling classes have spent a vast amount of wealth in producing “research” from these fields which try to obscure the objective need of social revolution as Marxism very succinctly established in the 19th century itself. It is important to point out that this does not mean that ruling class has not tried to create similar pseudo-sciences within natural sciences, as is the case with the quack theory of homeopathy. Unsurprisingly, the comprador bureaucratic-landlord Indian state spends significant money in promoting homeopathy as a “healthier alternative” to allopathy. The role played by these “sciences” is no different than astrology, palmistry and numerology in feudal societies. The peasant’s crop yield is low because he upset the deva Indra and who ensured that it didn’t rain, an astrologer would argue. The landlord now forcing the peasant to work his debt off by unpaid labour is because the peasant was born in the house of Shani. The peasant’s desire to gather other peasants in killing off the landlord and dividing his land among themselves is rooted in Rahu’s effect on psyche.But this was bound to happen, the astrologist would muse, as the mind-line and the fate-line of the peasant’s palm are intersecting. Psychologists wouldn’t differ much either, though it would be even more insidious in dealing with class contradictions by telling the peasant to focus on “healthy” habits, “mindful thinking” and “self-care” from the beginning. If the peasant’s proclivities towards class violence intensify, the psychologist would ensure that the peasant is branded mentally ill, a threat to the social order and institutionalized. This is because bourgeois pseudo-sciences are tools of the ruling classes in preserving their class rule by diminishing class consciousness and stopping the masses from engaging in class struggle. While in capitalist countries, a small reactionary section of the petite bourgeoisie has been sliding into feudal mysticism like astrology, in semi-colonial semi-feudal India, the double-headed hydra of feudal pseudo-sciences like astrology and psychology both are utilized actively by the ruling classes and both reinforce each other as the masses are impacted by alliance of semi-feudal culture and imperialist culture imported with foreign finance capital. It is therefore, very common for psychologists in India to promote the pursuit of god, the casteist concept of karma, of spirituality and other such feudal mysticism to their clients. Biological or Social: What are these Mental Illnesses? Thomas S. Szasz, Hungarian Psychiatrist and Libertarian Before discarding psychology, it is important to deal with the terminology it has created around its theory. Currently, psychologists refer to most mental illnesses as disorders. The very nature of the word disorder implies something out of the natural order of things. The need to use such a definition came from right-wing critique of psychology as well as the “left” critique of psychology provided by post-modern thinkers. Hungarian psychiatrist and libertarian Thomas Szasz argued that since mental illnesses do not have a biological basis, that since they cannot be diagnosed like all other diseases by physicians, they cannot be termed illnesses or diseases. Szasz argued they were not real, unlike other diseases. Szasz took the case of diphtheria, stating that independent of the socio-political context, both a physician in Tsarist Russia and Victorian England would observe the same features of the diphtheria strain. This is not true for mental illnesses, per Szasz. This biological determinism was wholly adopted by post-modern thinkers, especially the branch impacted by Freud, who are themselves afflicted with the poison of biological determinism. This outlook achieves two things: it separates physical illnesses from their socio-political context, turning them into purely biological matters and simultaneously, turning mental illnesses into fluid categories which are purely social. For example, one cannot talk of the COVID-19 pandemic in just purely biological and medical terms. A discussion on the SARS-Cov-2 virus strain is not enough to account for the impact the disease had on the various oppressed nations and people living under imperialism. How the proletariat or the peasantry experienced COVID-19 within the semi-colonial semi-feudal countries versus how it impacted a petite bourgeois person in capitalist countries is vastly different. By doing so, one detaches the socio-political impact of COVID-19, that was the initial withdrawal of foreign investment and economic collapse in India, the purging of national and petite bourgeois enterprises by big capital (comprador bureaucratic capital and foreign finance capital) under the guise of lockdowns, the erosion of labour laws under the pretext of ‘reviving the economy’ and making way for unchecked penetration by foreign finance capital in the country, the forceful Auschwitz-like march of lakhs of proletarian and semi-proletarian workers from the cities to the villages during lockdown etc. These are the true symptoms of COVID-19 in the semi-colonial semi-feudal context. Nausea, headache, mild fever and cough do not explain the complete reality of the problem. The same would apply to Szasz’s arguments about diphtheria. Michel Foucault, one of the primary proponents of post-modern identitarian thought It is therefore unsurprising that Michel Foucault, the post-modern identitarian thinker, promoted the idea that “power” and its manifestations in the form of discipline and punishment turned all members of society into mentally ill people. Modernity, Foucault argued, would turn every deviation into a disorder, pathologizing social behaviour. Thus, Foucault argued that everyone is a little sick under capitalism and the sicker one is, the more liberated they are from knowledge-power. Foucault is highly critical of mental institutions and he argues that they are attempts at either isolating the people with the most deviating behaviour or at violently disciplining them back into order. Marxist-Leninist-Maoists would not disagree with the fact that modernity, via the field of psychology does in fact try to turn various deviation of thought from their class lines into disorders as a means of social control, which we will elaborate further in the next session. The problem is Foucault’s understanding that all mental illnesses are not really illnesses (just like Szasz) and out of this emerges the need for the term“disorders.” He does not provide any alternative (just like Szasz) and turns mental illnesses (what he calls mental disorders) into completely fluid categories. By doing so, anyone can be mentally sick. Instead of uprooting psychological jargon, Foucault gives way to further mystification of psychology by both detaching mental illnesses from their class basis as well as the biological factors which may play a role in many of these illnesses. By turning them into completely fluid categories which can be applied subjectively on anyone, Foucaultian critique of psychology actually helps in proliferation of psychological language into everyday use. This is the result of the application of subjective idealism to interpret objective reality. This is why the American Psychological Association (APA) wholly adopted this post-modern ‘linguistic liberation’ by terming mental illnesses or diseases into mental disorders. The aforementioned peasant, in Foucault’s understanding, is also diagnosed with a mental disorder. The peasant engaging in class struggle has no bearing in Foucaultian analysis. To Foucault, this is merely another attempt at exercising power which is always morally incorrect. At the same time, an alienated petite bourgeois youth in the cities will also be diagnosed with depression, a mental disorder. Foucault would have little to offer as a solution here either, apart from the usage of quasi-legal drugs such as weed or legal drugs such as lithium along with various other mind-numbing psychiatric ‘medication.’ Even weed is prescribed by some psychiatrists, which the Indian state allows in the form of ‘medically-prescribed quantity.’ Foucault advocates consumption of drugs as a means of “self-care” and putting oneself out of the trained mindset of power. Post-modern analysis is therefore largely unified in the results with the fascist analysis of mental illnesses. But what post-modern identitarian thought achieves in the realm of psychology is the export of the idea that everyone is mentally ill. But instead of the word illness which would require the psychologists to give a scientific qualification to their diagnosis, psychology uses the term “poor mental health” or disorder to denote the situation. To conclude, Marxist-Leninist-Maoists differentiate between various mental illnesses and class behaviour. If happiness is the metric, the vast swathes of the oppressed and exploited people living under imperialism would be categorized with “mental disorders” and “poor mental health.” Being satisfied with imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucratic capitalism is the real disorder, not the other way around. Some state-backed sell-outs have recently attacked Maoists using this post-modern identitarian understanding to argue that Maoists must utilize the pseudo-science of psychology within their organizations to deal with this situation! To clear up this muddled post-modern mess of words, we hold that mental illnesses are largely social phenomena which are exacerbated by some biological and genetic factors. At the same time, pathologization of class behaviour and turning social phenomenon into “disorders” is a post-modern exercise and we do not count them as ailments. At the same time, it should be understood that all illnesses, whether physical or mental, may have medicinal cures to their symptoms and biological factors but their social causes remain ever-present in the existing state of affairs. Mao Tse-tung has made the MLM position on this subject clear, “the masses are the makers of history,” he said. Unlike the post-modern identitarian thinkers who treat the masses as sheep incapable of doing anything about the wolf that kills them off one by one, Maoists know that the only way out of this situation is through revolution, that is, active and conscious participation in changing social reality. Unlike our sell-out critics, we hold the oppressed and exploited capable for their own liberation, no saviour is coming for salvation. We also do not look at the problem mechanically, by deeming all illnesses and other such issues as merely ‘products of the system’ and ignoring individual responsibility in dealing with them too. Addiction, suicidal depression or physical issues caused by class tendencies, all these conditions can be changed by organized action and genuine efforts at socialization and self-criticism/criticism, while working at the root cause of these problems by carrying out New Democratic revolution in India. We will elaborate further on this in the subsequent sections. We will thus refer to these conditions as mental illnesses or diseases, as the Maoists did in China prior to 1976. Psychology As a Reactionary Theory for Curtailing Class Struggle Recently, the book Radicalization to Terrorism by Oxford Press, written by two psychologists, has gained some currency in the intellectual circles. The book attempts to find the psychological basis of why people join what the authors call terror circles. They are not so ridiculous to attribute this to some genetic disorder, rather, they argue they that people may have various social reasons (such as being victims of oppression and exploitation) to join political organizations which advocate armed struggles. The ruling class cannot deny the political reality to such an extent, but instead, they aim to subvert the reality by writing off the masses as sheep who are lured into these “small terror groups” due to various personal grievances, with some of them being lured into these groups due to romantic aspirations, according to the authors. This is no different than the reactionary ‘love-jihad’ conspiracy theory that the Brahmanical Hindutva fascists promote. The only difference is that this proposition is written in a well-worded book, authored by two “experts,” with the stamp of approval of the infamous bourgeois institution of Oxford University. The purpose of this line of psychological inquiry is to diminish the social basis of why people take up arms against the state, why people aim to seize state power, by turning the matter into things driven by personal motivations, not class motivations. Even righteously responding to oppression becomes a personalized anger response. Unsurprisingly, the authors conclude their book by trying to teach other “psychologists” in ways of ‘de-radicalizing’ their clients. This is essentially the true face of psychology. It is a product of the ruling class’ fear of the spectre of communism. Complete subjectivity in light of objective conditions becomes the method. From initial attempts at finding a biological basis of why the exploited classes wage class struggle via eugenics to pathologization of such behaviour via post-modern understandings, psychology has served the purpose of telling the masses that the solutions to their problems are rooted within themselves. This is because throughout its history, psychology is an idealist pseudo-science. Initially, in the 20th century, the philosophy behind psychology relied on the notion of dualism called behaviorism. Dualism is the proposed “middle-ground” between the philosophies of materialism and idealism, that is, it agrees that both ideas and matter exist, but they function independent of each other. In reality, this is nothing but idealism, since it denies the primacy of matter over consciousness and the dialectical engagement between the two. Behaviorism, takes this into the realm of psychology by arguing that to understand people, it is only needed to study the behaviour of people, not the mind because behaviour functions independently from the mind. To be clear, when we refer to the mind, we are not referring to the physical brain organ, rather, mind is the abstraction of the various neurological processes that occur in the brain when we are undergoing the process of thinking and its results lead to various mental states (happiness, anger, worry, tension etc.). The mind is in the realm of ideas while the neurological processes in the brain is the matter. The mind and its mental states are how we explain the complexity of crores of neurons firing off in various permutations and combinations, in response to various stimuli. As this explanation must have made clear, behaviorism is only concerned with the response, that is the behaviour people exhibit after this process, not even coming close to the cause. Behaviorism continues to be a popular stream in psychology, though another branch has emerged, which is cognitive psychology, that considers itself ‘closer’ to being a science than behaviorism and popular psychology. Cognitive psychology digs deeper than behaviorism by attempting to study the mind and the mental states. What is worth noting is that cognitive psychology, which the bourgeoisie has even expanded to calling the “cognitive science,” is still fixated on only the abstract aspect of the physical brain, that is the mind. All actual scientific theories are materialist in nature, this is an objective truth. Therefore, to boost the credibility of cognitive psychology as a potential scientific field, cognitive psychologists do not deny the role played by the neurological processes within the physical brain, nor do they deny that the neurological processes themselves are impacted by human interaction with the natural and material world, but they still fixate on the abstract mind as their subject of study! This is nothing but a continued and insidious manifestation of dualism. Therefore, both the popular and the ‘scientific’ fields of psychology continue to be idealistic fields throughout their history. Given the philosophical world outlook of psychology, its political economy is also worth looking into, to expand on our argument regarding its nature as a ruling class prop. Let us cite a few examples of psychological theorizations to elaborate. The father of American psychiatry, Benjamin Rush, theorized the mental “disorder” called anarchia, which was the condition attributed to people who were unhappy with the political system of USA. Psychologists also came up with the condition called drapetomania, or the tendency of black slaves to escape. Slaves were not escaping due to their political conditions, rather, they were escaping because they were simply sick in the brain, per psychologists. Another example of bogus theorizations is the oppositional defiant disorder, which affects children who are unruly and oppose authority. On top of all this, a large number of psychiatric patients are admitted into mental institutions due to having “manic episodes,” that is, when the patient does not recognize that they are ill! Not only will someone be undergoing a manic episode when it becomes necessary for the state to deem one mentally ill, a large number of people are deemed ill due to having “conduct disorders,” that is when they behave in a manner not socially acceptable. The parameters of such a “disorder” are so vague that virtually anyone can be made a target. A large number of these incidents are phenomenon that became common practice in capitalist countries. But due to imperialism’s export of foreign finance capital into semi-colonial semi-feudal countries, Indian psychology too is mirroring these developments, albeit at a slower pace and in a much more distorted manner, where they merge Brahmanism and other feudal ideas into their psychiatric practice. These are all forms of social control, to ensure that any large deviation from how the ruling class wants things to be is immediately rationalized as a mental disorder and removed. It also serves as a caveat for the ruling class to justify its own violence. For example, the paramilitary officer who fired upon Muslims traveling in a train in 2024 was later deemed to be suffering from a mental disorder and this was deemed the end of the matter. Yet, it was revealed that the paramilitary officer was highly exposed to Brahmanical Hindutva fascist propaganda and was acting out what the fascists have been doing for ages. Unlike the rest, he got caught on too many cameras and hence emerged the mental disorder. This assault of psychology in India is focused on the youth, who are continuously exposed to pop psychology and psychological jargon via social media. Various psychologists utilize Instagram reels to give their “expert guidance” to the youth, promoting the Foucaultian notion of “self-care” and seeking psychiatric therapy. Counselling and therapy are promoted as a means of tutoring the oppressed and exploited to adjust to their conditions. Many psychologists can thus be found educating the youth to be “mindful” of their feelings and to “spend time with themselves.” They deal with alienation by offering further alienation and encouraging the petite bourgeoisie to go further within itself for solutions to the crisis caused by imperialism, instead of looking out. In fact, social media has attempted to craft the idea that it is “brave” of people to seek psychiatric therapy and openly declare so! Instead of the youth marching to the countryside in thousands, learning from the peasants and workers and integrating themselves in class struggle, braving adverse conditions and changing material reality itself, the ruling class says it is brave of them to pay 500-1000 rupees and have a quack listen to what they have to say for an hour. To call this a bandage upon the festering wound that imperialism and feudalism have placed on the bodies of the youth would be a disservice to bandages, for even they play a role in ensuring that the wound does not get contaminated. Psychologists rip open the wound and infect it, while repeatedly whispering assurances to the dying patient that they know a cure. Psychiatric “Treatments:” A History of Torture and Mind-Numbing Interventions This is also evident in the way psychology is applied, in the form of psychiatric treatments. Early psychiatrists were focused heavily on what they found to be sexually deviant behavior, the solution of which involved various medical interventions like castration or clitoridectomy. Psychiatrists implemented eugenics in this field, rationalizing that it would be “hygienic” to castrate “inferior stock.” In 1882, the American gynaecologist William Goodell wrote that the state can “stamp out insanity by castrating all the insane men and spaying all the insane women.” In the rising stage of capitalism, prior to imperialism, psychiatrists served in maintaining what they considered social and public “hygiene” by way of regulating all behavior which did not align with the capitalist mode of production and the relations of production emergent from this mode. Women, for example, were closed into homes during this period to engage in unproductive labour in the household and engage in the reproduction of labour, instead of expending her labour power in productive industries. Those women who were indifferent to their husband’s sexual needs, showed indifference to household chores or demanded to work outside the house were diagnosed with ‘hysteria’ or ‘nymphomania’. Women found to be reading, considered ‘free thinking’ or demanding divorce, some as young as their early 20s were subjected to this ‘psychiatric treatment’ from the 1860s, with this treatment continuing in psychiatric asylum until the 1950s. By the time capitalism entered the stage of imperialism, the other medical sciences were advancing to much more scientific and standardized forms but the subjective idealist understandings of the psychiatrists found no such luck. This began a period where psychiatrists desperately tried to be scientists, beginning with the German Emil Kraeplin – the father of modern psychiatry. While Kraeplin and others after him tried to implement the scientific method coupled with the prevalent biological theory to advance psychiatry as a scientific medical discipline, the conclusion was that he came up with numerous assumptions about the physical brain organ and carried out surgical interventions as a means of resolving mental illnesses. It was later found that Kraeplin’s understandings were based largely on assumptions about the brain organ, rather than any coherent framework analyzing the dialectical relationship between the brain and the mind. These are the limits of mechanical materialism. This is why psychiatry continues to have no coherent pathological (understanding of cause, effect and cure of an illness) framework, an essential component of a medical science. The results of these attempts led to disastrous pseudo-scientific treatments. The American Psychiatric Association’s Benjamin Rush argued that insanity was caused by irregular blood flow to the brain. His solution was the tranquillizer chair. “Once strapped into the chair, lunatics could not move at all—their arms were bound, their wrists immobilized, their feet clamped together—and their sight was blocked by a wooden contraption confining the head. A bucket was placed beneath the seat for defecation, as patients would be restrained for long periods at a time.” This ‘path-breaking’ invention may have been made with the argument that it would regulate blood flow to the brain but it was essentially devised to immobilize the so-called patient and curb all their sensory experience. Subjective idealists fixate primarily on sensations, their phenomenological experience; hence they also find solution to their problems in ending the sensory experience. This is what the post-modernist Gilles Deleuze also aims for when he argues that searching for reality and the truth in itself is a traumatic experience, thus the best way to live is to keep oneself away from worldly sensory experiences. This is what psychiatry was already devolving into with its treatments as the stage of imperialism began. Rush’s invention, a form of brutal torture, was marveled at by psychiatrists for ‘curing’ the most stubbornly insane people after being left on this chair for a few days. Of course, no actually mentally ill individual was really cured by these methods and the truth became more apparent as the usage of these methods became widespread. Psychiatrists adopted more damaging methods, such electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and transorbital lobotomy, both of which permanently damage the brain. In 1938, the Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti observed pigs getting stunned in a slaughterhouse before being killed and had an epiphany. He abducted a so-called vagrant from police custody and passed 110 volts of current through his brain, which led to his human guinea pig suffering from a seizure. The patient ultimately pleaded with Cerletti to not carry out anymore of his ‘treatment,’ at which point Cerletti decided the patient was cured and thus, we had psychiatry’s new revolutionary ‘cure.’ The Nazis would gladly adopt ECT for torturing the Jewish people, communists, and other ‘undesirables’ in the concentration camps. One Dr. Abraham Myerson argued in favour of ECT by saying that those patients are best suited for ECT who display a higher intellect. ECT was thus used to target that section of the population which differed from the ruling class outlook. ECT though, offered no real solution at all, only numbing the brain, increasing risk of death and leaving no permanent effect on the patient apart from brain damage. ECT couldn’t maintain its place in the psychiatric market for long, with Egaz Moniz’s transorbital lobotomy superseding it as the psychiatric community’s newest fad. Lobotomy was considered such a revolutionary leap for psychiatry that Moniz was awarded with the Nobel Prize for inventing this method. Lobotomy involved Moniz drilling holes into the forehead, pouring alcohol onto the prefrontal lobe nerves of the brain which would kill them through dehydration and then sewing his patients back up. The issue with this treatment is that killing the prefrontal lobe of the brain in this manner largely diminishes the emotional and intellectual capacity of the patient, reducing many of them into child-like states. Lobotomy was widely used against oppressed social groups such as black people, women, religious minorities, LGBT people and people of oppressed nationalities. Communist and other sympathetic sections of the intelligentsia were ruthlessly targeted for this, such as the filmmaker Frances Frances. Her political outlook led to her commitment to a psychiatric asylum, ultimately leading to her lobotomy. The aim was to limit the ability of the individuals to think, with some psychiatrist such as the American Walter Freeman who gleefully said that none of his patients wrote a book, composed a piece of music, built a house or made a gadget after a lobotomy. The damage was permanent. Psychiatric and general medical journals hailed the success of lobotomy for years. Walter Freeman even made the method economical, by reducing Moniz’s surgical method to just sticking two ice-pick needles into the brain through the eyes of the patient and just sticking them into the brain to damage to the prefrontal lobe. He could now do a lobotomy in 20 minutes, which culminated with him even lobotomizing four year old children. Soon, his dangerous procedure led to the death of two children, which ultimately brought the curtain down on the era of lobotomies in psychiatry in the 1960s. It was later found that numerous patients would die after lobotomies due to bleeding in the brain, with only around 20% patients leaving hospitals alive. Psychiatry had simultaneously been searching for a chemical cure along with these surgical methods. Poisons like camphor and metrazol or insulin in very high doses were given to patients initially. They would induce seizures in patients and push them into a coma. Doctors openly argued that their aim was to push their patients to the brink of death through these poisons as a form of cure to mental illness. These were widely used methods until the 1950s but psychiatrists had not preferred them as a cure in themselves due to their temporary nature, which is why the surgical and physical methods like ECT and lobotomy dominated psychiatry. Henri Laborit, a French Naval surgeon, tried out the chemical chlorpromazine as a pre-operation anesthetic and noted that his patient “felt no pain, no anxiety, and often did not remember his operation.” In 1951, Laborit presented chlorpromazine as a “veritable medical lobotomy” to a medical conference. This was put to test by two French psychiatrists who abducted a 57 year old worker known for “making improvised political speeches in cafes, becoming involved in fights with strangers, and for … walking around the street with a pot of flowers on his head preaching his love of liberty.” The patient was given chlorpromazine, who after 3 weeks of the drug, was released on the streets. The police lauded the effort, pointing out that the worker wasn’t engaging in any of his previous political activities anymore. The psychiatrists noted that he wasn’t asking questions anymore, nor was he expressing any views or needs of his. Chlorpromazine thus became the perfect lobotomy-in-a-pill, easy to sell for the imperialists and achieving the same result that the ruling class wanted out of psychiatric medical treatments. Instead of being an actual cure though, this ‘miracle drug,’ just like all other psychiatric treatments, was more of a pacifier than a cure of the root causes of mental illnesses. There is no science at play here, only the flimsy aesthetics of one, poorly hiding a pseudo-science which has historically caused grave damage to people. These drugs are highly addictive, creating dependence among their users while diminishing the intellectual capacities of those taking them regularly, leaving people in a semi-conscious daze for most of their day. Chlorpromazine was followed by numerous other drugs like the selective Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil. Genuine research and survey into these pills have already pointed that many of them are only placebo and are being sold on the myth that psychology and psychiatric practice understand the cause of mental illnesses. The myth was based around the argument that there were “chemical imbalances” in the brain which are being cured by these drugs. The problem is that no scientific study has found the basis of these chemical imbalances and in the last 15 years, many psychiatrists have come out in the open to admit that the “chemical imbalances” theory was a lie they were selling to their patients. Post-Modern Identitarian Thought’s Relationship with Psychology and What Solutions They Offer to the People An entire branch of post-modern identitarian thinkers is influenced by the pseudo-scientist Sigmund Freud, who infamously failed to cure a single patient of his. This branch of post-modern thinkers has played an active role in advancing psychology as a pseudo-science. As mentioned above, behaviorism quickly exposes the unscientific nature of psychology, even though the bourgeois thinkers tried to crudely cover behaviorism under the garb of “behavioral science” (this is ironically, still taught as part of professional management courses such as BBA and MBA). Cognitive psychology was developed as a counter to this. At the same time, post-modern thought was infused into psychology to make it do away with the need for scientific credibility once and for all, since post-modern thought is actively grounded in opposition to science. We have continuously mentioned the various post-modern influences on psychology, be it from its jargon to its psychiatric practice. But it is important to recall that post-modern identitarian thought stands in opposition to all forms of central organizing principle, which it despises as forms of “logocentrisms.” As you may also recall, psychology has no central organizing principle. This makes psychology the perfect “post-modern science.” Initially, during the period where psychology attempted heavily to masquerade itself as a genuine science, it was the post-modern thinkers like Michel Foucault who lobbied critiques against it. While Foucault did make some valid criticisms of psychology and psychiatric practice, the philosophical world outlook of both post-modern identitarian thought and psychology is subjective idealism. This is why both psychology and post-modern thought have ripe foundation for unity. Psychology of the present, after its numerous failures for scientific credibility, actively adopts the framework of post-modern identitarian thought in its practice and vice versa. This has led to post-modern thought promoting the fear sickness terminology, i.e. phobia, into everyday language. Brahmanical Hindutva fascist violence becomes Islamophobia, brahmanical patriarchal discrimination against homosexual people becomes homophobia, etc. While psychologists theorized fear of various objects and situations into illnesses, post-modernists took this thinking forward and applied it to ruling class violence. This actively inverts the nature of this violence. Instead of highlighting the political nature of the oppressors and exploiters, it turns the violence into a fear of X-identity. The true nature of brahmanical Hindutva fascism, it’s targeting of religious minorities, the historic oppression of women and LGBT people under brahmanical patriarchy, all these phenomenon can be understood through dialectical historical materialist analysis of the international and domestic situation and its roots can be found in the political economy of India. But sober scientific analysis from a proletarian class standpoint is not on the post-modern agenda, an outlook it promotes through the ‘phobiafication’ of these social oppression. Along with this inversion, it also turns all forms of ruling class violence into identitarian discrimination. So psychological terminology applied to social phenomenon not only further obscures the role of the ruling class, it also promotes post-modern identitarian thought. This is also typical to the bourgeoisie’s modernity, which proclaimed a democracy (rule of the people) where class relations and any discussion on exploitation were willfully obscured. Despite its name, post-modern thought carries out the same function. While this actively atomizes the people into identities, psychology then promotes Foucaultian “self-care” by promoting a combination of medically-prescribed mind-numbing drugs and discussion sessions labelled “therapy” as a recourse. The aim is to “cure the Self,” not resolving the principle and fundamental contradictions within society to end the basis of most of the class issues that cause these mental states. Some psychologists acknowledge the social basis, but so do post-modernists. And just like post-modern thinkers, who essentially consider imperialism to be the “best of the worst” situations, where mere survival is enough, psychology becomes a medium with which how one can survive in the world of the post-modernists. Class struggle is not only futile but a sin, per the post-modernists, so it should not surprise anyone that psychology has nothing to say about attacking the root cause of the matter. One common phenomenon that has emerged from this is the practice of “identity-affirming therapy” or “identity-friendly therapy.” This is also sometimes called radical therapy.This form of therapy is being promoted among women and LGBT circles the most, and many political activists are falling for this scam. This is birthed from the niche practice of feminist therapy that emerged in the 20th century from radical feminist circles where the psychologist was trained to understand the oppression of women and give their advice based on this understanding. Along with this, this form of therapy also involved a critique of power, where they argued that traditional therapy has a power-relationship between the psychiatrist and the client. In their identity-friendly therapy, they argue that their client is an expert of their own experiences, while the psychiatrist is an expert in psychology, hence, no power relationship exists in this form of therapy! Like true post-modernists, these psychologists turned power into a matter of individual relationship and used nothing more than word-play to present a repackaged version of typical psychiatric therapy in the garb of being more democratic. In fact, some of these psychologists even support the political activism of their clients. This has made them palatable to political activists, particularly those who come from women and LGBT backgrounds. This achieves three tasks for the ruling class. First, it promotes the idea among organized activists that instead of seeking recourses within their own organizations, among their own comrades who uphold the MLM political line, a bourgeois “pseudo-scientist” can offer them better guidance, thus nurturing right-opportunist deviations within activists who find some solace in the frameworks of the ruling class. Second, it promotes post-modern identitarian trends since the expertise of the psychologist is not in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, but in post-modern identitarian thought. Third, it promotes the idea that antagonistic contradictions can be resolved not in the course of intense class struggle but via individual therapy under the guidance of the ruling class. This error is ‘two combines into one,’ a rule which contravenes dialectical historical materialism. The ruling class cannot solve the proletariat’s problems; it is the cause of those problems! On top of all this, the tacit support offered by these psychologists should not serve to excuse them from the role they play. On one hand, these psychologists offer support to political activism but on the other, the solutions they offer are rooted in idealistic ruling class ideology which promotes individualism. The theory and practice are not in unity and will inevitably lead to ideological deviations, which is the larger end-goal of reactionary thoughts such as post-modern though and psychology. “Politics in command” is a phrase that must apply even in the case of dealing with mental illnesses. You cannot be a Maoist for 90% of your week but a post-modernist for the remaining 10%. The Communist Alternative So the only question that remains is, what do communists have to offer as a solution, if psychology is a bourgeois pseudo-science? What is the proletarian alternative? Maoists understand that eradication of a field alone is not enough, the void must be filled with new practice and new theory. The MLM understanding on the question can be understood by evaluating the development of psychiatry in China between 1949 to 1976. To be clear, psychology is the theoretical framework and psychiatry is its application. In China, psychology as it was under imperialism was completely abolished. Initially, from 1949 to 1958, the Chinese adopted USSR’s understanding on the question of psychology which looked imperialist psychology as bourgeois psychology and their own as proletarian psychology. Soviet variant of psychology was also a mechanical materialist variant of the pseudo-science, where they stressed primarily on the physical brain and its various neurological functions instead of the dialectical inter-relationship between the brain and the mind. Dialectical materialism understands that matter is the primary factor in giving birth to consciousness, but this does not mean that after consciousness is formulated, ideas cannot act upon materiality. This is why Marx said that revolutionary theory can become the motive force of history. In 1958, during the Great Leap Forward and the construction of socialism in China, the masses criticised psychologists and they were urged to go among the masses and understand human behaviour by engaging with the masses and applying dialectical materialism. The essence of this dialectical materialist understanding of the mind and human behaviour was that active consciousness was the primary factor in human behaviour. The emphasis moved away from the physical brain to the consciousness, though the neurological processes of the brain were not discarded or ignored like cognitive psychology. Rather, it was upheld that while the neurological processes in the brain are a secondary factor, it is the consciousness which is birthed not just from the physical brain but also from engagement with class society and nature which produces human actions. This is the key aspect in understanding human behaviour. This is why this consciousness will always be a class consciousness within class society. Mao Tse-tung thus explains the dialectical materialist conception of cognition in On Practice with a simple example, “in the process of practice, man at first sees only the phenomenal side, the separate aspects, the external relations of things. For instance, some people from outside come to Yanan on a tour of observation. In the first day or two, they see its topography, streets and houses; they meet many people, attend banquets, evening parties and mass meetings, hear talk of various kinds and read various documents, all these being the phenomena, the separate aspects and the external relations of things. This is called the perceptual stage of cognition, namely, the stage of sense perceptions and impressions. That is, these particular things in Yanan act on the sense organs of the members of the observation group, evoke sense perceptions and give rise in their brains to many impressions together with a rough sketch of the external relations among these impressions: this is the first stage of cognition. At this stage, man cannot as yet form concepts, which are deeper, or draw logical conclusions. As social practice continues, things that give rise to man’s sense perceptions and impressions in the course of his practice are repeated many times; then a sudden change (leap) takes place in the brain in the process of cognition, and concepts are formed. Concepts are no longer the phenomena, the separate aspects and the external relations of things; they grasp the essence, the totality and the internal relations of things. Between concepts and sense perceptions there is not only a quantitative but also a qualitative difference. Proceeding further, by means of judgment and inference one is able to draw logical conclusions. ….. ‘let me think it over’ refers to man’s use of concepts in the brain to form judgments and inferences. This is the second stage of cognition. When the members of the observation group have collected various data and, what is more, have ‘thought them over,’ they are able to arrive at the judgment that ‘the Communist Party’s policy of the National United Front Against Japan is thorough, sincere and genuine.’ Having made this judgment, they can, if they too are genuine about uniting to save the nation, go a step further and draw the following conclusion, ‘The National United Front Against Japan can succeed.’ This stage of conception, judgment and inference is the more important stage in the entire process of knowing a thing; it is the stage of rational knowledge. The real task of knowing is, through perception, to arrive at thought, to arrive step by step at the comprehension of the internal contradictions of objective things, of their laws and of the internal relations between one process and another, that is, to arrive at logical knowledge. To repeat, logical knowledge differs from perceptual knowledge in that perceptual knowledge pertains to the separate aspects, the phenomena and the external relations of things, whereas logical knowledge takes a big stride forward to reach the totality, the essence and the internal relations of things and discloses the inner contradictions in the surrounding world. Therefore, logical knowledge is capable of grasping the development of the surrounding world in its totality, in the internal relations of all its aspects.” Therefore, the potential of the mind is significantly greater than just the biological capacities of the brain organ and the process of cognition is itself than just perception. While post-modernists (and psychologists) concern themselves purely with this perception, with phenomenology, Maoists go significantly further to the truth, to the end-point, that is logical knowledge. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, this became the primary understanding and the old Soviet psychology was discarded entirely. How did the Chinese treat actual mental illnesses? The guiding principle in this process was not “let us search for the real you” as it is the case with psychology but rather reorienting the mentally ill back into reality. Mao Tse-tung said, “Marxists hold that man’s social practice alone is the criterion of the truth of his knowledge of the external world.” The Maoists would base their psychiatry on three methods, which would correspond to what Mao has said. First, they would educate the patient about the nature and origin of their illness and guide them through recovery by building their understanding about the patterns of their illness. If the patient is aware of the patterns, they can play an active role in countering it. Second, they would invoke the individual responsibility of the mentally ill person and encourage them to actively and optimistically engage in combatting the illness. Third, stimulate the patient in formulating their own practical ways of combatting the illness after they have understood its patterns. This is considered a long-term process as it would require life-style changes and support from the masses who work alongside the patient. According to a study, this method cured the illnesses of 80% of the patients. The importance of individual responsibility in this process is explained by what Mao said. To truly reorient the mentally ill with reality, it is essential for them to engage in social practice and verify the results. By continuously engaging in social practice and verifying whether it is yielding positive results, the best course of treatment, what is working and what is not, can be identified. This change cannot be initiated by a passive patient. Those who were hospitalized were given a collective environment where the staff and other patients worked together and regularly engaged in political activities to keep them actively involved in the political life of the people instead of cutting them out as imperialism advocates. This process was also applied in dealing with spies, counter-revolutionaries and delinquents. As the two American spies Alynn and Adele Rickett elaborated in their book Prisoners of Liberation, the focus of the Maoists was to engage the two in thought-reform, i.e., self-criticism/criticism, first invoked by encouraging genuine self-criticism from the two and then putting them in situations where they could engage with the masses and mobilize them to help the spies and delinquents understand the error of their ways and rectify. The spies wrote that the prison in-charge was focused on transforming their world outlook which was informed by imperialist ideology by re-educating them on the proletarian outlook as well as engaging them with the masses to experience the proletarian outlook in practice. 15 years after this process, the two continued to uphold the process and hailed the Maoist method as the correct one. Whether it be suicidal depression, addiction or any such condition, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism holds that by initiative from the individual and going through a process of re-education, while attacking the basis of these problems by participating in class struggle, any individual has the potential to transform themselves. The essence of the Maoist practice on the subject of altering human behaviour and treating mental illnesses is “politics in command” and the belief that class consciousness is truly a force capable of becoming a motive force for change. Take another example, that of the case of mental retardation. While the social factors which cause retardation such as malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, parasitic infections and diseases at childbirth all reduced after the New Democratic revolution in China, reducing the number of children experiencing mental retardation, the Chinese followed a strict practice of ensuring that all students who were behind in their classes from the rest of the students would not be left behind. The fast learners were instead encouraged to help the ones who were lagging behind. Retardation or not, the Maoist principle applied to all, ensuring that no student would be isolated from their peers due to slow reading comprehension, inability to pay attention for long, etc. Conclusion: A Matter of Ideology Marx and Engels noted, “if in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.” This argument makes way for the understanding that there is scope for a false outlook of the world (what some have dubbed false consciousness) within ideologies. A counterargument was given by Marx himself in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, “speaking about changes in the superstructure that follow those in the economic foundation, he characterises the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic forms as ‘ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.’ Evidently, ideology is now being equated with the world outlooks of contesting classes.” If one goes through Marx’s other works, it becomes clear that he was never interested in giving birth to the jargon related to ‘false consciousness,’ a word Engels only used once, casually, in a letter. The second definition gives a more holistic view on what ideology is, and it objectively negates the idea that all ideology is a distortion of reality. Lenin took this understanding further, arguing, “‘Class interest’ impels the proletarians to unite, to fight against the capitalists, to think about the prerequisites of their emancipation. ‘Class interest’ makes them receptive to socialism. But socialism, as the ideology of the class struggle of the proletariat, is subject to the general conditions governing the inception, development, and consolidation of an ideology; in other words, it is founded on the sum total of human knowledge, presupposes a high level of scientific development, demands scientific work, etc., etc. Socialism is introduced by the ideologists into the proletarian class struggle, which develops spontaneously on the basis of capitalist relationships.” This is important because class interests are established as a key aspect in formation and acceptance of ideology. Class interests are therefore crucial in understanding human cognitive process. A general insight into an individual’s thoughts and behaviours can be found with a study of the relations of production and the class interests they pursue. Subjective factors also play a secondary role but this is the primary foundation of the consciousness and ideological outlook taken by individuals within class society. The formulation of these interests into a worldview is an essential process in the development of consciousness. As we previously mentioned in Mao Tse-tung’s words, the process of cognition sees the transformation of observed reality into rational and then logical knowledge. Ideology plays an important role in this process of cognition, in the evaluation of objective reality to formulate an understanding of things. As Lenin pointed out, class interests make specific classes gravitate around their class ideologies in a process. But with the petite bourgeoisie, a vacillating class in semi-colonial semi-feudal conditions, its existence itself is like a miscarriage in the stage of imperialism where it is continuously facing an existential crisis where monopoly capitalism repeatedly stifles petite production. It’s vacillating existence, inherently an exploiter class but oppressed under imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucratic capitalism makes it the most fertile class for accepting ruling class views while also being susceptible to the proletarian cause at the stage of New Democratic revolution, given its precarious situation. Those hailing from this class or influenced by the outlook of this class, therefore, are the most susceptible members within communist organizations to practice class collaborationism and find recourse for their problems within the cartel of subjective idealism comprised of psychology, psychiatry and post-modern identitarian thought. It is therefore important in the present that communists expose psychology for what it is: a bourgeois pseudo-science. At the same time, it is crucial for them to understand that reactionary ideologies of the ruling class continuously impact them through these means and the only way for them to combat this is to temper themselves like steel, in the fire of class struggle. In the course of this class struggle, they will be faced with legitimate questions. They must study revolutionary theory to answer these questions. Communists stand for active ideological struggle and must firmly take positions on every matter. They must discover the laws behind every subject that confronts them and expose the inherent contradictions within each such subject, applying the principle of one divides into two. This is how within their ranks, they will always discover the proletarian line and the bourgeois line. This is how they will temper themselves ideologically into steel that will cut through imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucratic capitalism in India. All of the “disorders” crafted by imperialism itself will be smashed only through raising ourselves to collective class consciousness, that is, communist consciousness. Reactionaries and the most degenerate elements will try to lure communists towards ruling class ideology by way of promoting psychology and levying the charge that Maoists do not concern themselves with questions of “mental health.” They are incorrect, we are deeply concerned about “mental health,” just as we are concerned about questions related to the ruling class. We are, after all, concerned with eradicating pseudo-sciences and post-modern babble from the world. We are, after all, concerned with social transformation, which has included the transformation of numerous of our comrades from the pitfalls of reactionary ideologies, from addictions, from depression and other such phenomenon, into determined communists waging class struggle. We will continue to do so because our aim is not conciliation, mere survival, “one day at a time” or any other cowardly existence. Our aim, is the overthrow of the existing state of affairs, during the course of which we will see the birth of the new man, armed with the consciousness to combat the reactionary deviations and afflictions plagued by those of the old society. Comrade Charu Majumdar made this very clear: “the path of revolution is, indeed, crimson with the blood of martyrs. Price has to be paid for the liberation of the people. Every attack on us is painful and this pain gives rise to the strong resolve to make greater sacrifices and to the most intense hatred for the enemy. When those two are wedded to Maoism, the new man is born.” Works Used: Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederick. The German Ideology. Foreign Languages Press: Paris (2022). K. Murali (Ajith). The Meaning of Ideology. Harrison, Scott. Why Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is a Science (1997) (https://www.massline.org/Philosophy/ScottH/MLM_sci.htm) Tse-tung, Mao. On Practice. Majumdar, Charu. The Birth of the New Man (July 6, 1970). Reber, Arthur. Penguin Dictionary of Psychology. Maoist Internationalist Movement. “Note on Terminology: Mental Illness.” MIM Theory: Psychology and Imperialism 3, no. 3 (November 1995). Cohen, Bruce M.Z. Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness. Palgrave Macmilan: London (2016). Whitaker, R. Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Basic Books: New York (2010). Whitaker, R. Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Crown Publishers: New York (2010). Bravo Rosewater, Lynne & Walker, Lenore. Handbook of Feminist Therapy: Women’s Issues in Psychotherapy. Livingston, Martha & Lowinger, Paul. The Minds of the Chinese People. Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (1983). Ricket, Alynn & Adele. Prisoners of Liberation: Four Years in a Chinese Communist Prison (1973). By Anjali Ritukar, Student of Psychiatry