Mattias Desmet

Mattias Desmet     (Psychologist)
Nationality	Belgian
Interests	• Mass formation • totalitarianism

Mattias Desmet is a Belgian clinical psychologist and professor in clinical psychology at Ghent University. He has a Doctor of Philosophy Psychological Sciences and has a master's degree in statistics.

Covid-19 and Mass formation

Full articles: COVID-19/Response, Mass formation

In 2021, Desmet began to receive widespread attention from both mainstream and alternative media for associating public reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic with mass formation, arguing that most people accepted mitigation measures issued by governments without question, and denounced those who were critical of such measures, or questioned the severity of COVID-19 - the theory was widely popularized by the Robert Malone interview on the Joe Rogan podcast (Malone used the term Mass formation psychosis) at the end of December 2021.

Criticism

Peter Breggin is one of the critics of Desmet's theory and his arguments.

“We have examined three of the many interviews given by Desmet before his book came out. Each time, he dismisses “conspiracy theories” without elaborating further.
In these three interviews, Desmet does not use psychology to analyze and discredit people who write about conspiracies — that will come out in the book. That makes his book a bait and switch. The back cover of his book has endorsements from several heroes from the freedom movement whom I hold in very high regard, including professionals who have done excellent research and writing about the conspiracies behind COVID-19. I am guessing, and I hope I am right, that my respected colleagues, who are extremely busy, based their endorsements on Desmet’s interviews and his personal contacts with them — and they had no idea what he was going to write in his book about the emotionally disturbed people who make up or believe in “conspiracy theories.” From the number of endorsements from within the freedom movement, Desmet clearly targeted the group.”
Peter Breggin (Jul 23, 2022) 

Listening to his interviews it may have not been entirely clear and/or the argument did not come across to the full extent, but with the release of Desmet's book: The Psychology of Totalitarianism it is obvious that he blames the people (populations on the planet at large) who are suffering from a crisis that has been engineered to their detriment, as an analysis of the book by Unlimitedhangout shows.

It also appears that Desmet is reiterating talking points of the academic study of "conspiracy theories" in this book.

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