ABSTRACT
The concept of ideology has a genealogy that traces through some central moments and dilemmas of modernity and postmodernity and a presence that recurs in the explanation of how societies are reproduced and human subjectivities are organized. The concept has, therefore, encompassed psychology in its very conception, and this chapter charts the recurrence of this often-repressed element in several versions of ideology over time. From the Frankfurt School through Althusser to Žižek, a very different kind of psychology to that envisaged by the ideologues, namely psychoanalysis, is incorporated as a supplement to Marxist and related social theories. Language also takes on a more prominent role in understandings of how ideology operates.
