The Group Dimension: Capitalism, Group Analysis, and the World Yet to Come
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The scapegoating of ‘angry black women’ achieves the paradoxical feat of ascribing power while simultaneously taking it away. This article aims to highlight how women of colour may be scapegoated as a result of intersecting, deep-rooted, and malignant forces operating within the (un)conscious, with a particular focus on racism. A lack of relevant literature is identified so to better understand the causation and effects of this phenomenon, group analytic concepts are cross-pollinated with black feminist, white feminist, and black political theory. It is suggested that conductors could do more to manage destructive forces in groups and so three anti-racist approaches are proposed. Concluding thoughts note that if our groups are permeated by the social, the same may be said of our theoretical framework. It is hoped that by consulting other specialist disciplines and integrating their knowledge into group analytic training and professional practice, our aims of being more inclusive, accessible, and diverse become ever-more attainable.
Jaak Panksepp, like Foulkes, broke from the dominant paradigm in his field to fashion a series of experiments. In the process, Panksepp discovered that the midbrain is the seat of seven basic emotions. Moreover, these basic emotions are shared with all mammals. He called this discovery ‘affective neuroscience’. Panksepp’s work, taken seriously, is transforming ideas, previously expressed in the area of philosophical thinking, into a new kind of social psychology. Group analysis is a vital element in this transformation. Among other things, Panksepp shows us that humans are not unitary. The most that we can hope for is a comparatively peaceful integration of the various processes that make up our selves and our small and large groups. The external and internal role of the group conductor is helpful, philosophically, clinically and politically, to promote this integration.
Cognitive Science Society (CogSci10) Portland, Oregon, 12 August 2010
This book is the first to focus on the African origins of human language. It explores the origins of language and culture 250,000-150,000 years ago when modern humans evolved in Africa. Scholars from around the world address the fossil, genetic, and archaeological evidence and critically examine the ways it has been interpreted. The book also considers parallel developments among Europe's Neanderthals and the contrasting outcomes for the two species. Following an extensive introduction contextualizing and linking the book's topics and approaches, fifteen chapters bring together many of the most significant recent findings and developments in modern human origins research. The fields represented by the authors include genetics, biology, behavioural ecology, linguistics, archaeology, cognitive science, and anthropology.
Minor controversies notwithstanding, the evolution of the human brain has been an intermingled composite of allometric and nonallometric increases of brain volume and reorganizational events such as the reduction of primary visual cortex and a relative increase in both posterior association and (most probably) prefrontal cortex, as well as increased cerebral asymmetries, including Broca's and Wernicke's regions, with some of these changes already occurring in australopithecine times. As outlined in Holloway (1967), positive feedback (amplification-deviation) has been a major mechanism in size increases. Exactly how this mélange of organs evolved will require many more paleontological discoveries with relatively intact crania, an unraveling of the genetic bases for both brain structures and their relationship to behaviors, and a far more complete picture of how the brain varies between male and female and among different populations throughout the world. After all, the human brain is still evolving, but for how long is quite uncertain.
In a previous study, we introduced the template method as a means of enlarging the Australopithecus afarensis postcranial sample to more accurately estimate its skeletal dimorphism. Results indicated dimorphism to be largely comparable to that of Homo sapiens. Some have since argued that our results were biased by artificial homogeneity in our Au. afarensis sample. Here we report the results from inclusion of 12 additional, newly reported, specimens. The results are consistent with those of our original study and with the hypothesis that early hominid demographic success derived from a reproductive strategy involving male provisioning of pair-bonded females.
I am a black woman.
This statement may trigger various responses and, perhaps even the urge to disengage. Nonetheless I write it as a social fact. Firstly, to forewarn the reader that the lifeworld they are about to enter may well challenge theirs and, to correct potential erroneous, normative, racial and gendered assumptions. I trust readers will stay with any potential discomfort. Read on. And, reflect upon it at the end of the article. I am too a psychologist and aspiring group analyst. This social and professional positioning means that I have heard many conversations on ‘difference’ where I, and others whose bodies look like mine, have been placed under the deforming microscope of the white gaze, for the alleged edification of my peers, one of the most objectifying encounter I continue to experience. There is a long history within western epistemic, ontological and other scholarly pursuits of normalizing whiteness, of regarding those ‘deviating’ from it as ‘different’ and, of subjecting them/us to investigation, curiosity and/or exoticisation. Ultimately, to consumption. Group analysis is no exception. Difference is a historically loaded term built on the brutality of white masculinist and heteronormative social constructions and thus, on the enactment of power related violence. Central to formulating the function of ‘difference’ and of such brutality between individuals and groups, is the group analytic concept of the matrix. Foulkes (1973), conceptualized it as a hypothetical web of communication and relationships providing the group a shared ground of meaning and significance. This article aims to critically examine the concept of the matrix with reference to race and specifically, to whiteness. It argues that fixating difference onto people of colour, serves fundamental functions for whiteness by linking this process to Foulkes’ concept of location of disturbance. In the second part, the group matrix and whiteness are considered. Finally, using various vignettes, a formulatory framework is suggested to illustrate how whiteness may be reproduced within different levels of the group matrix.
More than 70 years ago during the Second World War, what became known as the Northfield Experiments began in a southern suburb of Birmingham, England. By 1946 these experiments had ceased and the major participants had journeyed in different directions but carried with them new ideas, particularly in relation to group psychotherapy and more generally applied psychoanalysis. John Rickman, Wilfred Bion, Tom Main, Sigmund Foulkes, Harold Bridger, Patrick de Maré and others at the end of the war dispersed to create abundantly. Such creativity fertilized the development of the principles and practices of therapeutic communities, psychoanalytic group therapy, the application of an analytic understanding to organizations and more. This article includes a consideration of how practice was influenced from these origins. This contribution has as a background the author working for over two years at the Cassel Hospital early in the 1990s and more recently attending a conference in January 2018 conducted at Northfield or Hollymoor Hospital, as it was originally, and remains, known. It includes some personal reflections.
Beginning from the premise that psychology needs to be questioned, dismantled and new perspectives brought to the table in order to produce alternative solutions, this book takes an unusual transdisciplinary step into the activism of Black feminist theory. The author, Suryia Nayak, presents a close reading of Audre Lorde and other related scholars to demonstrate how the activism of Black feminist theory is concerned with issues central to radical critical thinking and practice, such as identity, alienation, trauma, loss, the position and constitution of individuals within relationships, the family, community and society. Nayak reveals how Black feminist theory seeks to address issues that are also a core concern of critical psychology, including individualism, essentialism and normalization. Her work grapples with several issues at the heart of key contemporary debates concerning methodology, identity, difference, race and gender. Using a powerful line of argument, the book weaves these themes together to show how the activism of Black feminist theory in general, and the work of Audre Lorde in particular, can be used to effect social change in response to the damaging psychological impact of oppressive social constructions. Race, Gender and the Activism of Black Feminist Theory will be of great interest to advanced students, researchers, political activist and practitioners in psychology, counselling, psychotherapy, mental health, social work and community development.
Several different models of sexual dimorphism in the South African australopithecines are compared with sexual dimorphism in the living primates. Australopithecine dimorphism is placed in an evolutionary context, and contrasting trends in the hominid and pongid lineages are shown. Evidence suggesting that the australopithecines were an extremely polytypic taxon is presented, and a high level of both inter and intra population variation is indicated.
The article focuses on the discrepancy between the success of Foulkes as an author and the predicament of his work today. Introduced by some preliminary remarks on the notion of intersubjectivity, his change of name from Siegmund Heinrich Fuchs to S.H. Foulkes is discussed as formative for the development of his professional creativity. It is argued that talking about Foulkes as an author, the particular circumstances of his writing cannot be ignored as they influenced the predicament of his written work and continue to do so. With regard to these, it is maintained that although Foulkes as a person never got lost in translation, as an author he is in danger of being so today. As a conclusion, a plea is made if not for the Collective Works of S.H. Foulkes but at least for a commented (re-) edition of them.
The Egalitarians: Human and Chimpanzee. An Anthropological View of Social Organization. By MargaretPower. (Cambridge University Press, 1991.) Pp.290. £29.95/US$44.50. - Volume 24 Issue 4 - P. C. Lee
Acknowledgements. Permissions Acknowledgements. List of Figures. Foreword by Steve Biddulph Introduction to the Second Edition. Part One - The Foundations: Babies and their brains 1. Before we meet them 2. Back to the beginning 3. Building a brain 4. Corrosive Cortisol. Conclusion to Part 1. Part 2 - Shaky Foundations and their Consequences 5. Trying Not to Feel 6. Melancholy Baby 7. Active Harm 8. Torment 9. Original Sin. Part 3 - Too Much Information, Not Enough Solutions 10. 'If all else fails, hug your teddy bear' 11. Birth of the Future. Bibliography. Index.
Ladies and Gentlemen, dear colleagues, I feel very honoured to have been invited to give this 32nd Foulkes Lecture. Twenty-two years after his death, Foulkes has become a historical figure. There are not too many here tonight, who have met him in person or have personally been trained, taught or analyzed by him. For the rest of us, Foulkes is but a famous name, an author and, of course, a founding father figure, in whose name we work and come together every year. Becoming a figure of historical interest makes one pass from the subject of personal reverence to one of common interest, a subject of historical study. This moment has arrived now. Why did I choose to speak of a group analytic moment in the title of my lecture? It is because I think that Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy (1948) (is not just the title of a book, it also marks a complex moment. It is the moment of Foulkes, but not only a Foulksean moment. And it is this moment, which I think deserves to be revisited sixty years later. Depending on how we read it, Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy (1948) tells different stories. Although it is not a work of fiction, it resembles what the Spanish novelist Antonio Munoz-Molina has called 'una novela de novelas', a novel full of novels (2004). The basic storyline is, of course, that it gives us the first consistent account of group analysis as a coherent clinical theory and practice. Although Foulkes himself announced it only as an 'introduction', for Brown and Zinkin it was 'remarkable' in so far as it already contained most his ideas on group analysis (1994: 2). J. R. Rees in his foreword called it a 'careful primer of group analysis' (1948 [1983]: vi). However, Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy (1948) is more than a textbook of group psychotherapy. Describing Foulkes' experiences in World War II and his participation in the so called second Northfield 'experiment' from March 1943 until December 1945 'in considerable detail' (Foulkes, E. 1990: 15; cf. Foulkes, 1948 [1983]: 42 u. 53), the book is also a document of the early history of group psychotherapy in Britain. As a personal account of Northfield and of those taking part in its 'experiments', Foulkes considered it 'a Group Affair' (Foulkes, 1948 [1983]: 21). And yet it is more than a document of psychiatric and/or psychotherapeutic history. It is of general historical interest insofar that it highlights a specific moment in the history of postwar Britain, a moment which I have called the 'group analytic moment.' Beyond these social-historical aspects, Foulkes' book also gives evidence of a singular desire, i.e. his desire to make the group an object of desire. This is, of course its most intimate aspect and one that is most difficult to grasp. To ignore it, would prevent us to understand the full range of the author's motives including the very personal ones. Writing Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy (1948) was, as Foulkes said, 'the result of many years working and thinking' (1968c: 204). Written in only three weeks, it builds on five previous papers on the subject of group therapy. Another paper to which Foulkes made no explicit reference in the bibliography, is his own lengthy study of the biological views of Kurt Goldstein initially published in German in 1936. All these works contribute to its textual body. According to the table of contents, the full text consists of five parts, starting with a 'general introduction' and ending with a 'survey'. To read the first part even today is a breathtaking experience. In the first thirty pages, Foulkes lays all his group analytic cards on the table. Writing like someone who has so much to say that he does not even have the time to take off his coat, he gives a concise, tightly argued overview of his basic theoretical assumptions and his clinical principles. 'This volume', he stated in the preface, 'puts the Method into the Centre, emphasizes the special features of the "Group-analytic situation" and the Role of the Conductor, or Leader in creating this situation' (1948, p. vii).
Psychoanalyst, teacher, and scholar, Heinz Kohut was one of the twentieth century's most important intellectuals. A rebel according to many mainstream psychoanalysts, Kohut challenged Freudian orthodoxy and the medical control of psychoanalysis in America. In his highly influential book The Analysis of the Self, Kohut established the industry standard of the treatment of personality disorders for a generation of analysts. This volume, best known for its groundbreaking analysis of narcissism, is essential reading for scholars and practitioners seeking to understand human personality in its many incarnations. âKohut has done for narcissism what the novelist Charles Dickens did for poverty in the nineteenth century. Everyone always knew that both existed and were a problem. . . . The undoubted originality is to have put it together in a form which carries appeal to action.ââInternational Journal of Psychoanalysis
THE GREAT MORTALITY AMONG CHILDREN of the working class, and especially among those of the factory operatives, is proof enough of the unwholesome conditions under which they pass their first years. These influences are at work, of course, among the children who survive, but not quite so powerfully as upon those who succumb. The result in the most favourable case is a tendency to disease, or some check in development, and consequent less than normal vigour of the constitution. A nine-year-old child of a factory operative that has grown up in want, privation, and changing conditions, in cold and damp, with insufficient clothing and unwholesome dwellings, is far from having the working strength of a child brought up under healthier conditions. At nine years of age it is sent into the mill to work 61/2 hours (formerly 8, earlier still, 12 to 14, even 16 hours) daily, until the thirteenth year; then twelve hours until the eighteenth year. The old enfeebling influences continue, while the work is added to them. . . . but in no case can its [the child’s] presence in the damp, heavy air of the factory, often at once warm and wet, contribute to good health; and, in any case, it is unpardonable to sacrifice to the greed of an unfeeling bourgeoisie the time of children which should be devoted solely to their physical and mental development, and to withdraw them from school and the fresh air in order to wear them out for the benefit of the manufacturers. . . .
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