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  • Towards a Psychoanalytic Co...
    Koh, Eugen; Twemlow, Stuart, W.

    International journal of applied psychoanalytic studies, December 2017, Volume: 14, Issue: 4
    Journal Article

    A new concept of community is proposed in this third paper of the series, “Towards a psychoanalytic concept of community”. This concept emphasizes the unconscious, collective, psychological tasks involved in creating and sustaining a community, as well as the tasks undertaken by the community in achieving its reason for being. One of the core psychological tasks is the creation of bonding among its members. When a community is being formed it experiences itself subjectively as “us”, and needs to come to terms with what is “not us”. A set of psychological tasks comes into play and they relate to the formation and maintenance of its boundary and identity. Each of these psychological tasks is underpinned by unconscious psychic processes; such as symbolization to create boundary, projective and introjective identifications to create bonds and identity.