A Contribution to the Understanding of the Social Unconscious

Abstract

An initial attempt is made to discern more details in Foulkes's concept of the social unconscious, relating it to his deeper levels of group communication where it connects with, transcends and penetrates the individual unconscious revealed by psychoanalysis. The work of Earl Hopper is called upon as well as the findings of workshops conducted by the European Association for Transcultural Group Analysis. A tentative classification is proposed involving assumptions, disavowals, social defences and structural oppression representing blocks to communication and awareness within the field of relationships described by Giovanni Lo Verso as collective, transpersonal and transgenerational.