Excursus on Adorno’s Negative Psychology

This chapter constitutes an excursus on Theodor W. Adorno’s approach to psychology and psychoanalysis embedded in his studies of anti-Semitism and authoritarianism. Strosberg responds to the surprising dearth of commentary on Adorno’s work in recent psychological scholarship and clarifies the psychoanalytic concepts employed by Adorno as both a dialectical psychology and heralding an end of psychology. Taken together, Strosberg labels this Adorno’s negative psychology. Reframed in this way, Adorno can continue to serve as a crucial site of critical engagement for psychologists. Negative psychology provides a critical model for comprehending the psychological subject’s susceptibility to anti-Semitic and proteophobic motivations while sidestepping psychological reductionism and the pitfalls of proteophobia.