When I met Tato Torres, we were at an expat meet-and-greet. I knew he was a San Francisco-based Doctor in Clinical Psychology and a Family Therapist, but we didn’t talk much about his job. His wife turned him onto this Substack. That’s when I realized he had something powerful to offer this group: A way forward after we win.
I interviewed him earlier this week. From his extensive work, he has put together a wealth of information for us about what attracts people to authoritarian personalities. Because when we win, dismantling the mechanisms that radicalize people will be vital to preserving democracy.
Next week, my newsletters will cover our conversations, both in-real-life and online. I hope you’ll be here and encourage more people to subscribe.
Here’s Tato’s biography.
Tato A Torres Gilormini is a Doctor in Clinical Psychology and a Family Therapist in California. He is a clinical consultant, professional coach, and clinical supervisor.
His major interest is consulting in the treatment of survivors of disappearance, captivity, and torture and the dynamics of orchestrated and induced disinformation, chaos and fear in the general population.
Over the years, while working with survivors of state-induced terror, he has developed a distinct interest in the dynamics of enmity and the demonization of the "other," which he considers the social context and fertile ground for justifying and enacting group and state-induced acts of terror. He considers ultra-left and ultra-right groups with real autocratic traits very dangerous.
He has studied the dynamics of ultra-right and ultra-left groups with real autocratic traits and how religion has been used to justify and sanction human rights abuses.
He works with children, young adults, and adults. In his spare time, he loves writing poetry, traveling, dancing, and learning from indigenous Native people across the world.
He believes that caring and open human collaboration, a rich human dialogue, and supporting children to integrate emotional education and critical thinking at an early age are the perfect antidote and the real anchors for a vibrant community and society.
He wants all people to be aware that voting every four years cannot be the main support for community building and fostering a healthy political process and participation. The present political polarization demands ongoing active community participation to enable citizens to learn and express their voices on issues that matter to them. He considers this process pivotal to counteract orchestrated and induced disinformation, chaos, and fear, all induced on purpose in the general population to support political control.
As you work to ensure the USA reaches its Semiquincentennial, it is worth acknowledging that we have no history, experience or memory of true autocracy. Many (if not most) now-democratic countries have known autocracy, and may be better positioned psychologically to ward it off. It will be interesting to learn from Tato over the next week.
I’m really looking forward to this series. I’ve been thinking about what happens next when you have maybe a third, maybe half of the population of this country who are basically brainwashed by propaganda and the reality they “know” from what they’ve been told is a) not the truth and b) dangerous to others and themselves. Everyone has close family members who are in this place. Where does it go from here? A national debriefing campaign? We just haven’t been in this sport before. I’m a hopeful person and have faith in our common humanity and ability to overcome things together but at this point see no strategy or even ideas about the way forward. So yeah, let’s do it!