MIND MOVES Tony Bates: You hardly need reminding that we are within an octave of another US presidential election, the result of which holds implications for us all.
We hear passionate arguments why one candidate is to be preferred over the other. In particular, we are told Bush will never make it because he represents an aggressive impulsivity that has already made our world a more dangerous place.
A current BBC 2 documentary series, The Power of Nightmares, offers a powerful analysis of how this state of affairs has developed. But the polls keep reminding us that he holds some curious appeal for Americans. What has psychology to say about this historic moment? Can it make sense of the undercurrents of feeling that are not always obvious in reasoned analysis, but which may determine the outcome of this event?
Psychologically, the American psyche is still reeling from the shock of 9/11, which stripped away the illusion of invulnerability and immunity from global conflict.
It was an event that plunged the American people into a nightmare of fear, from which they have yet to recover. The sense of horror is still raw and the imagery of death is still fresh in the minds of voters.
Life is a seriously fragile business and when you wake up to just how vulnerable you are, the only reasonable response is anxiety.
You can choose to adopt an attitude of courage in the face of life, appreciating how much we need and depend on each other, or you can run from an awareness of how radically insecure life is.
Through becoming absorbed in activities that give shape and meaning to our everyday lives, we humans can try to construct a sense of security that holds and comforts us.
We can trade in an awareness of our fragility for loyalty to an ideology that gives us security and relieves our anxieties and sense of helplessness.
But, inevitably, some jolting experience in life tears a rent in the curtain of our defences and exposes to us just how precarious life actually is.
The 9/11 catastrophe was one such event. It confronted the average American with a painful truth that none of us wants to acknowledge, that we don't really control our lives.
If Bush gets re-elected, it may be because there are more Americans who want to return to some sense of control and security, however precarious that may be, than there are Americans who are prepared to let go the illusion of invulnerability and move towards a more honest awareness of their dependence on the rest of humanity.
Bush offers a seductive fundamentalism, where life can be understood in terms of simple variables and where the complexity of our delicate global interdependence on one another is denied.
Basic values of right and wrong are presented in terms that leave little room for doubt or uncertainty. His appeal may be that he is a lightning rod for the desire within the US psyche for someone to restore safety, to reverse the violation that 9/11 represented, at whatever cost.
In his later writings, Freud spoke repeatedly of the terror of the human condition and the longing we carry from childhood for a powerful father to assuage our sense of helplessness.
The greater our sense of fear and the more helpless we feel, the more inclined we are to invest our faith in a leader who claims to offer some reliable antidote for our predicament. The leader who offers solutions that seem unambiguous and easy to grasp will seem especially attractive.
Bush's strategy has been to tap the nerve of fear within the American psyche and direct it at an external foe that only he and his administration understand and only his policy is capable of vanquishing.
Once this flawed premise is accepted, it becomes logical to accept that the militaristic solution is the only way to eradicate undesirable elements in the world.
When you invest faith in a leader, it becomes easier to support solutions that may contradict your personal ideals. His constant refrain of promising to protect America from their worst nightmare is his greatest appeal.
In this forthcoming election, the game is psychology. Both candidates are playing on the fear of the electorate.
Bush promises a more extreme solution to Kerry, but they each project an image of an unsafe world where protection is critical to survival. Their proposed solutions address deep anxieties in a people who have never been more unsure of who they are in terms of the rest of the world and who need clear guidelines to help them navigate their way though the complexity of global politics.
Bush offers a return to fundamentalist values, with the promise of restoring a strong stable sense of cultural identity to Americans. It seems highly probable that his simplistic remedies will over-ride logic and rational thought and lead to his victory in the coming weeks.
Dr Tony Bates is principal psychologist at St James's Hospital, Dublin