Back to Table of Contents
Bion (1961), Rice (1969), Anzieu (1981), Kaës (1976, 2010, 2014), Lebovici, Diatkine and Kestenberg (1958), Kernberg (2003a, b), Scheidlinger (1974) and others developed further Freud’s ideas of the group activated regression and related primal fantasies and primitive projective-introjective-identificatory processes specific to groups, with implications of drive activity, along models of projective identification and/or ‘psychic reality’, ‘inter-subjective dynamic space’, merging into ‘mother group’, and others. 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 annihilation, 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. Kaës (2010, 2014) describes a complex metapsychological inter-subjective system with the triple alliance of fundamentally narcissistic nature to the Idea, the Ideal and the Idol, reflective of the tyranny of the omnipotent maternal imago. Pilar Cubillos, (2019) in “ Pulsión de muerte en los grupos ” (The death drive in groups), studies the manifestations of the death drive in social life, and its expression in the difficulties we find in our participation in groups and institutions. She draws on theoretical contributions by R. Kaës. Scheidlinger (1974) theorizes regressive activation of libidinal ties to ‘ mother group’ . Psychoanalytic Group Therapy of various therapeutical orientations has been applying Freudian and Post-Freudian above conceptualizations since 1940’s (Slavson 1947; Foulkes 1948; Glatzer 1992; Lebowici, Diatkine and Kestenberg, 1958; Bion 1961). Psychoanalytic group therapy, as practiced today, (McKenzie, 1992; Kauff, 2011; Papiasvili 2011) has grown into an internally coherent multiperspectival field. The group, taking on the multi-transferential, as well as developmental emergent function, provides a unique dynamic reservoir of the interplay of activated unconscious processes/drive derivatives and characterological defenses, which might otherwise not come into full view. A group analyst’s function is to provide safety from regressively activated unconscious impulses being acted on, and maintain boundaries and frame, largely via interpretation of unconscious conflicts and fantasies, including sexual and aggressive strivings, when they present resistance to the individual and/or group’s progress. VII. Ba. Contemporary Perspectives on Social Violence, Terrorism, Historical Trauma Kernberg’ s (2003a, b) Sanctioned Social Violence describes a spectrum of regressive, malignant, narcissistic-paranoid mechanisms that provide a common (unconscious) matrix for analysis of those aspects of social psychology that sanction violence. Kernberg extends Freud in that he adds the dimension of the dread of consequences of aggression that mobilizes defenses of a narcissistic and paranoid kind. In this type of process of group regression, normal functions and defensive operations are replaced by the broad gamut of primitive defensive operations typical of paranoid-schizoid mechanisms , originally described by Klein. According
206
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online