Cultural determinants in Winnicott's developmental theories

This paper reviews significant aspects of the work of Trigant Burrow (1875–1950), an early psychoanalyst who, while less well known than many of his contemporaries, was, as a number of commentators have argued, well ahead of his time. This article discusses four areas of his theory: the preconscious, the nest instinct, and the love subject; primary unity, primary intersubjectivity, and the “I” persona; social images, social neurosis, and the social unconscious; and, finally, group, community, and society. The article argues that the study of Burrow's work is important, firstly, in recognizing the historical antecedents of what may be viewed as a social turn in both psychoanalysis and psychotherapy; and, secondly, in helping psychoanalytic thinking to be more open to diversity with regard to marginalized theory and people.

Section: Social Images Social Neurosis and The Social Unconsciousmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trigant Burrow and the social world

Drury

Tudor

2022

“…Hopper and Weinberg (2011) begin their introduction to a volume on the social unconscious by stating that the study of the social unconscious is at the heart of the group analytic project, locating themselves in a tradition of psychoanalysis, which asserts that "the ego is both a body ego and a social ego" from its inception (p. xxxiv). In this rich lineage, which works upon foundational work by Bion, Foulkes, Fromm, and others, Hopper developed ideas pertaining to the internalization of the social surround by the individual, a topic significantly developed by theorists such as Dajani (2017Dajani ( , 2020aDajani ( , 2020b, who has explicated the manner in which collective meaning making systems constitute aspects of the individual psyche in a manner that is unconscious but not repressed. In addition, Hopper explored formulations that provided explanatory models for social phenomena.…”

Section: The Social Unconscious Social Trauma and Unmourned Social Lossmentioning

confidence: 99%

The insistence on exclusion: The anti‐integrative impulse and thwarted mourning in large groups

Rao

2022

This paper explores resistance to equality‐promoting measures as the external manifestation of thwarted mourning of losses incurred in social trauma. This resistance, which is evidenced in backlashes against social justice, is termed the anti‐integrative impulse. Outlining the unconscious mechanisms that undergird both the desires for equality and desires to maintain inequality, the central importance of mourning in social equality movements will be established, using Moglen's model of mourning social injury and Butler's work on grievability. Common defenses against social justice efforts will be discussed and understood in terms of refusal to mourn collective losses.

“…He distinguishes cultural experiences from instinctual experiences and suggests the former (cultural experiences) are not about climax or conflict, they exist in a different mode of consciousness. Cultural experiences are fundamental for the infant to develop a self that is capable of communication and play (Dajani, 2020; Winnicott, 1967).…”

Section: Infantile Determinants In Cultural Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural determinants in infants and infantile determinants in cultural practices

Dajani

2022

Self Cite

This article is adapted from a panel presentation given at the International Psychoanalytical Association Congress in the summer of 2020. It argues for the centrality of cultural determinants in infant development and the centrality of infantile modes of consciousness in our cultural practices. It suggests that the inculcation of shared systems of meaning‐making, referring to cultures or ideologies, are antecedent to any sort of meaningful infant development. Culture is a medium, a common ground that is both external and mental. It provides the necessary tools for infants to develop the capacity to re‐present experience along lines that are prescribed and recognized by the large group or collective in which the dyad (mother–infant) and triad (oedipal family) are embedded. The analysis of the individual's lived experiences in the context of dependence on their parents/family is necessary to understand the composition and function of our patients' unconscious. We propose extending our lens to include the analysis of social and cultural derivatives, the impact of the systems that suffuse us, on our unconscious and lived experience. Doing so will extend our relevance and shine a beacon in previously neglected regions of the human unconscious that are ‘fundamentally social’.