About Book

In Psychoanalysis, Culture and Contemporary Discontents, Ricardo Rubinstein offers a clinical and cultural examination of the modern psyche. He engages with pressing contemporary issues such as fanaticism, technology dependency, panic attacks, and the psychological aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, using psychoanalytic theory to explore the internal dynamics of individuals navigating a rapidly changing world. Drawing on vignettes from his own psychoanalytic practice, Rubinstein investigates the unconscious drives and environmental triggers behind risk-taking behaviors, rigid ideological adherence, and psychological breakdowns. He frames these discontents not as isolated phenomena, but as collective symptoms of a larger cultural pathology shaped by fear, uncertainty, and rapid technological mediation. This work is deeply relevant to our time, engaging with crises that have reshaped modern life: pandemics, extremism, digital saturation, and emotional volatility. Rubinstein’s psychoanalytic lens provides insight into how these forces impact individual subjectivity and collective behavior—making it especially useful for understanding how people are drawn into extreme ideologies or experience mental collapse under social stress. From a community engagement perspective, this book can serve as a resource for therapists, educators, community leaders, and conflict mediators, who work on fostering resilience, psychological stability, and critical consciousness within vulnerable or ideologically exposed populations.Rubinstein’s exploration is a unique contribution that blends clinical insight with sociocultural critique, offering a non-reductionist understanding of modern discontents. The inclusion of psychoanalysis as a framework broadens our interpretive toolkit in dealing with radicalization, mass anxiety, and cultural fragmentation.