Michael Bader
Dr. Michael Bader is a psychologist and psychoanalyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. He received a Doctor of Mental Health degree at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1980, and became licensed as a Clinical Psychologist in January 1984, he currently combines a private practice in San Francisco with his work as a senior advisor for the Institute4Change, an interdisciplinary team of change experts devoted to developing leaders of progressive organizations and providing them consultation around issues of strategy and organizational change.
Dr. Bader has written extensively for both academic and popular audiences. His primary intellectual interests are in exploring the intersection of psychology, culture, and politics. He has written over 50 articles for popular magazines, both print and on-line, including The Huffington Post, Alternet, and Tikkun Magazine. In these, he analyses vital political controversies, crises, and struggles using the wisdom and insights gained in his long clinical career. His arguments—and his theoretical agenda—usually involve weaving together a sophisticated understanding of politics and history with a psychological approach that appreciates the importance of unconscious desires and conflicts.
“Sex, after all, is about being separate and joined at the same time. The fact that men tend to emphasize the former and women the latter is not an irreducible fact of gender, but the result of asymmetries in childrearing and socialization. But more than that, such tensions reflect the fact that in our society as a whole we don’t know how to be involved with one another without feeling burdened or selfishly indulgent without feeling guilty. If we can solve this problem on a societal level, it will go a long way to solving it in the bedroom.”