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VII. B. GROUP CONTEXT Historically, drives and their vicissitudes 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, 1913), 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 as 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 . Although the specific formulations 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). 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;
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