Today sees the rise of nationalism, the return of totalitarian parties in Europe to electoral success, and the rise of the alt-right and white supremacists in the US. Thus, there is urgency for psychoanalysts, with their understanding of cruelty, sadomasochism, perversion, and other mental mechanisms, to speak out. Jonathan Sklar has risen to the challenge with this timely, thought-provoking, and, at times, upsetting work. Dark Times starts with a look at European history in terms of monuments and mourning, before moving into storytelling and the elision of thought and history at this current time, including harrowing detail of the brutalities inflicted by ISIS on the Yazidi, and concludes with a meditation on the relationship between cruelty in the early environment and hatred of the other within society, with particular focus on racism in the US.
Sklar goes against the grain of brief sound bites, which are an aid to quickly pass over painful knowledge. Instead, he goes into detail to give extremely dark, horrid occurrences, and the human beings on the receiving end, respect and understanding, which enables the reader greater access to allowing unconscious things to be made more conscious, highlighting the quality of humanity in human beings. Also, listening to these stories enables us to become more aware, not only of what is going on over there, but also what is happening here, because in our increasingly joined-up world, here is always implicated and affected too.
By ridding ourselves of the illusions of our political times, we can find greater freedom to think, develop, challenge, and create hope, for the future of our children and our grandchildren, as well as for ourselves. Dark Times is a timely, thought-provoking, and, at times, upsetting work that is a must- read for all those looking for a deeper understanding of today’s world.
Dr Jonathan Sklar, MBBS, FRCPsych is a training and supervising psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Originally trained in psychiatry at Friern and the Royal Free Hospitals, he later trained in adult psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic, London. For many years, he was consultant psychotherapist and head of the psychotherapy department at Addenbrooke’s and Fulbourne hospitals in Cambridge. He now works in full-time analytic practice in London. As well as lecturing widely across the world, he has taught psychoanalysis annually in South Africa for over ten years, termly in Chicago for ten years until 2018, as well as regularly across Eastern Europe. From 2007 to 2011, he was vice president of the European Psychoanalytic Federation, with special responsibility for seminars for recently qualified analysts as well as new analytic groups in East Europe. He is presently a board member of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He is the author of two previous books: Landscapes of the Dark: History, Trauma, Psychoanalysis (Karnac, 2011) and Balint Matters: Psychosomatics and the Art of Assessment (Karnac, 2017).
Philippe Sands, Professor of Law at University College London, author of ‘East West Street’ –
Lucid, powerful, intelligent, and deeply relevant for the days of our times: a vastly thoughtful and important book.
Samir Gandesha, Associate Professor of Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada –
Ranging contrapuntally over such themes as alterity, memory, trauma, and racism, Dark Times is a vitally important volume that illuminates the increasingly menacing horizons of our shared social and political life. In an age in which psychological quick-fixes such as cognitive behavioural therapy and psychopharmacology proliferate, Jonathan Sklar reminds us of the irreducibility of psychoanalysis in helping to secure the internal conditions for freedom and emancipation, and therefore in resisting tendencies towards what Hannah Arendt called “total domination”.
Prudy Gourguechon – 5 star Amazon Review / Nov 2018 –
Towards a deeper understanding of our troubled times. Dr. Sklar uses his deep psychoanalytic understanding to put our current troubled times in both a historical and psychological context. It is essential that we understand what he calls the “persistent paranoid hatreds of the other” that wreaked havoc in western society in the 20th century and are re-emerging with frightening force today. Sklar’s contribution is complex and far-reaching, as our understanding needs to be.
LM – 5 star Amazon Review / Oct 2018 –
Fascinating thought provoking book. It is an important wake up call to our current and disturbing social and political climate. Dr. Sklar’s insight is spot on. Highly recommended.
Rachael Mckeown, Psychodynamic Counsellor, Sussex Counselling & Psychotherapy News, Spring 2019 –
Normalising Nazis is one example of a populist attack on thinking that psychoanalyst Jonathan Sklar highlights in his vital new book… Acknowledging human cruelty is hard but, like this book, should not be avoided. An important read.
Ken Robinson, BJP 35:1 –
Dark Times is a remarkable book … It is passionate, at times meditative, fiercely confrontational and intellectually brilliant, but above all it embodies the freedom that it advocates.
snailandgingerbeer, 5 star Amazon review / October 2018 –
Intelligent, timely and thoughtful – highly recommended. Not having a background in psychoanalysis I wasn’t sure how accessible this book would be but Sklar’s coruscating prose provide explanations without being patronising.
The subject matter means that its not an easy read, nor should it be – the chapter on the Yazidi is particularly difficult – but given the times we live in its a well judged warning to humanity.
David Morgan –
I have recently used this excellent book in a teaching seminar on psychoanalysis and politics, it provided the group with an excellent guide to the role of trauma and repetition compulsion in both individual and social contexts.it was very well received by all. It is a book that deserves to be read widely and one hopes by those who wield power and influence, it shows the deep work that has to be done if painful disaster is to be avoided and thinking is to prevail.
Lindsey Light, integrative counsellor and supervisor, ‘Free Associations’ No. 77 (2019) –
‘This slim, accessible book, gives a guide to becoming more aware of history and finding the roots of our fears. It underlines the importance of our own inner work that enables us to navigate and hopefully change the darker landscapes of our times.’
Eddy Carrillo – The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 90:3 –
’emotionally and intellectually engaging […] a remarkable experience of a book, committed not only to a visceral practice of psychoanalysis, but also a deeply practical one. In these dark times, more works like Sklar’s are urgently needed.’
Steven Groarke, ‘The International Journal of Psychoanalysis’, 101:3, 2020 –
‘Stir[s] up the fitfully applied, but urgently needed, subdiscipline of political psychoanalysis […] To work free of revenge is an ongoing work and, essentially, I think the essays in Dark Times are a reflection on this imaginative task.’