Psychoanalytic Reflections on Vladimir Putin: The Cost of Malignant Leadership

Editor : Richard Wood

Book Details

Publisher : Routledge
Published : March 2024
Cover : Paperback
Pages : 168
Category :
Psychoanalysis
Catalogue No : 97617
ISBN 13 : 9781032438450
ISBN 10 : 1032438452

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Psychoanalytic Reflections on Vladimir Putin: The Cost of Malignant Leadership attempts to explore the core psychodynamics that appear to characterize Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

Its contributors examine the nature of the leader-follower relationship, the costs of malignant leadership, and the larger historical context in which Putin’s presidency is unfolding. The sobering threat of nuclear war is considered. Finally, the viability and ethics of distance assessment are discussed.

This book will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and to readers seeking to understand the complex dynamics of populist leadership.

Reviews & Endorsements
Table of Contents
About the Editor(s)
Customer Reviews

Reviews and Endorsements

Wood’s book gives us one of the most valuable analyses of Putin’s personality and motives that I have read to date. Although authored by leading scholars, it is an easily understood book for the intelligent layperson. It is also terrifying. We often tend toward projecting some rationality on to dangerous autocrats or even denial of their severe intractable psychopathology. However, this book argues that there is ‘government by dangerous, strongmen figures driven by insatiable appetites, deeply compromised empathy, and a very destructive form of narcissistic pathology – that represents a clear and present danger the world must soon find a way to contend with if human survival is to be protected... that it is a danger that is growing, as witness the rise in autocracies around the world, and a danger that history tells us has resulted in unimaginable human suffering and ecological damage. I want influential government officials to read this book, to not only understand Putin, but to understand and never underestimate the malignant autocrat that is ready to destroy all that is good in society. Wood's book should be taken as a very serious warning.
Robert M. Gordon, Ph.D. ABPP; licensed Psychologist; Diplomate of Clinical Psychology; Diplomate of Psychoanalysis; governing council, American Psychological Association

The contributions rendered in this book provide invaluable insight, enlightened perspectives and deep understanding of the etiology, manifestation and psychodynamics of the toxic strongman leader who has rendered historically, and is currently inflicting, incalculable harm, if not also annihilation, upon his fellow human beings. There is equally penetrating attention given to those he has seduced into toxic followership. There is much to learn and take away from each of these erudite authors’ offerings. It’s a wake-up call. The geopolitical landscape is changing and the threat that such leaders present to our way of life is of ever-increasing magnitude. It must be clearly defined, well understood and immediately countered, not only by our political leaders, military chiefs, intelligence agencies and academics, but by an engaged citizenry – that is, all of us.
Tim Gilmore, Psychologist, Gilmore Associates

Richard Wood's Psychoanalytic Reflections on Vladimir Putin: The Cost of Malignant Leadership, brings a vast array of psychological and psychoanalytical knowledge to the study of the Russian president. it's an extremely erudite, insightful, and well written study providing the reader with many valuable perspectives, including by several additional thoughtful authors. I strongly recommend it to deepen your understanding of Putin and the West's relationship with him.
Dr. Paul H. Elovitz, Presidential Psychobiographer, Research Psychoanalyst, Editor-In-Chief of Clio's Psyche, and Director of the Psychohistory Forum

Prologue

1. A model of malignant narcissism
Richard Wood

2. Does Putin fit the model?
Richard Wood

3. Incredibly wealthy, catastrophically impoverished (regarding empathy, love, values): Whatever happened to you, Vladimir Putin?
Brent Willock

4. The empire of lies
Coline Covington

5. The leader-follower relationship
Richard Wood

6. Vladimir Putin and the pathologies of modernity
Ian Hughes

7. Nuclear nightmare and psychopathology
James Merikangas

8. Summary
Richard Wood

Epilogue
Richard Wood

About the Editor(s)

Richard Wood, PhD, is a psychoanalytically oriented clinical psychologist based in Ontario, Canada, with over 45 years of experience. He was educated at Cornell University and Wayne State University.

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