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terms of language, methodology and epistemology» (p 1576) allows all sides to continue to listen to each other.
IV. B. Group Unconscious
IV. Ba. Theoretical Context Historically, unconscious processes and contents underlying group behaviors, culture and society, have been addressed by Freud throughout the development of psychoanalytic theory in more than 20 writings, most notable of which are Totem and Taboo (Freud, 1912- 13), depicting a manifestation on a group and social level of the Oedipus Complex; Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (Freud, 1921), with the focus on group regression and primitive projective and identificatory processes, i.e. projection onto the leader of the group members’ (super)ego ideal, freeing them from moral constraints in the expression of their instinctual urges particularly those of aggressive kind, and mutual identificatory processes among the members and the leader, libidinal ties between them fostering a sense of belonging and heightened sense of strength; and Civilization and its Discontents (Freud, 1930), with the group membership unleashing formerly unconscious aggressive-sadistic-destructive impulses against the ‘other’ groups , here in the forefront. Although the formulations or the focus of the Freudian view of the Group Unconscious may have varied depending on the stage of the theory’s development, the basic premise remained: the motivating force behind historical- societal developments, failures and successes of civilization has been the antagonism between the demands of instinctual nature and the reactive restrictive formations, instituted by society, leading to progressive renunciations of acting on the instincts (both aggressive and erotic/sexual). According to this view, various more or less successful compromises throughout such reciprocal dynamic interplay of the unconscious and conscious motives, enforced by groups, have been responsible for the highest order sublimatory and beneficial outcomes as well as the malignant destructive outcomes, i.e. slavery, violent genocides, wars, abuses and victimizations, throughout history. Contributions of W. Bion (1961), Rice (1969), and Anzieu (1981), Kaes (2010, 2014) and Lebovici, Diatkine and Kestemberg (1958) developed further Freud’s ideas of the group activated primal fantasies and primitive projective-introjective-identificatory processes specific to groups, along models of projective identification and/or ‘psychic reality’ and ‘inter- subjective dynamic space’. Bion (1961) postulates that the primitive impulses estranged from their original source through projective identification, contribute to the formation of the ‘ basic assumption group’ , ruled by ‘ dependency’, ‘fight/flight’, and ‘pairing’ mechanisms , while the function of the ‘working group’ is a productive reality-oriented collaboration. Anzieu (1981) gives an account of the various group fantasies, illusions and imagery of oral threats and dreads of anihilation, such as the ‘group as a mouth’, ‘breaking apart’, the ‘group-machine’, reflective of the earliest structures of the mind and of the psychotic level of the personality as it becomes manifest in the group process. Kaes (2010, 2014) describes the specific ‘unconscious psychic
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