As a psychiatrist, I once treated a woman who had pursued and had a two-week affair with her boss. He was a successful married businessman with two children, and she was his secretary. She told me he had promised her that he would leave his wife for her. But he then ended the affair. My patient felt furious and betrayed, and desperately wanted to renew the relationship. Single for several years, she romanticized this brief past fling. At the office, she constantly argued with him.
Over several months, I repeatedly tried to engage her in reality testing, to focus on finding a new job and potentially a new romantic interest. I have treated other patients as well who fixated on the past, and had trouble focusing instead on the present. Usually, reality testing eventually helps, but it is not always easy.
I have recently been thinking about these patients as millions of voters seek to return to the past, to "Making American Great Again." In the recent debate between the vice presidential candidates, for instance, JD Vance talked several times about going backwards, arguing, “We're going to get back to that common-sense wisdom.”
Many observers remain perplexed why tens of millions of voters fix so resolutely on particular views of the past.
Recent research on the psychology of nostalgia suggests why. Our brains can store only so much information, so we consciously or unconsciously pick and........