State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind (Revised)

What was shocking in 2008, now just a decade later, seems almost quaint and illustrates the rapid deterioration of our mental state – an increasingly dysfunctional state of confusion. Fortunately, as rapidly as the mind has deteriorated, so has our understanding of the mind increased. The most important and hopeful antidote to our current predicament is psychological awareness, awareness of the nature of the mind itself and an awareness of the forces that have so distorted our American character and mental stability. When we understand the nature of our mind we see that awareness itself can be profoundly healing and can illuminate the constructive things we can do to restore the American mind to rationality, tranquility, and vibrancy.Despite our current dire situation America’s promise is still vast. The hour is getting late, however. Awareness, deeper psychological awareness itself, must become America’s new Manhattan Project. This book is dedicated to that effort."ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Bryant Welch is a nationally renowned clinical psychologist and attorney. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina and later was a Research Associate Graduate of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. He lived in Washington, DC for seventeen years where he served as the first Executive Director for Professional Practice of the American Psychological Association. He oversaw organized psychology’s most impactful advocacy era, leading successful efforts to expand access to psychological care and using psychological understanding to combat human rights abuses in many settings. For these efforts, he received numerous awards including an APA Presidential Citation for Seminal Contributions to the Field of Psychology. He was an outspoken opponent of the APA’s involvement in human torture under the Bush administration. Bryant currently lives with his wife, Leni Miller, and practices clinical psychology in Sausalito, CA.