1. society

Article
group
analysis
Theoretical and Conceptual Notes
Concerning Transference and
Countertransference Processes in Groups
and by Groups, and the Social Unconscious:
Part III
Earl Hopper
In this article, I will define my concept of the social unconscious and
specify several aspects of it, and compare this concept with the
Jungian concept of the collective unconscious. I will focus on the
constraints and restraints of the social unconscious on transference
and countertransference processes by persons in groups (Part I,
December, 2006) and by groups of persons (Part II, March,
2007). I will also discuss continuing resistance to the use of the
‘social unconscious’ in clinical work.
Key words: constraints of the social unconscious, cultural unconscious, collective unconscious, transference and countertransference processes in groups and by groups, Menenius Fallacy,
spirituality
1.
As I (Hopper, 2003a) have discussed at length in The Social
Unconscious: Selected Papers, the ‘social unconscious’ refers
both to the fact that people can be and often are unconscious
of social factors and forces, and to the social factors and forces
of which they are unconscious, in exactly the same way that the
Group Analysis. Copyright & 2007 The Group-Analytic Society (London), Vol 40(2):285–300.
DOI: 10.1177/0533316407077076 http://gaq.sagepub.com
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286 Group Analysis 40(2)
notion of ‘unconscious’ generally refers both to the fact that
people can be and often are unconscious of a variety of biological
and psychological factors and forces, and to those biological and
psychological factors and forces of which they are unconscious.
Specifically, the ‘social unconscious’ refers to the constraints of
social objects that have been internalized, and to the restraints
of those that have not.
The motivation for remaining unconscious of social objects is
the regulation of the anxiety that would follow from the recognition of them, and from understanding the nature of both
their constraints and restraints. Thus, a series of defensive or protective mental processes may be involved: social objects 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. This series runs
more or less in parallel with dimensions of the biologicallybased psychological unconscious in the more traditional sense,
that is, the social unconscious involves the ‘non-conscious’, the
‘dynamic unconscious’ of the ‘repressed’ and the ‘split-off’, and
the ‘pre-conscious’.
‘Constraint’ is not meant to imply only ‘inhibition’ and ‘limitation’, but also ‘facilitation’ and ‘development’. For example,
processes of constraint even govern the transformation of sensations into feelings, and of concepts into thought and thinking.
‘Constraint’ is taken specifically from the work of Durkheim
and other early French sociologists who used the term with
respect to the unconscious constraints of ‘social facts’. Although
they did not refer to the ‘unconscious’, they used the term
‘conscience collective’, which implies the ‘unconscious of the
society’, but this was not really intended, at least not without
qualification. The perspective in which the concept of constraint
is embedded differs from the classical Freudian perspective that
stressed that social phenomena are a source of ‘restraint’, as a
matter of ‘society against man’. Hence, Civilisation and its Discontents, one of Freud’s last books (Freud, 1930). (It is perhaps
an inconsistency, if not a contradiction, that in this book he discussed the so-called ‘death instinct’, on the one hand, and the
social and cultural basis of gender identity, on the other.)
Most social scientists use the term ‘social’ to include cultural,
economic and political phenomena in general. However, in
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recent years, some psychoanalysts and group analysts have begun
to refer to the ‘cultural unconscious’ e.g. Spector-Person (1992) in
the United States. French psychoanalysts and group analysts are
careful to distinguish the ‘social’ from the ‘cultural’, a practice
which Durkheim would have thought to be neither necessary
nor desirable, a point of view that is shared by most group
analysts, because this distinction between social and cultural is
subsumed by ‘social’. The foundation of the ‘cultural’ is the
‘social’, which implies power relations (Dalal, 1998). This Marxist idea that the ‘economic’ determines the ‘social’, and, in turn,
both the economic and the social determine the ‘cultural’, was
recognized by de Mare´ (1972). However, following early traditions in sociology, social psychology and group dynamics, I
tend to use the term ‘interaction system’ for social phenomena,
‘normation system’ for cultural phenomena, ‘communication
system’ for communication, etc. Of course, for most purposes
‘social’ will do.
Human nature is always biological, psychological and social,
and such factors and forces are completely intertwined. Also,
the personal is always interpersonal (and familial, group, organizational, and societal) from conception to death (Hopper, 2006a).
In fact, there is no need for the concept of the social unconscious
other than to denote the social nature and origins of particular
objects of which people are unconscious. Actually, were it not
for the fact that most psychoanalysts continue to refuse to recognize the importance of the constraints of social objects this
discussion would hardly be necessary.
Social objects are internalized in the same way that all external
objects are internalized: on the basis of both negative processes
involving identifications with aggressors of various kinds, and
positive processes involving identifications with loving and nurturing objects of various kinds. They are also internalized
through instinctually and physiologically governed mirroring
processes (Ormay, 2001), which may be related to the constraints
of mirror neurones. Nonetheless, the internalization of social
objects requires processes of engagement by the other in general
and the mother in particular. Of course, mutual attachment
processes are central to this.
Although the sociality of human nature is apparent from conception onwards, the acquisition of language and its subsequent
effects on thinking and communication are especially important.
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Language shapes perception of all external phenomena, and the
formation of concepts about it. Although the development of
verbal communication is governed by a variety of innate factors,
and the acquisition of language is preceded by communicational
gestures, the learning of language facilitates taking a qualitatively
new step in the development of intelligence and personality.
From the point of view of group analysis the perception and
internalization of social objects cannot be understood merely
on the basis of what has been projected into them and/or the
fantasies that originate within the infant-mother-dyad – if not
from the work of the body and the brain on the nascent mind.
Social objects can be and often are internalized in more or less
their pristine forms, that is, uncontaminated by prior projections.
In other words, ‘bad’ objects are not based only on the internalization of objects that have been contaminated or coloured or
modified by prior projections of anxiety and fantasies associated
with the so-called death instinct, and such projections are not the
very first psychic actions. Thus, it is possible, at least theoretically, to have and/or to build a good enough society in general
and a good enough mother and family in particular, the internalization of whom can modify the development of a primal
bad object – if not to prevent it in the first place. Clearly, it is
virtually impossible to disentangle clinical theory from sociopolitical orientations and values.
In sum, the concepts of sociality and the social unconscious are
central to the group analytic perspective that insists that persons
must be understood not only in terms of the restraints of their
bodies, but also in terms of their societies and emergent minds.
Persons are always located within their foundation matrices,
that is, the socio-cultural-communicational systems of their
societies, and within their dynamic matrices as well, that is, the
socio-cultural-communicational systems of their families, smaller
groups and organizations. Matrices are transgenerational in their
origins and development. Even insects are constrained by such
factors and forces, although obviously not to the same degree
as higher phyla.
2.
The question must now be asked – is it helpful and valid to extend
this concept of the social unconscious from the level of analysis of
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persons to the level of analysis of social systems? In other words,
is it helpful and valid to refer to the unconscious of groups and
other kinds of social system? I personally do not use the concept
of the social unconscious in order to denote the unconscious ‘life’
of social systems, although many group analysts do, e.g. Brown
(2001), Weinberg (2006) and perhaps Knauss (2006). In my
view, social systems do not have minds, conscious or otherwise.
In order to have a so-called ‘mind’, it is necessary to have a
brain. Social systems do not have brains. Similarly, I eschew
phrases such as ‘collective memory’ and ‘public opinion’, except
in terms of statistical data.
The metaphor that social systems and groups in particular are
like people is a heuristic device that directs our attention and
curiosity towards certain parts, aspects and processes of social
systems. However, it is misleading to refer to the ‘unconscious
mind’ of a social system, e.g. of a family, group, organization,
or society, because this metaphoric analogy between an organism
or person and a social system becomes a homology, which implies
stability rather than change and the approval of the existing
power structure. According to organismic homologies, people
in power are always seen as the brain and the heart of the
group, and those without power, as the group’s stomach and
genitals. (Of course, machines and mechanistic analogies and
homologies have the opposite implications, but they are equally
limiting.)
The Menenius Fallacy,1 that what might be regarded metaphorically as the unconscious mind of a social system is
mistakenly regarded to be the unconscious mind of it, is commonplace. In their attempts to describe groups and social systems
generally, psychoanalysts especially tend to think in terms of
this Fallacy.2 This is why Foulkes introduced his concept of the
matrix – the dynamic matrix in the case of groups, and the foundation matrix in the case of societies. He did not refer to the social
unconscious of a group or any other kind of social system,
because he wished to avoid confusing the level of analysis of persons with the level of analysis of their social systems. He understood that matrices are properties of social systems, not of the
individual members in them, and that social systems and their
individual members were two sides of the same coin, so to
speak.3 This is why group analysts prefer the concept of person
to the concept of individual.
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Whereas some elements of the dynamic matrix of a group and
the foundation matrix of a society are species-based, and, therefore, are likely to be universal, other elements of these matrices
are based on their social, cultural, communicational and political
structures, and, therefore, are likely to be unique to it. This is the
basis for attempting to study the so-called ‘character’ of a nation
or any other kind of social system. However, I try not to refer to
the so-called ‘character’ of a social system, for the same reason
that I try not to refer to its social unconscious, because this
tends to confuse the level of analysis of persons with the level
of analysis of social systems. (Of course, people in any one society
are also both the same and different, partly because they have
different genetic make-ups, but also because they have different
locations in the foundation matrix of their society.)
The one exception to this general rule that we should avoid the
Menenius Fallacy concerns what might be called ‘traumatized’
social systems – or ‘wounded’ or ‘broken’ ones, because both
wounded people and the systems of which they are members
regress in ways that involve a sense of interpersonal merger as
a defence against the fear of annihilation and group aggregation.
Thus, in the same way that people regress in the face of traumatic
pain, social systems also regress from complexity to simplicity.
For example, societies become like organizations, organizations
become like groups, and groups become like their individual
members. Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to talk
about social systems as though they were people. In other
words, although isomorphy among organisms, persons, groups,
and larger and more complex social systems, is a matter of
degree, when systems are traumatized the degree of isomorphy
among these systems is likely to be high.
3.
Many Jungians use the ‘collective unconscious’ as a synonym for
the ‘social unconscious’. The ‘collective unconscious’ emphasizes
what Jungians call ‘archetypes’ and archetypical phenomena,
which are innate unconscious fantasies of complex social situations and figures within them, which are said to be inherited by
the species homo sapiens on the basis of acquired characteristics
that originated in situations that occurred eons ago.4 The collective unconscious is rooted in the biology of the species, and the
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great phenotypical diversity of cultures is underpinned by a small
number of basic, elemental genotypical patterns. Although Jung
was himself somewhat ambiguous about the phylogenetic basis of
the collective unconscious, he assumed a very close parallel
between the biological, psychological and sociological development of societies and cultures, on the one hand, and organisms
and persons, on the other.5
Following the work of Henderson (1967), many Jungians use
the ‘collective unconscious’ in order to acknowledge the importance of socialization processes, and the continuing constraints
of society and culture in general. Some use the concept of the
shared unconscious and the concept of the interpersonal unconscious in order to acknowledge the importance of co-constructed
interpersonal defences within transference and countertransference processes, and to describe socio-cultural connections
among the members of a particular society or segment of it.
Contemporary Jungians have modified the traditional concept
of the biologically-based collective unconscious by introducing
the new concept of the cultural complex (Singer and Kimbles,
2004). This refers to internalized configurations of values,
norms and beliefs which are transmitted through the generations.
Cultural complexes may be associated with social tension and
conflict, e.g. Farris (2006) has discussed racialism and racial tension in these terms, illustrating the constraints of this particular
cultural complex in connection with conflict-laden interactions
between different racial groups in the United States, linking
these interactions with unresolved social trauma in the United
States and in the slave trading world more generally. However,
cultural complexes are also associated with values, norms and
beliefs that are, quite simply, taken for granted. We are not
aware of them until we are confronted with the realization that
they are not working. In this sense cultural complexes are like
the air that we breathe: we do not become aware of air until we
lose our access to it. Clearly, the theory of the cultural complex
has much in common with Volkan’s (Volkan et al., 2003)
theory of chosen trauma, and with Haubl’s (1988) theory of
model scenes.
These three modifications of the classical Jungian concept of
the collective unconscious, namely, the cultural complex, the
shared unconscious and the interpersonal unconscious, make
the contemporary Jungian concept of the collective unconscious
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virtually identical to the Foulkesian concept of the social unconscious. However, whether we use the Foulkesian concept of the
social unconscious or the contemporary Jungian concept of the
collective unconscious, it is necessary to appreciate and to understand the restraints and constraints that are structured by social
and cultural objects of which people are unconscious. And
whether or not we use the concept of the social unconscious in
order to denote the unconscious life of social systems, there is
no doubt that the members of social systems engage in collective
actions which are structured by social and cultural objects.
4.
I will now shift from this more theoretical discussion of the concept of the social unconscious to a brief discussion of the use of
this concept in clinical work both within the clinical dyad and
within the clinical group. The so-called ‘complete interpretation’
of the transference in the ‘here and now’ must include not only
the ‘here and then’, but also the ‘there and then’ and the ‘there
and now’, or in other words all four parts of the Johari
Window.6 Whereas some psychoanalysts have begun to think
in terms of a therapeutic triangle (Malan, 1979), that is, in
terms of the ‘here and now’, the ‘here and then’, and the ‘there
and now’, an appreciation of a sociological or group analytical
perspective leads us to think in terms of a therapeutic square,
the fourth corner of which is the ‘there and then’. Pre-Oedipal,
Oedipal and post-Oedipal experience must all be understood in
the context of social, cultural and political factors across the
generations. In other words, in order to understand our relationships to our fathers and mothers, and our fantasies about these
processes, we have to understand the various factors that constrain our fathers and mothers. In other words, it is necessary
to work in and with the foundation matrix.
A few brief examples may serve to illustrate this basic point.
In order to understand what is happening between my male
patient and me, it is necessary to understand what happened
between my male patient and his father, and what is happening
between my male patient and his boss; however, it is also necessary to understand what happened between my male patient’s
father and his own father, that is, my patient’s paternal grandfather, as well as between my male patient’s boss and his own
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boss within the context of the power structure of the organization
in which they work, and the prevailing attitudes towards authority and power within their world of work. If my patient was a
child in a small Welsh village in the early 1930s, we will need to
think together about the effects of unemployment rates on the
gender identity of men in that village, and, in turn, their attitude
towards authority, because these factors will have constrained my
patient’s relationship to his father, and how this is repeated in his
relationship with me. Similarly, if my patient is a post-World
War II German, we will need to think together about his/her
difficulties in identifying with his/her parents, and how this is
repeated in his relationship to me. And if my patient is struggling
to free him/herself from the conflicting constraints of gender role
definitions that have more or less been ‘deposited’ and perhaps
even forced into his/her mind by traditional parents, we will
need to understand the comparative importance of the intertwined influences of culture, on the one hand, and parental
personalities, on the other, not to mention a variety of family
dynamics and sibling relations, all of which will sooner or later
be manifest in transference processes.
Although Freud himself argued that a person’s super-ego is
influenced not so much by his parent as by his parent’s superego, and so on, the point of view that sociality and the social
unconscious are manifest in the transference and should be interpreted as such, can be traced to the work of several early German
psychoanalysts, such as Bernfeld (1929), Horney (1937), Fromm
(1930), Waelder (1936) and others. However, whereas Wolstein
(1954) outlined the importance of social facts and forces in the
determination of the transference, it was really Foulkes (1964)
who insisted that working with these facts and forces should be
a central feature of clinical work. The work of Fairbairn,
Guntrip, Winnicott, perhaps Kernberg and in general those
psychoanalysts who have contributed to the development of relational psychoanalysis should also be mentioned, as should the
work of social historians and cultural critics in the French
‘mould’, such as Sartre and Foucault.
Although most psychoanalysts in Britain refer to such work as
‘sociology’, several psychoanalysts in the United States have
recognized that the self develops through the internalization of
group and family situations and processes, and that such internal
phenomena will be manifest in the transference. For example,
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David and Jill Scharff (1996, 1998) have formulated a contemporary object relations perspective that recognizes the power of
external whole objects in structuring the internal world, and the
re-creation of the internal world within many strands of the relationship between patient and analyst. Volkan and his colleagues
(Volkan et al., 2003) have recognized that an analyst may be the
recipient of a transference that belongs to his patient almost
‘in name only’, because his patient may be carrying elements of
his own internal world on behalf of a parent or even a grandparent, and, thus, on behalf of even more distant ancestors.
Perhaps special credit should be given to feminist psychoanalysts,
whose work has convinced us to rethink the classical formulations concerning the constraints of the body on the mind in
general and on gender roles in particular, and to contemporary
self-psychologists.
Although I am a psychoanalyst, I am also a group analyst and
a sociologist, and, therefore, it is hardly surprising that I
(Hopper, 2003a) have been particularly interested in the sociality
of human nature, the social unconscious and the foundation
matrix, not only theoretically but also in my clinical work,
especially with respect to the constraints of the social unconscious on transference processes. Many group analysts have discussed this topic, e.g. Hearst (1993) and Brown (2001). In fact,
an appreciation of the importance of the social unconscious in
clinical work is now commonplace throughout Europe, but
especially where Foulkesian group analysts have helped to found
Institutes of Group Analysis. Some American psychoanalytical
group therapists share this point of view, e.g. Scheidlinger
(1964), W. Stone (2004), and H. Kibel (2005). Several psychoanalytical group therapists in France and Belgium tend to think
in these terms, although not without modifications, e.g. Rouchy
(1982), Kae¨s (1987) and Le Roy (1987).
Although the constraints of the social unconscious on countertransference processes must also be considered, surprisingly little
has been written about this, with the notable exceptions of Bion
(1970), who discussed the constraints of the Establishment on
psychoanalytical thinking, Racker (1968), who referred to the
constraints of an analyst’s professional affiliations and institutions on his ‘indirect countertransference’, and Lacan, who
discussed this topic throughout his long career. Citing the work
of Dalal (1993) on the unconscious constraints of social beliefs
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about race, and the work of others concerning nationality, ethnicity and class and other social, cultural and political phenomena,
I (Hopper, 1991, 1995, 2003a, 2003b) have delineated and
illustrated the constraints of the social unconscious on my own
countertransferences to various kinds of patients, partly in
terms of what Puget (1986) calls ‘overlapping worlds’. More
recently, Scholte (2006) suggested that when the analyst and
the patient are from different social and cultural backgrounds,
cultural stereotypes are likely to characterize their experiences
of one another, and, therefore, these stereotypes require special
attention, primarily because they are likely to be unconscious.
As discussed in Part II of this article (Hopper, 2006c) several
collective phenomena can be considered as group (T)ransference
and (t)ransference processes: treating the conductor of a group as
though he/she were a parental figure or the parts of a parental
figure, based on an analogy that the group is like a human organism and/or a person, and the homology that the group is an
organism and/or a person; treating members of the group as siblings, in the same terms that the conductor of a group is treated as
a parent; treating the group as a family and the conductor as a
parent of it, usually regarding the group as the mother and/or
the mother’s body, and the conductor as the father of the
group family; the kaleidoscopic development and continuing
oscillations among basic assumption processes and their personifications, based on interpersonal or shared defences against psychotic anxieties; the development and maintenance of common
group tensions involving family patterns, basic assumptions
and typical combinations of impulses and controls; the cocreation of microcosms within the dynamic matrix of the group
that are based on situations within the transgenerational foundation matrix of the group – a process that I have called ‘equivalence’; and the development and continuation of social
dreaming processes. It is self-evident that in so far as collective
(T)ransference and (t)ransference processes involve the interpersonal unconscious and the shared unconscious, these processes
are constrained by the social unconscious. Nonetheless, equivalence offers a perfect illustration of the constraints of the social
unconscious on collective (T)ransference and (t)ransference processes, especially in the co-creation of chosen trauma and chosen
glories and nemes, but also in the co-creation of other more
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general aspects of the foundation matrix of which the members of
a group are likely to be unconscious.
The effects of the social unconscious on the conductor’s
countertransference to the group and to group (T)ransference
and (t)ransference processes must also be considered. However,
once again, virtually nothing has been written about this.
Although it should not be assumed that the conductor is more
conscious of the constraints of the foundation matrix than are
the other members of the group, at least not when they are all
members of the same society, when a group analyst conducts
groups in other societies and cultures than his/her own, he/she
is likely to become aware of the constraints of the social unconscious, and to become better at working in and with the foundation matrix.7
5.
It is difficult to analyse the resistances to an appreciation of the
constraints of the social unconscious. One reason for this is
that narcissistic injuries follow from the realization that we are
not fully in control of ourselves, and that we are constrained by
the social world as well as by the body and the mind. Another
reason is that these resistances are rooted in anxieties associated
with very early experience, for example, starting with the painful
awareness by the foetus that not only is it attached to a womb,
but also that the womb is attached to a larger object, i.e. the
mother; and, in turn, that not only is the mother ‘attached’ to
the father, but also that the parental couple is ‘attached’ to a
larger family; and, in turn, that there is something beyond the
family. All these larger and more comprehensive ‘objects’ contribute to a sense of helplessness and powerlessness. However, such
constraints can be denoted, and their dynamics discussed and
used as the basis for the interpretation of transference resistance
to insights into constraints by the social unconscious. Of course,
other factors are also involved. Many clinicians have not been
trained in the social sciences, and, therefore, are reluctant to
discuss the external world. The very term ‘social’ is often taken
to imply ‘socialism’, which is even more of a ‘no-no’ today
than it used to be, which is an interesting example of the relevance
of the sociology of knowledge to clinical practice.
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I sometimes wonder if the difficulties that people have in the
appreciation of the constraints of the social unconscious are similar to difficulties that they have in the appreciation of spirituality,
or at least in asking questions about liminal transitions. Many
people are able to perceive material facts, such as their own
bodies, but neither psychic factors, such as their own minds,
nor social factors, such as other persons, inter-personal relationships, groups, group processes, organizations, societies, etc. The
analysis of the repetition of the concentric and spiralling nature
of early life experience within transference and countertransference processes may increase the ability and willingness to be
interested in what transpires between people and their groups
both at any one time and across the generations. Of course, the
opposite is also true: the analysis of these very early life experiences may prevent regression into those states of mind that
lead to compensatory preoccupations with spirituality in the
service of avoiding the demands of love and hate within the
Oedipus complex.
Acknowledgement
A previous version of this article was presented at the 3rd Annual
Conference of the Institute of Group Analysis in Warsaw,
Poland, June 2006.
Notes
1. Menenius is the avuncular figure in Shakespeare’s ‘Coriolanus’ who more or
less starts the play by talking about Rome in terms of the ‘body politic’, using
the homology that Rome was a human organism whose various parts could
be compared to various classes of the population of Rome. The lower
social orders were compared to the stomach and genitals of the human organism, and the higher social orders, to the brain and soul of the organism, etc.
2. I well remember when, during the late 1960s in London, Professor H. Richter
presented his findings from a study of a small Swiss village, the leadership of
whom had asked for help in order to manage a variety of tensions in the
village, mostly stemming from higher than usual rates of immigration and
changes in the class structure. Professor Richter and his team concluded
that these tensions could be described on the basis of their understanding
that the people who lived in the working-class housing estates of the village
were the ‘id of the village’; and the doctors, lawyers, senior businessmen,
and government officials who lived in an area of private detached houses
and luxurious flats were the ‘super-ego of the village’. As a young sociologist
in the audience I felt obliged to ask a question: who were the ‘ego of the
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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
village’? Professor Richter answered that he and his research team were the
ego of the village, and on this basis they would help to put it right. The
audience laughed. Richter did not.
In the social sciences many similar concepts have been developed which are
virtually synonymous with the ‘matrix’ and its dimensions, for example:
‘social organization’, ‘social structure’, ‘cultural structure’, etc. Following
the work of Cortesao (1989), group analysts in Portugal and to some extent
in Brazil have developed the concept of the pattern as an alternative to that
of matrix.
Foulkes referred to the primordial level of communication in groups, by
which he seems to have meant the recapitulation of archetypes and archetypical phenomena based in the collective unconscious, but he did not discuss
this level of communication in much depth.
This classical Jungian point of view is similar to the view expounded by Freud
(1913) in his speculative but influential ‘Totem and Taboo’. However,
although Freud certainly distinguished the primal horde from the ‘gods’,
many Jungians have not distinguished more primitive species, whether
living or extinct, from the inhabitants of Mount Olympus, implying that
their trials and tribulations have also been encoded into the genetic structure
of Homo Sapiens. Nonetheless, Jungian and Freudian perspectives about our
origins were both based on the Lamarkian Fallacy that acquired characteristics can be genetically inherited. Of course, this fallacy is under constant
discussion, because if true, it would have very important implications for
the study of human affairs.
The Johari Window is a metaphorical tool created by Harry Ingham and
Joseph Luft in 1955 in the USA. It is used to help people better understand
interpersonal communication and relationships. Each person selects five
adjectives from a list of 55 he/she feels best describes him/her and these adjectives are mapped on to a grid defined in terms of time, space and personal perspective. I used a simplified version of the Window in order to focus attention
on the constraints of social and cultural phenomena in terms of a time/space
paradigm (Hopper, 2003a).
Similarly, immigrants and other people who are ‘marginal’ to the mainstream
culture of a particular society are also able to offer such insights. In fact, I
have been struck by the over-representation of people in the field of psychoanalytically-informed psychotherapy, especially group analysis, who have
been marginal and who often are still marginal. The same is true of sociology
and many other pursuits in the social sciences. Of course, in order to have
insights into the constraints of the foundation matrix it is not necessary to
be and to remain marginal. There are ways of experimenting and even playing
with multiple socio-cultural perspectives in a way that leads to taking one’s
own matrices as problematic. (In this respect the work of the European Association for Transcultural Group Analysis [EGATIN] should be mentioned.)
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Earl Hopper is a psychoanalyst and group analyst in private practice in
London. He is a training group analyst for the Institute of Group Analysis
and a member of the Management Committee of the Group Analytic
Society (London). Address: 11 Heath Mansions, The Mount, London
NW3 6SN, UK. Email: [email protected]
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