History, ‘nowtime’ ( jetztzeit ) and dialectical images: introduction to Walter Benjamin for psychiatry (I)

), non-sensuous similarities, and dialectical images. Benjamin's methodology and discoveries offer penetrating tools to any psychiatry which is truly committed to understanding culture beyond the conservative or descriptive ethnographic study of tradition in order to make sense of the nature and psychopathological impact of accelerating upheavals in our era of international conflict, climate change, social media, artificial intelligence and imperfect and threatened liberal pluralism. This era demands an approach open to co-creation and co-production and we discuss the relevance, including the limitations, of Benjamin's work.