On the Social Unconscious
AAGP Brisbane July 2012
Vicki Zola and Paul Coombe
Introduction
• On Saturday 28th July 2012 Paul Coombe and Vicki Zola
presented to the Brisbane meeting of the Australian
Association of Group Psychotherapists their review of aspects
of the current state of the concept subsumed under the title
of the “Social Unconscious”. What follows are the paired
power-point presentations of each of the presenters
beginning with that by Paul Coombe and concluding with that
by Vicki Zola. Further information may be obtained by
contacting either presenter whom are both members of the
AAGP.
Definition?
• Multiple definitions which will be described as we proceed
but it is useful to understand that Foulkes used the term quite
early.
• Foulkes makes mention of the “Social Unconscious” in the
book Group Psychotherapy published in 1959 by Foulkes and
Anthony.: “There is the opportunity(the group) affords for the
exploration of what may be called the ‘social unconscious’.
Each individual’s feelings and reactions will reflect the
influences exerted on him by other individuals in the group
and by the group as a whole, however little he is aware of
this. The small therapeutic group also represents for its
members other people, in general, or even the whole
community....”(p. 42).
Some Early Ideas: 1:
.Freud:
– “Totem and Taboo”: 1912-13: The Primal Horde(also
Darwin)/Religion eg. Christianity-the Communion(eating the father
symbolically in communion: the body and blood) etc. ie. “...the killing
of the chief by violence and the transformation(through cannibalism)
of the paternal horde into a community of brothers.”
– .“Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego”: 1921.: “..the
psychology of groups is the oldest human psychology...”. And: “...The
primal father is the group ideal, which governs the ego in the place of
the ego ideal...”). What binds the members of a group is identification
with the leader: all come to share the same ego-ideal.
– Superego; “The Ego and the Id”: 1923: parental etc. influences.
(origin of guilt lies in parricide by sons and the taking of women for
themselves...)
Early Ideas continued: 2.
.Jung: “The Collective Unconscious”.
.“Neo-Freudians”: referring to American theorists such as Karen
Horney, Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan who attempted
to re-state Freudian theory in sociological terms rather than
biological.
.Melanie Klein: Object relations theory: internal objects exist in
the internal world that have relationships with each other.
They are a product of the innate instinctual inheritance and
also internalizations of part and whole objects. So in a sense
the external world in part comes to be located internally
though changed by splitting, projective and introjective
processes.
Early ideas: 3.
• Bion: Container/Contained implies a social connectedness;
Basic Assumption Groups are regressive experiences away
from the “work” and are expressions of the unconscious life
of a group.
• Winnicott: There is no such thing as a baby only a mother and
baby. Intersubjectivity and transitional space are introduced
as key concepts but largely in the dyadic relationship of
mother and baby although the father is given a role(to
support the mother in her developing connection with the
infant).
Foulkes: 1
The Matrix
• P. 292 Therapeutic Group Analysis(1959).
• “The Matrix is the hypothetical web of communication and
relationship in a given group. It is the common shared ground
which ultimately determines the meaning and significance of
all events and upon which all communications and
interpretations, verbal and non-verbal, rest.”
• It is also referred to as the “Group Dynamic Matrix”.
Foulkes: 2: The Foundation Matrix.
• P. 131-2 Group Analytic Psychotherapy: The
Foundation Matrix(1975).
• Foulkes sees this as based on the biological
properties of the species and also on the culturally
embedded values and reactions developed and
transmitted in the nuclear family, social network,
class etc. and that have been maintained by the
network in which the person inhabits.
Foulkes: 3. The Foundation Matrix (cont.)
• Foulkes does not seem to ever elaborate in any depth on what
he means by the term Foundation Matrix but others have.
For example, Hopper and others see it as including the social,
cultural, communicational and political arrangements and
constraints of the society as a whole, if not the world, or all
the social systems within which a group exists. It includes
language, social stratification, gender roles, class etc and
implies transgenerational processes.
Foulkes: 4. (1964): Levels of Relatedness and
Communication of the Individual within and with the
Group.
• 1. The Current level: level of everyday current relationships – of social
relationships and sociology;
• 2. The Transference level: displacing internal object relationships
outwards;
• 3. The Projective level: projected and shared feelings and phantasies,
often bodily.
• 4. The Primordial level of the collective unconscious, shared myths,
archetypes, etc. ie. elements of the “foundation matrix”.
• “Foulkes’s view of group dynamics and the relationship of the individual to
the group is very much a communicational one.” Brown(2001)
Dennis Brown 2001:
4 Ways in which the Social Unconscious is Manifested:
• 1. Assumptions: what is taken for granted in our society eg. that we
should not eat food with our hands or that we are naturally superior or
inferior to others.
• 2. Disavowals: disowning knowledge or responsibility for things that are
unwelcome eg. greed or envy to prevent guilt.
• 3. Social Defences: what is defended against by projection, denial,
repression or avoidance; ridding ourselves of what we do not like or
cannot bear about ourselves; the organization of social systems to
diminish anxiety: Menzies-Lyth(1961); “us versus them”.
• 4. Structural Oppression: control of power and information by competing
interests in society and the international community ensuring awareness
is restricted eg. racial prejudice and disadvantage; in Australia the plight of
Aborigines, the poor, the exploitation by the mining industry of the
“country”.
Weinberg(2007 Group Analysis)
• Presents a review of the theory.
• His definition:
• “...the co-constructed shared unconscious of members of a
certain social system such as community, society, nation or
culture. It includes shared anxieties, fantasies, defences,
myths, and memories. Its building blocks are made of chosen
traumas and chosen glories.”
• It is NOT the superego
• It is NOT the social in the individual unconscious
• It is NOT the collective unconscious
• It is NOT just hidden cultural norms
Farhad Dalal: A Post-Foulkesian Perspective; 2001.
• Psychoanalysis
• Orthodox Foulkes
– There are in a sense 2 group-analytic theories: “Orthodox” Foulkes
and “Radical” Foulkes. The orthodox model is really what Foulkes
enunciated originally in his famous publications and involves strong
links with individualism and instinct-based theories. Orthodox Foulkes
does talk about the Social Unconscious(see above) but retains the
presence of the Freudian Unconscious and distinguishes between
them both(p 542 Dalal 2001). “Thus the phrase ‘social unconscious’
suggests the presence of an unconscious that is NOT social or prior to
the social or outside the social in some way.” According to Dalal
orthodox Foulkesian concepts are found embedded in the work of
Volkan, Brown and Hopper and he wants to break away from these.
“Radical Foulkes”
• Radical Foulkes
Foulkes’ later or more “radical” ideas are demonstrated in this
quote: “…(the) group, the community, is the ultimate primary
unit of consideration, and the so-called inner processes in the
individual are internalizations of the forces operating in the
group to which he belongs.(1971: 212).
According to Dalal, radical Foulkes is saying: “that things that
look like instincts…are internalizations of group forces…and
that the id itself is acculturated.” Dalal is also saying that we
cannot speak of there being 2 parts of the psyche one
personal and one social.
Vamik Volkan: Transgenerational Transmission of
Chosen Traumas and Chosen Glories: 1.
• Erikson defined identity as “persistent sameness within
oneself... And a persistent sharing of some kind of essential
character with others.
• Volkan: 2 aspects of identity:
• 1. Core identity as per Erikson;
• 2. An “outer” layer making up say our social identity including
what might include a professional identity; he likens this to a
looser layer like a tent providing large group identity.
• Transgenerational transmission can occur from one
individual to another and from one large group or society to
another transgenerationally.
Volkan 2
• “Foreign psychological genes” are “deposited” into the next
generation and beyond especially if not mourned.
• “Chosen traumas” are unconsciously selected eg. Germany
and the third Reich and the Mitsscherlichs(1975).
• Milosevic/Karadzic and the “Battle of Kosovo” on the 28th
June, 1389.
• Shakespeare: Henry 5th, 1599.
• Australian Aborigines and the arrival of the First Fleet.
Hopper: 1. Theory; GA; 2001.
• “An analyst who is unaware of the effect of social events and
social forces cannot be sensitive to their unconscious
recreation within the therapeutic situation. He will not be
able to provide a space for patients to imagine how their
identities have been formed at particular historical and
political junctures, and how this continues to affect them
throughout their lives.”(1996)
• An understanding of groups (and individuals) should always
include an understanding of context; eg. referral networks,
training systems, background of therapist etc.
Hopper: 2
• “The concept of the social unconscious refers to the
existence, and constraints, of social, cultural and
communicational arrangements of which people are
unaware. Unaware, in so far as these arrangements are not
perceived or known, and if perceived not acknowledged(ie.
“denied”), and if acknowledged, not taken as problematic,
and if taken as problematic, not considered with an optimal
degree of detachment and objectivity.”
Hopper: 3
• “Equivalence”: people tend to unconsciously recreate and
repeat situations that have occurred in the past and in
another place(time and space). The repeated can be seen as
“equivalent” to the other or older one.
• Equivalence reflects the social unconscious and uses
externalization/internalization and projective/introjective
identification in order to communicate(as well as expel).
• A form of group transference. Hopper has more theoretical
allegiance to Foulkes than Bion but recalls Bion’s words in
Experiences in Groups(1961): the basic assumption group
knows no time and knows no space. Time: now and then;
Space: here and there.
Hopper: 4
Communications between analyst and patient/group are
considered in terms of 4 cells:
Hopper: 5
• The “here and now” cell refers to an important area where
transference is encountered and it is essential to work within
this area.
• The “there and then” cell refers to the relatively neglected
focus in analytical work that Hopper believes should be
addressed and that involves the social unconscious.
Hopper: 7
• In summary Hopper believes that the therapist’s interventions
need to include reference when it can be made to the social,
cultural and political within sessions not just internal realities.
Also, that interpretations should not just focus on the mother
or father transferentially but draw on the wider social reality.
• According to Hopper our role in working analytically with
groups is to not only help people develop an understanding of
their psychic reality but also their social reality.