Centre for Psycho-Social Studies

What is Psycho-Social Studies?

A version of this article appeared in the Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society  Spring 2001, Vol 16, No 1

Introduction

The Psycho-Social Studies Group at the University of the West of England, Bristol, encompasses a wide range of research interests and theoretical positions which share in common a commitment to psychoanalytic and other non-rationalist understandings of the human subject. We are also concerned with the application of such perspectives to organisational, social and political issues and with the mutual influencing of psychoanalysis and contemporary social and political theory. Finally, some of the group are interested in the history of psychoanalysis and allied disciplines such as Group Relations and with the development of the therapeutic culture.

As we see it, psycho-social studies bridge the gap between theory and practice - several of the group are experienced Group Relations consultants and one is in training as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, some have been involved practically in politics. We are not interested in theorising for the sake of it, losing sight of the human phenomena that we were studying. This may seem an obvious point, but often sociologists and political scientists get embroiled in their theoretical positions, whether Marxist, Weberian or Durkheimian, and the social phenomena about which they are writing seems to take second place or are even forgotten about altogether.

A psycho-social approach links society, structure and affect in a way that sociology, psychology and social psychology have been largely unable to do. Structure and affect, the social and the psyche are inseparable in terms of the explanation of social phenomena. This calls for a huge change in the way we think about research methods - how we know and how we can come to know about the world. There is thus an emphasis on the psychodynamic, the way in which the internal and external worlds are mediated by the group and individual and connect in ways which enable us to explain, make sense of, think about and exist in the world.

A psycho-social perspective therefore insists on the meaningfulness of human phenomena and experience, and their communicative nature irrespective of whether the phenomenon in question is an impulsive act of violence, a bodily condition such as anorexia, or an apparently nonsensical and repetitive act. Whilst it seeks the connections between body, psyche and society, it also recognises the irreducibility of any one of these domains vis a vis the others. It eschews all forms of reductionism and, as such, constitutes a challenge to sociological imperialism as much as to the psychological or medical/biological. Because no single discipline can hope to offer an adequate explanation, the psycho-social perspective is truly interdisciplinary and may enable us to start thinking in a different way about social problems and their possible solutions.

Research Interests

Perhaps inevitably, given our cultural location, members of the group tend to draw upon the work of Object-relations and Kleinian thinkers. Given his impact upon both group psychological theory and contemporary psychoanalytic thinking, it is perhaps the work of Bion which has had the greatest impact on several members of the group. However, there is currently a new spirit of pluralism in psychoanalysis which makes it more possible to locate and enjoy the places where the different traditions intersect (see Clarke 2000c, 2001). There are striking correspondences between the work of the post-Kleinians and Zizek, for example, just as there may be a growing convergence between the post-Kleinian interest in the role of the Oedipal father in the creation of psychic space and the Lacanian concept of the Law of the father (Britton 1998, p.44).

Within the group at UWE there is a strong research emphasis on racism, hatred and exclusion. If we are even to begin to get close to understanding the ubiquity of racism and hatred between people, then we need to address both the structural facilitants and the psychological mechanisms that impel people to hate each other. Psycho-social studies address these in tandem, examining the complex relationship between inner and outer worlds, historical, political and social factors, and the role of affect and emotion in the generation and re-generation of our social world.

We cannot address in this short paper the problem of racism at length, rather we can attempt to show how a psycho-social outlook may start to help us think about it in a different way. We have previously outlined in various papers (Hoggett 1992a; Clarke 1999; Bird & Clarke 2000) how a psychoanalytic perspective can give us a better understanding of processes of exclusion and boundary-drawing. It is the communicative aspect of psychoanalytic theory, and in particular the work of Klein and Bion that we find interesting as social scientists. Bion' s (1962) sophisticated re-working of Kleins concept of projective identification places the roles of phantasy and projective communication at the heart of the thinking process. The use of these ideas within psycho-social analysis enables us to explain how we think and feel about others, and how these thoughts and feelings turn into concrete social relations, how and why we behave as individuals, and as members of groups, and how this translates into our perception and treatment of others. Psychoanalytic ideas can give us some purchase on the affective elements that underlie human destructiveness and disintegrative relations. The combination of psycho-social ethnography and psychoanalytic interpretative theory allows us to look in parallel at how changing structures in society evoke certain emotions and feelings in people. If we are able to do this, then we can start to think about policy and practice to counter, for example, the endemic nature of racism and social exclusion. Building on these ideas, Simon Clarke and John Bird (Clarke 2000b; Clarke & Bird 2000) have been investigating racism in the education system and higher education institutions.

Using the notion of projective communication, Paul Hoggett, Simon Thompson and Chris Miller have been applying post-Kleinian ideas to develop new insights into the dynamics of deliberative democracy. How do affective forces intervene in the dialectic of recognition not just to fuel misrecognition, but, more positively, what is their role in enabling us to take pleasure in the encounter with difference, and what is the affective foundation of `feeling understood'(Hoggett & Thompson 1999; Hoggett 2000a ; Hoggett & Miller 2000). Sean Watson researches the connections between affective forces and social control and is currently absorbed in charting the linkages between theories of affect, neuroscience, complexity theory and Bergsonism (Watson 1998a, 1998b). The relationship between affect, unconscious phantasy and learning processes in individuals and groups is a focus of research for Anne Marie Cummins (2000), Robert French (French & Bazalgette 1996; French 1997; French & Simpson 1999; French & Vince 1999) and Louise Grisoni (1999).

Paul Hoggett, Peter Jowers and Pete Webb are also interested in the influence of affect in aesthetic production, particularly in terms of the affective networks which underpin the creative flows of the festival, jazz, dance and club scenes in Bristol and the South West (Hoggett 1999; Jowers, 1999; Webb 2000). Several members of the group have a broad interest in developments in post-Kleinian theory including the concept of `capacity'(French 1999), `negative capability'(French 2000) and `pathological organisation'(Hoggett 1998). The work of Winnicott has also been a big influence on members of the group, including his contribution to the study of recognition (Thompson 2002) and the way in which his idea of transitional space can illuminate creativity within cultural and political groups (Hoggett 2000b).

Other colleagues involved in psycho-social studies at UWE include Jem Thomas who has taught at both the London Centre for Psychotherapy and the Severnside Institute for Psychotherapy. Jem has a long-standing interest in the nature of values in Max Weber's work and in contemporary German philosophy and social science (French and Thomas 1999; French, Thomas & Weymann 1999). Stella Maile (1998, 2000), another group member, is interested in the relationship between concepts of affect and discourse theory, particularly in the context of organisational discourses.

Linkages and activities

While Anne Marie Cummins and Jem Thomas have been involved in teaching Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Society on our undergraduate programme for some time now, in 1997, we launched our first graduate programme in the area. This programme, Group Relations and Society: The Psychodynamics of Groups, Organisations and Society, combines traditional forms of teaching with experiential learning (based upon the Tavistock Group Relations model) and structured approaches to the application of learning to participants working roles.

Members of the group are involved with a variety of international academic journals. Stella Maile is on the editorial board of Sociology , Jem Thomas is Reviews Editor of the Journal for the History of the Human Sciences. Paul Hoggett was a founder member of the editorial board of Free Associations and is also on the boards of Psychodynamic Counselling and Socio-Analysis . He is co-editor, with Larry Gould of CUNY, of the journal Organisational and Social Dynamics which was the first genuinely international journal for the Group Relations tradition. The first issue was launched in June 2001. Robert French is an Associate Editor of Organisational and Social Dynamics and is also on the editorial board of Socio-Analysis.

There are a variety of recent and current writing projects involving members of the group. These include Robert French and Christopher Grey (eds) Rethinking Management Education(Sage, 1996); Robert French and Russ Vince (eds), Group Relations, Management & Organization (Oxford University Press 1999) ; Simon Thompson, The Politics of Recognition (Polity, forthcoming); Paul Hoggett, Partisans in an Uncertain World: The Psychoanalysis of Engagement (Free Association Books 1992) and Emotional Life and the Politics of Welfare (Macmillan/St.Martins Press, 2000); Simon Clarke, Social Theory, Psychoanalysis and Racism (Macmillan, Forthcoming)

We have good links to a number of other groups and organisations. These include both the Tavistock Clinic and the Tavistock Institute, OPUS (an Organisation for the Promotion of Understanding of Society), the International Forum for Social Innovation (Paris), ISPSO (The International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations), the Psychoanalytic Studies Centre at the University of Essex, the Centre for Psychotherapy Studies at the University of Sheffield and colleagues in the Psycho-Social Studies Department at the University of East London, the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS) in the United States and the Bulgarian Institute of Human Relations. Regionally, we are involved in regular dialogue with the Severnside Institute for Psychotherapy and have very close working links with the Bridge Foundation for Psychotherapy and the Arts.

Future Plans

We hold a regular internal staff seminar series which we intend to make more open to non-university members in the future. We have inaugurated a regular series of one-day weekend public workshops on themes such as the Psychodynamics of Conflict, Complexity Theory and the Group, which, while appealing to a regional audience, have also drawn in participants from outside the UK. We see this expanding in the future to include weekend events such as international academic conferences and new kinds of Group Relations events. We envisage a steady development in our graduate and postgraduate programmes, but perhaps most importantly we hope to be able to develop a tradition of externally funded empirical research in the psycho-social studies area. With the exception of Fonagy's work (Bateman & Fonagy 1999; Chiesa & Fonagy 2000), there has been little research on psychotherapy or psychoanalysis in the UK nor much work on child development, mental illness and well-being, coping and resilience or identity, crisis and change which uses a psycho-social perspective. Nor, since the early Tavistock studies of the 1950's, has there been much in the way of a psycho-social tradition of research on institutions (as opposed to consultancy-based case studies of which there is a plethora).

Our ambition is to begin to develop a tradition of psycho-social studies research in the social sciences, specifically in politics, sociology and social policy using psychoanalytic methods of observation drawn from the study of infants and organisations and `depth' approaches to interviewing (Clarke, 2000a). As a group we are committed to psychoanalytic and non-rationalist understandings of the human subject and society and their practical application in the understanding of social, political and historical phenomena. We are, as we have intimated, not interested in theorising for the sake of it, but take a truly interdisciplinary stance which enables us to start thinking in a different way about social problems and their possible solutions. We are keen to make links and contacts, and as such, we welcome correspondence from academic colleagues, individuals, practitioners and organisations. Contact Us

Works Cited

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