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The author explores torture as one component of the regressive policies implemented within the context of political authoritarianism. She illustrates her contention with two disparate examples: the Argentine military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 and U.S. constitutional democracy in the post 9/11 era and the post-Trump electoral victory. She analyzes the social matrix of neoliberal ideology and institutions that are internalized to become aspects of psychic reality. The bystander phenomenon is examined in light of how psychological dynamics intersect with social forces and hegemonic ideology to create passive citizens who tend to behave in their own self-interest rather than respond to the suffering of others. The psi professions are interpreted as resources for hegemony unless practitioners are critically committed to an ethical stance capable of challenging the prevailing status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this virtual dialogue with Dorothy Evans Holmes and Eyal Rozmarin, both of whom in this issue offer thoughtful discussions of my paper that in some instances questioned and in others expanded my analysis of neoliberal hegemony and subjectivity. My response to their commentaries touches on the following themes: the connection between instincts and hegemonic ideology and discourses; the nature of neoliberal culture in light of the history of group violence, sacrifice, and scapegoating; and the role of nostalgia in critical interpretations of neoliberal society and its vicissitudes. I also offer an addendum to my paper, written before the 2016 election, to comment on how neoliberalism produced the current political crisis, in which social malaise has been punctured by authoritarian politics, populist activism, and ideological polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper encourages clinicians to consider how patients’ conflicts and symptoms reveal not only familial etiology but the internalization of hegemonic structures and ideology. It explores how the subject evolves within the cultural matrix of neoliberalism, the contemporary hegemonic system that shapes unconscious fantasy, conflicts and defenses. Several clinical case vignettes illustrate the benefits to both analyst and patient of exploring within the transference and countertransference how neoliberal hierarchical arrangements of class, race and gender affect subjective and intersubjective experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]