Socioanalytic Methods

Discovering the Hidden in Organisations and Social Systems

Susan Long

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429919350
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Socioanalysis is the study of groups, organisations, and society using a systems psychoanalytic framework: looking beneath the surface (and the obvious) to see the underlying dynamics and how these dynamics are interconnected. This book examines several of the methodologies used in socioanalytic work. Even though the beginnings of socioanalytic investigation lay in the mid-twentieth century, a broad look across several methodologies has not been done before, despite separate publications dealing with particular methods. In addition, several new methods have been developed in recent years, which the present work incorporates. Connecting all these methods is their aim of 'tapping into' the dynamic operation of what the author calls 'the associative unconscious' within and between social systems. The associative unconscious is the unconscious at a systemic level. Each of the methods discussed in this book accesses the associative unconscious in different ways.

PART I

BACKGROUND

CHAPTER ONE


The associative unconscious

Susan Long and Maurita Harney

Charles S. Peirce defines his famous concept of “abduction” as follows: “Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea” (Peirce, 1903, CP, 5.171,¹ cited in Hoffman, 1997).

In this chapter, we describe the idea of an “associative unconscious”, differentiated from the repressed dynamic unconscious so well articulated through Sigmund Freud and his followers. In looking at an associative unconscious, we will explore some of the ideas of the philosopher Charles S. Peirce, whose concept of “abductive logic” not only provides a logic to underpin psychoanalytic and socioanalytic thinking, but also provides a conceptual framework for the associative processes that we believe are central to the unconscious, especially as it is evidenced in social groupings.

A clear philosophy of science has never fully been articulated for psychoanalysis. Much discussion has centred on debates about whether or not psychoanalysis can be considered a science, given traditional views of science (Grunbaum, 1984; Webster, 1995). Following Ricoeur and Habermas, and in defence of psychoanalysis, hermeneutic definitions appeared in the mid-twentieth century, regarding psychoanalysis more as an art and a linguistic interpreter of human experience (e.g., Steele, 1979). In addition, psychoanalysis is sometimes claimed to be a philosophy in itself: sui generis, not fitting into other categories such as psychology or social science or medicine “because in the end, if psychoanalysis develops as a mature science, it will find that the successful models are those proper to it and not those developed by analogy to other disciplines” (Etchegoyen, 1999, p. 501). Indeed, its resistance to categorisation and difficulty in finding an established place as a discipline in universities worldwide might be due to its not having a clear or established philosophical partner. While challenged from within a positivist scientific perspective for its lack of laboratory experimental confirmation, the concepts of repression and the unconscious are still compelling as explanatory tools: clinically with patients, socioanalytically with groups and organisations, in art and literature, in social and political analysis, and in the popular imagination. Moreover, recent neurological work questions the challenge to the scientific status of psychoanalysis (Carhart-Harris & Friston, 2010), suggesting a neurological basis for the effects of unconscious processes.

Socioanalysis is psychoanalysis linked to systems thinking in order to explore individuals (as social animals), groups, organisations, and society. We argue that the associative unconscious is as vital to understanding socioanalytic phenomena as the repressed unconscious. The idea of an associative unconscious brings forward the notion that all human thought and meaning is implicate within human symbolic form and capacity (Bohm, 1980, 1996). This essentially means that all past, present, and future thought exists in potentiality within the capacity to use and interpret signs and symbols. We will return to this idea later in the chapter when discussing the philosophy of Peirce. For now, because much of human thought is implicate rather than explicate, it is argued that it is unconsciously present to humans: that is, implicit in their symbolising capacities and processes but not realised because of multiple factors. These are factors such as: repression of unwanted thoughts; psychotic exclusion or destruction of thinking capacity; social and cultural constraints on thinking; historical progression of thoughts; developmental factors in individuals; inherent restrictions on thinking capacities. As with the traditional idea of the unconscious (both repressed and inherent) the associative unconscious influences conscious thinking, feelings, desires, and behaviours in ways of which we are unaware. Just as free association is a method of accessing the individual unconscious, there are methods of accessing the unconscious as an associative field. The methods described in this book attempt to do this.

The unconscious in psychoanalysis

Freud was the first to systematically describe and explain unconscious processes and functioning. He focused primarily on the process of repression, a process whereby unwanted or highly distressing thoughts and associated emotions are deliberately forgotten or forbidden entry to consciousness (Freud, 1915d). And yet, they are not totally forgotten, because their influence continues even while the thinker or actor is unaware of their so doing. For psychoanalytic thinkers, consciousness is just the tip of that vast iceberg that is the human mind.

In early psychoanalytic thinking, following Freud’s structural theories of id, ego, and superego, the unconscious became regarded as a kind of storehouse of thoughts and feelings that are either unwanted (repressed) or unable to be consciously articulated. This is echoed in some aspects of Jungian theory, where, as well as a personal unconscious, there is a collective unconscious replete with archetypes that are unconscious thought representations of fundamental collective social experiences that transcend specific cultures.

However, the unconscious has always been considered as much more than a repository for the unwanted. Freud was well aware of this. For him, it also included inherited tendencies and many ego processes. He called it “the system Uncs” even before he developed the structural theory, implying systemic processes in thought rather than a limited store of ideas. And his dynamic theories have explored how unconscious processes permeate everyday life as well as being in the aetiology of mental illnesses. The later concept of the “id” (the “it”) indicates an otherness of the unconscious apart from the human ego. Freud saw this as a system of inherited tendencies and desires, where biological drives were represented in psychic terms.

Thus, we see that the unconscious is less a “place” in a topography of the mind and more a set of processes within cognitive and emotional functioning. This view becomes clearer in Lacanian psychoanalysis, where stress is placed on the operation of the unconscious in terms of linguistic phenomena (Lacan, 1977). Metaphor and metonymy, for instance, are regarded as the basic linguistic processes found in the psychological processes of displacement and condensation: the main unconscious processes described in dream work, jokes, slips of the tongue, and in the forming of neurotic symptoms. Briefly, to clarify this: (i) metaphor = whereby one signifier takes the place of another to create new meaning (underlies displacement); for example, in Shakespeare’s sonnet, the line “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” displaces the meaning of a summer’s day on to the woman concerned; (ii) metonymy = whereby one signifier stands alone for several others that are then implied (underlies condensation). The whole meaning is condensed into one word, as when “the crown” in “the Crown vs. Smith” is used for all functions of the law pertaining to the head of state.

But the Lacanian formulation does not mean the unconscious is just another natural language. To regard unconscious functioning as a linguistic process is not to call it another natural language, but to emphasise the symbolic basis of thought.

Symbolic functions are the very basis of human thought, whether in mathematics, the syllogisms of formal logic, natural languages and musical forms, or common sense and colloquial logic. (It should be noted here that even so-called illogical thought, as found in neurosis or even in everyday life, in fact has a symbolic logic of its own; this is one of the great discoveries of psychoanalysis and modern therapeutic “talking” treatments where a “hidden logic” is uncovered.) It is only when the symbolic function remains uncreated or destroyed, as in psychotic functioning, that the boundary between conscious and unconscious dissolves. Without the symbolic function, neither distinctly conscious nor unconscious functioning occurs, only a kind of mishmash, where “dreams” invade waking experience and words and sentences fail to hang well together but invade each other’s meanings. Psychic processes, such as splitting and projective identification, dominate. The central point here is that symbolic capacity allows the unconscious (as well as consciousness beyond simple awareness) to exist. The unconscious (a distinctly human phenomenon), seemingly totally illogical with its disregard of the passing of time, its naming one thing as another, and its interference with conscious will and logic is the product of the human capacity to symbolise and to create meaning.

Beyond the individual

More correctly, this section might be called “before the individual”, because our premise here is that “thought” is a social rather than an individual process. In essence, this means that the functions and bases of thought are social, even though individual thinkers are the vehicles by which ideas, thoughts, words—all of symbolic activity—are articulated and extended. Wilfred Bion talks of “thoughts in search of thinkers” (Bion, 1984). Although formulated as an aid to understanding the ways in which patients attack their own mental links and acquire the thoughts of others as their own, this hypothesis captures the notion that thoughts exist unconsciously within the infinite of a thinking community without being the sole creation or property of any of its specific individuals. Symbolic processes and their products, such as language, music and song, money, mathematics, calendars, and formalised time, belong, as it were, to the group or community. Their specific meanings are co-created and co-evolve rather than simply reflecting changes instigated by individuals.

Individuals have the capacity for conscious thinking, so they are able to draw upon thoughts (ideas/symbolic formations) available in the social field in habitual or creative ways, to utilise them in conjunction with their experience. They may gain access to this social field or network of thoughts through interactions with others or through utilising the thought tools provided in the network, such as, for example, syntactic, formal, logical, mathematical, or cultural rules and logic. In terms of their own personal histories or capacities, some part of these available thoughts might not “gain entry” to consciousness because they have been previously repressed or because local cultural mores or beliefs, or even habits of thinking, prevent this.

Bion’s theory of thinking (1984) outlines how the precursors of thought—beta elements derived from direct experience—become transformed through alpha function (or not) into more sophisticated thoughts (Grotstein, 2007). The process of forming and transforming alpha elements is modulated by the cultural container in which the individual lives and experiences. It is modulated by the behaviour of the parents towards their infant, the ethical and cultural beliefs of teachers, the actions and decisions of politicians, the creativity of artists, and the creative functioning or perversity of corporations. Moreover, Bion’s (1961) theories of group dynamics explain how basic assumptions in the group culture shape the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of group members. This influence occurs in the symbolic functioning of the group and the individual out of conscious awareness. The simile here is that of a fractal where the same pattern is repeated at every level of magnification of a form: in this case, society, group, individual, alpha function.

Following these ideas, we argue here that the unconscious or, more correctly, the totality of unconsciousness, is a social phenomenon. A metaphor might work here; one that is understandable in the twenty-first century. We can say the unconscious is like the “world wide web” (www). It is a network of thoughts, symbols, or signifiers, able to give rise to many feelings, impulses, and images and, importantly, able to give rise to meaning. This network is not static, but constantly changing, with new connections being made by the thinkers who are a part of it. Here, we should make a correction. By talking of “access” to the unconscious social field of thought, it could sound as if the individuals are outside the network. This is not so. The social field (or parts of it) are “in the individuals”, which gives an impression altogether different from the individuals being “in the social field”. The social field of the unconscious is in each individual in the sense that it is in the connections and the mental associations between them (Long, 1992). The boundary marked by the word “individual” is not adequate. Mind is social (Harré, 1984). The boundary between individuals is more extensive when we speak of the associative unconscious. By talking of an individual “accessing” the associative unconscious, we refer to those processes whereby the unconscious social field of thoughts can be articulated or utilised in thinking.

The associative unconscious

Here, then, is a formulation of the unconscious as a mental network of thoughts, signs, and symbols or signifiers, able to give rise to many feelings, impulses, and images. The network is between people, but yet within each of them. The boundary of the unconscious does not coincide with the boundary of the individual, despite the necessity of the boundary of “individual” for other functions, including the functions described by Bion in his theory of thinking: the functions of the thinker, or, as we shall discuss later, the functions of the interpretant in Peirce’s philosophy.

The associative unconscious might be conceptualised as a “pool of thoughts”, much as Darwin’s pool of genes, but that is too static. We have used the term “network”, but that too readily gives an idea of a combination of “things” in physical space, whereas we conceptualise it as in psychic space. The associative unconscious might be seen as similar to Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious, but there are differences. Jung says:

My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents. (Jung, 1969, p. 43)

Despite similarities, in contrast to the idea of the collective unconscious, the associative unconscious is not “identical in all individuals” because each individual holds only a part of the vaster whole. A metaphor here is that of a jigsaw puzzle where each individual part is shaped very differently, yet the picture as a whole has its own unique integrity. In this case, the whole network is supra-individual, with the system-as-a-whole capable of producing, for example, archetypes as system-wide symbols (the whole puzzle put together) that are then able to be introjected by individuals. Hence, such symbols may appear in different parts of the system (for instance, in individuals, groups, or cultures) contemporaneously. The idea of an associative unconscious does refer to shared representations, but not necessarily representations that are inherited and held ide...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• About the Editor and Contributors
• Introduction: Socioanalytic methodology
• Part I: Background
• Part II: Methods
• Index