Even if you can break this mass formation, there will be, if the elementary conditions,

psychological conditions the population is in, such as this loneliness and this lack of meaning

making and so on, continue to exist, then a new mass formation will emerge immediately.

You're listening to the Corbett Report.

Welcome friends, welcome back to the corporate report.

I'm your host James Corbett of CorbettReport.com in an interview that is being recorded on the 27th of May 22.

And I am sure many people in the Corbett report audience has heard over the past several months

something about mass formation psychosis?

And as you may or may not know, that is something of a misnomer for a psychological phenomenon

that has been identified and talked about by people over the years, but most specifically

in the coronavirus context by a professor

out of Belgium called Matthias de Smet. He has written a book about this subject that I will

be committing to your attention today. So of course, the link to this book, which is now available

for pre-order,

will be available in the show notes for this conversation. It is called the Psychology of Totalitarianism,

and is available from Chelsea Green Publishing at chelseagreen.com. And Matthias DeSmet is a professor

of clinical psychology in the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Ghent

University in Belgium and a practicing psychoanalytical

psychotherapist. In 2018, he received the evidence-based psychoanalytic case study prize of the Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, which is quite a mouthful.

And in 2019, he received the Wim Treesburg Prize of the Dutch Association of Psychotherapy.

Professor De Smet, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us today.

You're welcome, James.

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