Myth and Madness

This is a report on a nine-year study of the psychodynamics of antisemitism. Undertaken by Dr. Mortimer Ostow on behalf of the Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund, it puts flesh and bones on the discussion of antisemitism in Sigmund Freud's 1939 classic theoretical study Moses and Monotheism. Its close adherence to case material and its application of psychoanalytic theory to historical data and cultural products yield new insights into bigotry and equity alike.
By examining prejudiced patients and their myths, Dr. Ostow shows the common threads of antisemitism in a variety of national and cultural settings, even under supposed optimal conditions when antisemitism is stringently controlled. The work uses the psychiatric approach, and can be read as a study of how this area of behavioral science reveals the interplay of the individual and the group, cultural background and material opportunities.

Mortimer Ostow is president of The Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund and professor emeritus of pastoral psychiatry at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America.