Groups and Identity I (Cohort 2)

2-Year Certificate Program (2YCP), Cohort 2 (Crossroads)
2024-25, 1st Term — Mondays, 8:00-9:15pm
Jeanette Farrell, MD
Austin Kollefrath, MD

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Introduction

Welcome to Groups and Identity I.  In this class, we will explore what it means to form a psychoanalytic learning group and how group identifications inform our work with patients.

This is the beginning of two years of learning together.  By May, 2026, you will have completed this program, and have a new facet of your identity, as a therapist with a certificate in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.  You will also have a sense of what it means to have been and to be a part of this learning group.  The group itself, and your sense of yourself in this group, will be a part of your identity.    Right now, the meaning of this group to your sense of self is nascent.   But there are other groups that you are a part of that have shaped how you come to this group today.   These include your family, your cultural group, your gender group, your training group, and many others.

As you read this list of possible group identifications, you may begin to consider that the groups you identify with are defined both by whom they include and whom they exclude.   You may also have experienced a sense of having parts of yourself feeling included or excluded in the process of becoming a group member.   What has that meant to you and how you bring yourself into this group?  These questions call for our increased reflection on a bourgeoning area of psychoanalytic theory and practice. This class is intended to help us get more comfortably uncomfortable as we learn together what this means for our professional and personal lives.

The way our group identifications impact our psychic lives is part of what is termed our “social unconscious”. As defined by the psychoanalyst Earl Hopper, the social unconscious refers to “the existence and constraints of social, cultural and communicational arrangements of which people are unaware; unaware, in so far as these arrangements are not perceived (not known), and if perceived not acknowledged (denied), and if acknowledged, not taken as problematic (“given”), and if taken as problematic, not considered with an optimal degree of detachment and objectivity. (The Social Unconscious: Selected Papers.  London: Jessica Kingsley, 2003.  p.126).

These unconscious arrangements are used to support social hierarchies and the power structures they uphold, which reinforce these arrangements and the urge to keep them unconscious.

When we meet with patients, the pull of these group identifications moves through the room.   Sometimes we feel a comfortable sense of joining, of feeling included in a way that bolsters our own sense of self.  Other times we may feel disrupted by these currents, as we try to manage our identity by excluding parts of ourselves and our patients.   How do we monitor and respond to the social unconscious in our work with patients?  How does this social unconscious inflect our minds and our work?  In this course we will begin to explore these questions.

In this class we will be reading papers on aspects of the social unconscious.  They engage with current events and with contested social and theoretical ground.   They are likely to raise more questions than answers.

At the end of your two-year series, you will have a second Identity and Groups course.  By the time you take that course, you will almost be finished with your 2-year certificate program.  You will have encountered a great deal of psychoanalytic theory along the way.   In that course, you will delve deeper into the theory that has been and is being developed. All along the two years we hope that every class will challenge you to think about the social unconscious and how we incorporate these ideas into broader psychoanalytic theory.

Learning Objectives

1. At the end of the first three classes students will be able to describe how the individual and group relate/shape one another, and how group identifications transmit social hierarchical forces into our clinical work
2. At the end of the 4th and 5th class, students will have a greater understanding of how our social system, including our economic and political system, engage with our social unconscious, and how social norms interact with our psyches.
3. At the end of the 6th and 7th class, students will have a greater understanding of how psychoanalysis itself has been influenced by hierarchical social structures.   Students will increase their reflective capacities for the meaning that theory and practice have to them as well as the ability to continue questioning what might be inaccurate or distorting, sometimes in harmful ways.
4. At the end of the term, students will understand the various meanings of location when we consider the social unconscious, and will be able to reflect on what that means for our practice or psychoanalysis.

September 9, 2024

Prior to class, consider what groups you feel you belong to, that are significant to your identity.  These can include a wide variety of groups including gender, socio-cultural group, profession, family role (e.g. sisters), hobby (e.g. skateboarders), life experiences (survivors of loss), etc.

Consider which groups offer you the most coherence, and which groups cause you distress or conflict. Consider why that is so.  Is that due to parts of yourself included or excluded by that group?

In class we will discuss our experience of doing this exercise and share responses.

There are no readings for this class.