International Journal of Group Psychotherapy
ISSN: 0020-7284 (Print) 1943-2836 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujgp20
Letters to the Editor Earl Hopper & Haim Weinberg To cite this article: Earl Hopper & Haim Weinberg (2015) Letters to the Editor, International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65:4, 647-652, DOI: 10.1521/ijgp.2015.65.4.647 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/ijgp.2015.65.4.647
Published online: 19 Oct 2015.
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Date: 05 September 2017, At: 09:40
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY, 64 (1) 2014 Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
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Dear Editor: I very much appreciate the review by Robert Grossmark (International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65(3) 2015, pp. 459-476) of From Psychoanalysis to Group Analysis: The Pioneering Work of Trigant Burrow, edited by Edi Gatti Pertegato and Georgio Orghe Pertegato (London: Karnac, 2013). The book was published in the New International Library of Group Analysis of which I am the general Editor, and, thus, I have read and studied the papers and the Introduction to them of which the book is comprised. Given that Grossmark refers to my (Hopper, 2003) work and to that of Haim Weinberg and myself (2011), the latter having been subject of some debate within this Journal (see Schermer, 2013; Hopper, 2014), I would like to comment on the use of the term ‘social unconscious’ both in the book and in the review of it. The ‘social unconscious’ was in general use among psychoanalysts in Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna during the period between the first and second world wars, for example by Bernfeld (1929/1971) in the 1920s and Fromm (1930/1984) in the 1930s, as discussed by Nitzgen (2011) and by Scholz (2011). Although Burrow seems to have coined the term, what he meant by it differed from how it was used by others. Analysed by Jung, Burrow used ‘the social unconscious’ to mean much the same as what Jung meant by ‘the collective unconscious’, socio-cultural phenomena that were rooted in the biology of the species. Hence, Burrow’s reference to ‘race’, which of course meant something rather different from a ‘gene-pool’. (Many writers of the day used ‘race’ to mean the species itself; for example James Joyce (1916) referred to the ‘consciousness of the race’.) However, in contradistinction to the ‘the collective unconscious’, which gives emphasis to the
647
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Letters to the Editor
recognition of commonality derived from the species, the term ‘social unconscious’ refers to the foundation matrix of a society and to its various aspects and dimensions, such as patterns of interaction, normation, communication, etc., which gives emphasis to the recognition of socio-cultural variety and diversity, which are usually governed by political processes and power structures. It is confusing that contemporary Jungians use the concept of the collective unconscious in almost exactly the same way that contemporary group analysts use the concept of the social unconscious. In terms of a field theory, the social unconscious refers to aspects of the external world and their internal representations of which people are unconscious (pre-conscious and/ or non-conscious), in a transpersonal and transgenerational context with an emphasis on social trauma. In fact, Weinberg and I compared the contemporary concept of the social unconscious in group analysis with the contemporary Jungian concept of the collective unconscious, as well as with the classical Jungian concept of the collective unconscious. It follows that actually it was Jung who should have cited Burrow’s work, not Foulkes and Anthony. In fact, Foulkes was interested in many Jungian ideas, and several Jungian Analytical Psychologists are Group Analysts, or vice versa. It must be acknowledged, however, that what Burrow had to say about the collective unconscious added immeasurably to the early work of Jung. Burrow’s ideas might be understood as having developed in dialectic and in parallel with Freud’s wishful dictum that where id was there shall ego be, based on insight acquired through reflection about self, other and relations between them. The corollary to this is that such insight could and should be acquired through group analysis as well. Of course, this perspective has added immeasurably to the work of Freud, but it is only comparatively recently that modern psychoanalysts have availed themselves of it. Foulkes’ interest in the social unconscious and the foundation matrix was influenced by sociology and anthropology through the work of Norbert Elias (1939, 2000), who filtered European sociology into the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Frankfurt. Bur-
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
Letters to the Editor 649
row used the term ‘group analysis’ to mean ‘sociology’ itself, with special reference to the study of group social systems, in the way that Simmel (1902) might have used the term, and that Mannheim (1943) did use the term. In contradistinction, Foulkes used ‘group analysis’ to refer to a clinical technique which emphasised inter-relationality, inter-personality and trans-personality in the context of trans-generational transmission. This perspective is the basis of the series of books that Haim Weinberg and I edit on the topic of the social unconscious and the foundation matrix, the next volume of which is now in press: The Social Unconscious in Persons, Groups and Societies: Volume 2: Mainly Foundation Matrices (London: Karnac). Many years ago I had the opportunity to discuss all this with Max Rosenbaum. Max enjoyed teasing Malcolm Pines and other group analysts who worked with Foulkes by emphasising the contribution made by Burrow. However, with the closest that Max ever came to winking, he agreed that Burrow and Foulkes used the terms ‘the social unconscious’ and ‘group analysis’ rather differently from one another, although many of their insights overlapped, partly because they shared some of the same intellectual sources.
REFERENCES Bernfeld, S. (1971). Der Soziale Ort und seine Bedeutung für Neurose, Verwahrlosung und Padagogik [The social location and its significance for neurosis, neglect and pedagogy]. In L. von Werder & R. Wolff (Eds.), Antiautoritare Erziehung und Psychoanalyse. Ausgewahlte Schriften Bd. [Antiauthority education and psychoanalysis. Selected writings volume] (pp. 209-225). Frankfurt, Germany: Ullstein. (Original work published 1929) Elias, N. (1939). Über den Prozess der Zivilisation [On the civilizing process]. Basel, Switzerland: Hand zum Falken. Elias, N. (2000). The civilizing process (E. Jephcott, Trans.) (rev. ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
650
Letters to the Editor
Fromm, E. (1984). The working class in Weimar Germany: A psychological and sociological approach. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1930) Hopper, E. (2003). The social unconscious: Selected papers. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley. Hopper, E. (2014). Letter to editor. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 64, 138-139. Hopper, E., & Weinberg, H. (Eds.). (2011). The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory. London, UK: Karnac. Joyce, J. (1916). A portrait of the artist as a young man. New York, NY: B.W. Huebsch. Mannheim, K. (1943). Diagnosis of our time. London, UK: Paul Kegan, Trench, Trubner & Co. Nitzgen, D. (2011). The concept of the social unconscious in the work of S. H. Foulkes. In E. Hopper & H. Weinberg (Eds.), The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory (pp. 3-22). London, UK: Karnac. Schermer, V. L. (2013). [Review of the book The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory]. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 63, 609-612. Scholz, R. (2011). The foundation matrix and the social unconscious. In E. Hopper & H. Weinberg (Eds.), The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory (pp. 265-286). London, UK: Karnac. Simmel, G. (1902). The number of members as determining the sociological form of the group. II. American Journal of Sociology, 8, 158-196.
Earl Hopper, Ph.D. London, U.K. E-mail: [email protected]
Letters to the Editor 651
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
Dear Editor: I applaud Klein and Schermer’s serious and courageous effort to address, describe and analyze violence in the USA [International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Special Issue on Violence in America, Parts I and II, 2015, volume 65, numbers 1 and 2]. The title “Violence in America” will be addressed later. The two-volume issue is an important contribution to our understanding of this difficult topic that daily affects life in the USA and perhaps other parts of the world as well. In their introduction (especially to the first issue) Klein and Schermer encompass many aspects of this unfortunate and distressing social situation. In fact, all the aspects mentioned in their introduction are included in what Earl Hopper and I call “the social unconscious” (SU) in our Introduction to volume 1 of The Social Unconscious in Persons, Groups and Societies (Hopper & Weinberg, 2011), although they never mentioned this concept. The factors they cite include: history (especially traumatic historical events that are trans-generationally transmitted, such as slavery and the civil war in the USA), language (the title “violence in America” instead of “violence in the USA” might represent an unconscious use of language ignoring other countries in America, a theme that is part of the SU of the American people), isomorphism (in times of traumatic stress, societies regress and behave like large groups), and social anxieties and defenses (projection and scapegoating among others). An aspect of the SU missing in their introduction is myths that prevail in our society (e.g., manifest destiny, affecting deeply the way people relate to minorities and to the use of natural resources in the USA). Myths have a powerful impact on the behavior of people and are included in my definition of the SU (Weinberg, 2007). Hopper and I dedicate a section for this aspect in volume 2 (Hopper & Weinberg, in press). The use of guns, for example, and the debate about the freedom to carry firearms has its roots not only in the Second Amendment (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”), but also in the myth of the Wild West, which Klein and Schermer did mention, but from the historical perspective.
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
652
Letters to the Editor
To summarize my understanding of violence in the USA: Socio-cultural-political-historical factors that are part of the SU of people in the USA have a huge influence on the frequent emergence of violence. People, including psychotherapists, are used to explain human behavior by the person’s personality, background or intrapsychic dynamics. Violence erupting in the USA from time to time cannot be attributed to one person. It is a sign of cultural disease, and the person who commits the violent act is personifying “the American way”, as Klein and Schermer correctly put it (2015a, p. 6), through “rugged individualism”. Underneath the seemingly peaceful life in the USA, a cauldron of unconscious forces is boiling, bursting from time to time through “weak links” in the social structure. Healing this social rupture cannot be complete without understanding the Social Unconscious of the “American” (USA) people.
REFERENCES Hopper, E., & Weinberg, H. (Eds.). (2011). The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory. London, UK: Karnac. Hopper, E., & Weinberg, H. (Eds.). (in press). The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 2: Mainly the foundation matrix. London, UK: Karnac. Klein, R. H., & Schermer, V. L. (2015a). Toward understanding and treating violence in America: Some contributions from group dynamic and group therapy perspectives: Introduction to Part I. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65(1), 1-28. Klein, R. H., & Schermer, V. L. (2015b). Toward understanding and treating violence in America: Some contributions from group dynamic and group therapy perspectives: Introduction to Part II. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65(2), 162-179. Weinberg H. 2007. So what is this social unconscious anyway? Group Analysis, 40, 307-322.
Haim Weinberg, Ph.D., CGP, FAGPA E-mail: [email protected]
ISSN: 0020-7284 (Print) 1943-2836 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujgp20
Letters to the Editor Earl Hopper & Haim Weinberg To cite this article: Earl Hopper & Haim Weinberg (2015) Letters to the Editor, International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65:4, 647-652, DOI: 10.1521/ijgp.2015.65.4.647 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/ijgp.2015.65.4.647
Published online: 19 Oct 2015.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 5
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ujgp20 Download by: [University of New Mexico]
Date: 05 September 2017, At: 09:40
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY, 64 (1) 2014 Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
Dear Editor: I very much appreciate the review by Robert Grossmark (International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65(3) 2015, pp. 459-476) of From Psychoanalysis to Group Analysis: The Pioneering Work of Trigant Burrow, edited by Edi Gatti Pertegato and Georgio Orghe Pertegato (London: Karnac, 2013). The book was published in the New International Library of Group Analysis of which I am the general Editor, and, thus, I have read and studied the papers and the Introduction to them of which the book is comprised. Given that Grossmark refers to my (Hopper, 2003) work and to that of Haim Weinberg and myself (2011), the latter having been subject of some debate within this Journal (see Schermer, 2013; Hopper, 2014), I would like to comment on the use of the term ‘social unconscious’ both in the book and in the review of it. The ‘social unconscious’ was in general use among psychoanalysts in Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna during the period between the first and second world wars, for example by Bernfeld (1929/1971) in the 1920s and Fromm (1930/1984) in the 1930s, as discussed by Nitzgen (2011) and by Scholz (2011). Although Burrow seems to have coined the term, what he meant by it differed from how it was used by others. Analysed by Jung, Burrow used ‘the social unconscious’ to mean much the same as what Jung meant by ‘the collective unconscious’, socio-cultural phenomena that were rooted in the biology of the species. Hence, Burrow’s reference to ‘race’, which of course meant something rather different from a ‘gene-pool’. (Many writers of the day used ‘race’ to mean the species itself; for example James Joyce (1916) referred to the ‘consciousness of the race’.) However, in contradistinction to the ‘the collective unconscious’, which gives emphasis to the
647
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
648
Letters to the Editor
recognition of commonality derived from the species, the term ‘social unconscious’ refers to the foundation matrix of a society and to its various aspects and dimensions, such as patterns of interaction, normation, communication, etc., which gives emphasis to the recognition of socio-cultural variety and diversity, which are usually governed by political processes and power structures. It is confusing that contemporary Jungians use the concept of the collective unconscious in almost exactly the same way that contemporary group analysts use the concept of the social unconscious. In terms of a field theory, the social unconscious refers to aspects of the external world and their internal representations of which people are unconscious (pre-conscious and/ or non-conscious), in a transpersonal and transgenerational context with an emphasis on social trauma. In fact, Weinberg and I compared the contemporary concept of the social unconscious in group analysis with the contemporary Jungian concept of the collective unconscious, as well as with the classical Jungian concept of the collective unconscious. It follows that actually it was Jung who should have cited Burrow’s work, not Foulkes and Anthony. In fact, Foulkes was interested in many Jungian ideas, and several Jungian Analytical Psychologists are Group Analysts, or vice versa. It must be acknowledged, however, that what Burrow had to say about the collective unconscious added immeasurably to the early work of Jung. Burrow’s ideas might be understood as having developed in dialectic and in parallel with Freud’s wishful dictum that where id was there shall ego be, based on insight acquired through reflection about self, other and relations between them. The corollary to this is that such insight could and should be acquired through group analysis as well. Of course, this perspective has added immeasurably to the work of Freud, but it is only comparatively recently that modern psychoanalysts have availed themselves of it. Foulkes’ interest in the social unconscious and the foundation matrix was influenced by sociology and anthropology through the work of Norbert Elias (1939, 2000), who filtered European sociology into the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Frankfurt. Bur-
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
Letters to the Editor 649
row used the term ‘group analysis’ to mean ‘sociology’ itself, with special reference to the study of group social systems, in the way that Simmel (1902) might have used the term, and that Mannheim (1943) did use the term. In contradistinction, Foulkes used ‘group analysis’ to refer to a clinical technique which emphasised inter-relationality, inter-personality and trans-personality in the context of trans-generational transmission. This perspective is the basis of the series of books that Haim Weinberg and I edit on the topic of the social unconscious and the foundation matrix, the next volume of which is now in press: The Social Unconscious in Persons, Groups and Societies: Volume 2: Mainly Foundation Matrices (London: Karnac). Many years ago I had the opportunity to discuss all this with Max Rosenbaum. Max enjoyed teasing Malcolm Pines and other group analysts who worked with Foulkes by emphasising the contribution made by Burrow. However, with the closest that Max ever came to winking, he agreed that Burrow and Foulkes used the terms ‘the social unconscious’ and ‘group analysis’ rather differently from one another, although many of their insights overlapped, partly because they shared some of the same intellectual sources.
REFERENCES Bernfeld, S. (1971). Der Soziale Ort und seine Bedeutung für Neurose, Verwahrlosung und Padagogik [The social location and its significance for neurosis, neglect and pedagogy]. In L. von Werder & R. Wolff (Eds.), Antiautoritare Erziehung und Psychoanalyse. Ausgewahlte Schriften Bd. [Antiauthority education and psychoanalysis. Selected writings volume] (pp. 209-225). Frankfurt, Germany: Ullstein. (Original work published 1929) Elias, N. (1939). Über den Prozess der Zivilisation [On the civilizing process]. Basel, Switzerland: Hand zum Falken. Elias, N. (2000). The civilizing process (E. Jephcott, Trans.) (rev. ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
650
Letters to the Editor
Fromm, E. (1984). The working class in Weimar Germany: A psychological and sociological approach. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1930) Hopper, E. (2003). The social unconscious: Selected papers. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley. Hopper, E. (2014). Letter to editor. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 64, 138-139. Hopper, E., & Weinberg, H. (Eds.). (2011). The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory. London, UK: Karnac. Joyce, J. (1916). A portrait of the artist as a young man. New York, NY: B.W. Huebsch. Mannheim, K. (1943). Diagnosis of our time. London, UK: Paul Kegan, Trench, Trubner & Co. Nitzgen, D. (2011). The concept of the social unconscious in the work of S. H. Foulkes. In E. Hopper & H. Weinberg (Eds.), The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory (pp. 3-22). London, UK: Karnac. Schermer, V. L. (2013). [Review of the book The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory]. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 63, 609-612. Scholz, R. (2011). The foundation matrix and the social unconscious. In E. Hopper & H. Weinberg (Eds.), The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory (pp. 265-286). London, UK: Karnac. Simmel, G. (1902). The number of members as determining the sociological form of the group. II. American Journal of Sociology, 8, 158-196.
Earl Hopper, Ph.D. London, U.K. E-mail: [email protected]
Letters to the Editor 651
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
Dear Editor: I applaud Klein and Schermer’s serious and courageous effort to address, describe and analyze violence in the USA [International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, Special Issue on Violence in America, Parts I and II, 2015, volume 65, numbers 1 and 2]. The title “Violence in America” will be addressed later. The two-volume issue is an important contribution to our understanding of this difficult topic that daily affects life in the USA and perhaps other parts of the world as well. In their introduction (especially to the first issue) Klein and Schermer encompass many aspects of this unfortunate and distressing social situation. In fact, all the aspects mentioned in their introduction are included in what Earl Hopper and I call “the social unconscious” (SU) in our Introduction to volume 1 of The Social Unconscious in Persons, Groups and Societies (Hopper & Weinberg, 2011), although they never mentioned this concept. The factors they cite include: history (especially traumatic historical events that are trans-generationally transmitted, such as slavery and the civil war in the USA), language (the title “violence in America” instead of “violence in the USA” might represent an unconscious use of language ignoring other countries in America, a theme that is part of the SU of the American people), isomorphism (in times of traumatic stress, societies regress and behave like large groups), and social anxieties and defenses (projection and scapegoating among others). An aspect of the SU missing in their introduction is myths that prevail in our society (e.g., manifest destiny, affecting deeply the way people relate to minorities and to the use of natural resources in the USA). Myths have a powerful impact on the behavior of people and are included in my definition of the SU (Weinberg, 2007). Hopper and I dedicate a section for this aspect in volume 2 (Hopper & Weinberg, in press). The use of guns, for example, and the debate about the freedom to carry firearms has its roots not only in the Second Amendment (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”), but also in the myth of the Wild West, which Klein and Schermer did mention, but from the historical perspective.
Downloaded by [University of New Mexico] at 09:40 05 September 2017
652
Letters to the Editor
To summarize my understanding of violence in the USA: Socio-cultural-political-historical factors that are part of the SU of people in the USA have a huge influence on the frequent emergence of violence. People, including psychotherapists, are used to explain human behavior by the person’s personality, background or intrapsychic dynamics. Violence erupting in the USA from time to time cannot be attributed to one person. It is a sign of cultural disease, and the person who commits the violent act is personifying “the American way”, as Klein and Schermer correctly put it (2015a, p. 6), through “rugged individualism”. Underneath the seemingly peaceful life in the USA, a cauldron of unconscious forces is boiling, bursting from time to time through “weak links” in the social structure. Healing this social rupture cannot be complete without understanding the Social Unconscious of the “American” (USA) people.
REFERENCES Hopper, E., & Weinberg, H. (Eds.). (2011). The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 1: Mainly theory. London, UK: Karnac. Hopper, E., & Weinberg, H. (Eds.). (in press). The social unconscious in persons, groups and societies. Vol. 2: Mainly the foundation matrix. London, UK: Karnac. Klein, R. H., & Schermer, V. L. (2015a). Toward understanding and treating violence in America: Some contributions from group dynamic and group therapy perspectives: Introduction to Part I. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65(1), 1-28. Klein, R. H., & Schermer, V. L. (2015b). Toward understanding and treating violence in America: Some contributions from group dynamic and group therapy perspectives: Introduction to Part II. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 65(2), 162-179. Weinberg H. 2007. So what is this social unconscious anyway? Group Analysis, 40, 307-322.
Haim Weinberg, Ph.D., CGP, FAGPA E-mail: [email protected]
