ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how and when the personality characteristics of a political leader can initiate or become intertwined with societal and political processes. We are not suggesting that “real world” issues and secondary process calculations are not important or should be discarded in favor of psychological considerations. Instead, we suggest that psychoanalysts and psychodynamically informed mental health professionals can contribute to a more complete analysis of political or societal processes and the personalities of leaders who play major roles in them. Only through such interdisciplinary work can we fully understand the complex and intertwined nature of the crucial events that shape political leaders’ internal and external worlds.
