A culture of mania: a psychoanalytic view of the incubation of the 2008 credit crisis

Abstract

In this theoretically informed study I explore the broader cultural changes that created the conditions for the credit crisis of 2008. Drawing on psychoanalysis and its application to organizational and social dynamics, I develop a theoretical framework around the notion of a manic culture, comprised of four aspects: denial; omnipotence; triumphalism; and over-activity. I then apply this to the credit crisis and argue that the events of 2008 were preceded by an incubation period lasting for over two decades during which a culture of mania developed. Then, focusing especially on the Japanese and South East Asia/LTCM crises, I argue that a series of major ruptures in capitalism during this incubation period served not as warnings, but as opportunities for a manic response, thereby dramatically increasing the risks involved. I also argue that this mania was triggered and strengthened by triumphant feelings in the West over the collapse of communism. I suggest therefore that this manic culture played a significant role in creating the conditions for the problems that led to the credit crisis.

Narratives of fate and misfortune in organizational life: Stories of success and failure

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Feeling insecure: a personal account in a psychoanalytic voice

“…What disturbs me is the ease with which I find myself disidentifying with and thereby locating myself outside the processes they describe. This happens when I think "I'm not like that" or "surely I wouldn't get caught up in that" in response to the potentially racist exclusionary impulses described by Sibley (1995) or the exuberant, unrealistic over-optimism described by Stein (2011). When I catch myself responding like this, it seems to me that I am claiming immunity from the dynamics described in these accounts.…”

General practice counselling amidst the ‘audit culture’: History, dynamics and subversion of/in the hypermodern National Health Service

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