Psychoanalysis, Socioanalysis, and Social Work: Psychodynamic Contributions to Understanding Diversity, Power, and Institutions in Social Work Practice

Understanding and supporting a person-in-environment (PIE) have been a center for social work practice (Kondrat, 2013). Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic approaches have contributed to our understanding of intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics in clinical social work practice, mostly in the realms of “the person” and the “environment,” of maternal functions, and family and group dynamics. Several scholars apply psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches to expand the scope of “environment” into the social issues (e.g., racism) and conflicts (e.g., hate crime and after-war reconciliation) on community, national, and international levels (Hirvoner, 2017; Rasmussen & Salhani, 2010; Zevnik, 2017). In this special issue, we like to align with this scholarship and further expand its scope to various levels of governing institutions (e.g., social work profession, media, schools, governments and laws), especially how psychodynamic approaches help social workers better understand diversity, power, and the working of the institutions in serving clients.

Invigorating the “social” environment in social work from psychoanalysis and psychodynamic approaches, we draw from scholarships in socio-analysis. In a book titled On Socio-Analysis, Bain (1999) offered the definition of socio-analysis by drawing from Bion’s (1970) construct of “container and contained” which was originally used to explore phenomena in psychoanalysis but later used to explore group and institutional phenomena. Bain refers to socio-analysis as “the transformation process, or co-evolution, that occurs between organizational container and contained during socio-analytic consultancy” which can be used as “a measure of organizational learning” (p. 3). He further offers how this socio-analysis can be used in four senses as: (1) socio-analytic ideas and theory (a container for the practice of socio-analysis, and thinking socio-analytic thoughts), (2) design and methodology (for an exploration, e.g., for consultancy and action research, for studying small group behavior), (3) the institution (as a container for encouraging, and carrying out socio-analytic work), and (4) the individual (as a container for the socio-analytic experience), all of which are interdependent and interconnected with one another.

The origins of Socio-analysis were dated back to two Northfield Experiments in London, England. The first experiment was at a military hospital in Northfield, where Bion was responsible for a treatment team for soldiers coming back from the war but who would return to their civilian life after World War II. Bion observed patients’ military attitude and mentality that were placed upon themselves. Unless required by existing higher orders commanding them on what to do, the patients paid little attention to their own basic care and treatment. Bion announced that unlike military disciplines:

He would not punish them but would no longer visit them or their ward. He would be available for discussion in his office every morning but only for soldiers who presented themselves clean and properly dressed. In the next weeks they severely tested out his resolve. The ward became filthy, beds were not made for days, absence without leave and drunkenness increased and the whole hospital staff was alarmed and angry. It was chaotic, but Bion … stood firm. As the days passed a slowly increasing number of properly dressed soldiers began to attend his office and … patients soon begged him to intervene in the chaos. He refused to take over their indignation and military ideals but discussed these with them as their property and so freed them to own the conflict between fecklessness and efficiency inside them. They slowly grew responsible for themselves and their ward comrades and now formed their own discussion groups and rotas and disciplinary systems. Cleanliness and order, no longer imposed from above, grew inside the ward group. The military super-ego, no longer projected onto higher authority, had returned to the lower-order system and Bion’s ward became the most efficient in the hospital (Bain, 1999, p. 5).

Here, Bion paid attention to “the properties of the group as a whole” (p. 5) and made “hypotheses about unconscious functioning at the level of the group” (p. 6).

Bridger (1946, 1985) and Main (1946, 1977) further expand this attention at the level of group to the constructs of “working with the whole community” or “institution as a whole” later in Northfield, which was the second experiment. According to Bain (1999), Bion attended to a “lower order system” (i.e., changes in patients and staff dynamics) and did not involve a “higher order system” (i.e., administrative staff and policy and decision makers) in his socio-analysis. On the contrary, Main directly addressed the tensions that affected Northfield as a whole community to be contained, namely between the military system headed by the Commanding Officer and the therapeutic system headed by Main. Main (1977) realized that “the whole community, all staff as well as all patients, needed to be viewed as a troubled larger system which needed treatment” (p. 11) and began to have the whole community participate and work commonly on exploring the tensions within the system.

Reflecting on both Northfield Experiments, Bain noted the contributions of the container of socio-analysis as follows:

• A “consultant” role of observing group, and institutional phenomena, akin to, but not the same as a psycho-analyst.

• Working with group and institutional tensions. (In my experience of socio-analytic consultancy there is invariably social pain, whether recognized or not, within the client system).

• Attention to, and making hypotheses, and interpretations, about unconscious functioning at the level of the group.

• Working from a stance of “not knowing,” and paying attention to how one is made to feel.

• The use of psycho-analytic ideas, such as projection, and splitting, in a group and institutional setting.

• The courage to pursue psychological truth.

• Exploring the dynamics underlying a presenting problem …

• The need to gain the sanction, and continued support, from the “higher order” system in order to carry out an experiment with a “sub-system”

• The significance of creating “transitional space” for therapy, action projects, and development, so that people, (in this case patients), are enabled to take up their own authority for task.

• The concept of working with the “institution as a whole,” or the “whole community.” (Bain, 1999, p. 9)

Through these transformative aspects, “the group or institutional container for experience and thinking is vital for practice, thinking new thoughts, and growth” (p. 10) in socio-analysis. In other words, “what can be contained changes what can be experienced, felt, and thought” thus changing “the container for exploring and experiencing group, inter-group, and institutional phenomena, and oneself as part of these phenomena” (p. 11). When the split between administrative staff and therapy staff in Northfield and its underlying unconscious dynamics became unveiled and analyzed into the conscious, this containment in socio-analysis was able to bridge the imagined and projected boundaries between the splits. Thus, Bain argues that “if we consider the growth of the containers of socio-analysis, and what can therefore be contained, in each case the kind of boundary that was drawn was changed as a result of intuition based on experience and knowledge of what had gone before” (p. 12). We agree that, when we closely understand man-made boundaries (e.g., marginalized vs. dominant) and impacts between the individual and the social, this socio-analysis of various levels of governing institutions could contribute to creating and re-imagining new boundaries, new structures, and changes in society.

The application of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic thinking to social issues holds an extended history in both psychoanalysis and social work. Although most literature on social service organizations and institutional practices is based on administration and management theories and “social” theories, there has been a steady effort to integrate psychoanalytic approaches into organizational services (Fotaki, Long, & Schwartz, 2012; Gabriel & Carr, 2002). As an example of psychoanalytic application to organizations and other systemic issues (e.g., race, gender, and sexual orientations), the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (ISPSO), founded in 1983, has provided a vibrant forum for clinicians and researchers interested in working in and with organizations utilizing psychoanalytic concepts and insights (https://www.ispso.org/). Recent works by the Tavistock clinic – System Psychodynamics Thinking Group – illustrate the incorporation of psychodynamic approaches to institutional studies in public health services (http://www.tavistockconsulting.co.uk/approach-systems-psychodinamic-thinking). Smith Studies has been the center for this paradigm shift featuring special issues, for example, not limited to, racism and racialized groups such as international students (Aubrey, 1991), perspectives of clinicians of color (Pruett, 2017), and social class (Lesser, forthcoming). Social work professional organizations such as the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (www.aapcsw.org) have been actively taking positions to promote psychoanalytic thinking in social justice issues (AAPCSW, 2017a, 2017b, 2018). Social work scholars have been pioneers in this arena as shown in social work textbooks such as Inside out and Outside in: Psychodynamic clinical theory and psychopathology in contemporary multicultural contexts, which is already in its fourth edition (Berzoff, Flanagan, & Hertz, 2016) since its first publication in 1996, and by leading social workers in this field who expand analytic understanding of dynamics of racism and political activism, for example (Eder, 2015; Rasmussen & Salhani, 2010).

A critical analysis of social issues has been in fact a history of the social work profession. One of the founders of American social work, Mary Richmond (1917) argued that the common ground of professional social work was formulating “social diagnosis” – understanding social illness such as poverty and social exclusion constructed within the interactions between individuals and their environment. We acknowledge her use of the biomedical term “diagnosis.” A century later, we still pause to ask the same question and attempt to formulate social analysis around social ills such as systemic injustice, discrimination, racism, and poverty. Social work’s commitment to serve and work with marginalized populations has been central to of the profession since its birth (Johnstone & Lee, 2019). Despite this commitment, critical social work scholars illustrate how social workers have withdrawn and been distant from the “social” aspects of social work, and at times have actively taken a part in maintaining and perpetuating social illness (Johnstone, 2018; Park & Kemp, 2006). They warn social workers not to turn away from social/systemic inequity, which injures every aspect of individuals, families, and communities. Therefore, understanding current social struggles in various realms and analyzing how their governing bodies shape our daily lives would be at the heart of social workers’ common ground toward changes for humanity and social integration.

Aligning with these scholarly communities, we invited contributors to deepen our understanding of the “environment” of various governing institutions where we practice and serve our clients, utilizing psychodynamic approaches. In this special issue, each article conducted socio-analysis applying psychoanalytic concepts, taking a not-knowing stance, exploring underlying unconscious dynamics, and looking at systems-as-a-whole. For example, psychodynamic clinicians are familiar with the concept of enactments in the treatment situation. This phenomenon is typically situated at the intrapsychic and interpersonal domains. However, Morey’s paper in this special edition extends the theoretical framework of enactments to include complex systems. The importance here is that social workers frequently work in large complex organizations and the enactments she describes can have serious consequences for client care. Morey describes these system enactments as “ubiquitous, multidirectional clinical phenomena distinguished by intersecting projective identification processes between patients and staff that are shaped by the complex nexus of intrapsychic, interpersonal and organizational factors, and become manifest in the projective field of a treatment system.” That is a lot to unpack! Drawing on the work of Bion, Kernberg, and many others, Morey extends this theoretical complexity to capture the unconscious forces operating at multiple levels. An extensive clinical illustration highlights the therapeutic team’s interactions that contribute to this enactment. She further offers some valuable insights for readers to consider in identifying and intervening with respect to these dynamic encounters.

The paper by McCardle and Bliss makes an important contribution to the empirical literature on implicit bias and is a poignant reminder of the ways in which internal unconscious processes contribute to racism and systems of discrimination. Recognizing the failure of school integration in the United States, these researchers explored the relationship between early life experiences of diversity and the extent of implicit bias as a young adult. Their findings provide additional data upon which policy makers and anti-racist activists can consider a full dynamic understanding of school segregation. In their own words, “Social workers must understand and address the unconscious individual factors leading to segregation, while at the same time, working to make systemic and policy changes to achieve greater equity and opportunity for all members of society.”

Fletcher’s scholarly contribution draws our attention toward social work education and questions the lack of psychodynamic curriculum in most university programs. In effect, social work education is put on the couch. Consistent with the psychoanalytic themes of this edition, he suggests there are unconscious dynamics and resistances to this content. The marginalization of psychodynamic thinking leaves students and practitioners without the depth of analysis to deal effectively with the kind of problems grappled with in this special edition. Clearly, without this foundational psychodynamic knowledge, new generations of clinicians are left without the analytical tools needed to deeply comprehend the dynamic interplay between the individual and the social world.

Using both Freud and Klein, Lee and Bhuyan’s article adds a very powerful analysis that helps explain the politics of fear and the dynamics of the Trump Administration to manufacture the bad object and transform unprocessed anxiety. They further illustrate in detail how this construction of the bad object is inevitably creating the split part-object – the good object epitomizing the nationalist discourse of MAGA (i.e., Make America Great Again). They conducted a critical discourse analysis of media and policy representations of immigrants in recent US news coverage regarding the government policy and legal responses to asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants, which are very timely and relevant to contemporary politics from psychodynamic perspectives.

Like Lee and Bhuyan’s article, we see with Rasmussen and Garran an analysis of racist dynamics drawn largely from a Kleinian psychoanalytic perspective. In this instance, the very popular and disturbing horror movie “Get Out” is the medium for exploring unconscious racist dynamics between Whites and Blacks. Chosen for its evocative themes and imagery, Get Out dramatizes the wishes and fears of the various characters, but also aberrant group dynamics. The constructs of projection, projective identification, envy, splitting, and double consciousness highlight the unconscious processes that work to oppress and indeed terrorize the Black characters in the film. Moreover, the article extends this analysis to the contemporary clinical situation and examines the dynamics of multi-racial dyads, therapeutic models, clinical supervision, and agency policies. Knowing that all of what occurs in the external world can and will be brought into the therapeutic frame, the authors implore clinicians to “analyze their work for vestiges of white supremacy and internalized racial superiority, and make every effort to minimize their occurrence.”

Taken all together in this special issue, not turning away from underlying dynamics and politics in the system but being well informed by psychodynamic approaches, social workers are in an apt position to conduct socio-analysis of various levels of governing institutes. The collections in this special issue are such examples that work toward social changes on every level.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eunjung Lee

Eunjung Lee, PhD, RSW is an Associate Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto in Canada. She is a psychotherapy process researcher focusing on cross-cultural practice serving marginalized populations with trauma and violence experiences in community mental health. Her research focuses on everyday interactions in clinical practice using psychodynamic approaches and critical theories in language and power, as well as utilizing simulation-based learning in social work education.

Brian Rasmussen

Brian Rasmussen, PhD, RSW is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus.