Abstract

SANDLER, Paulo Cesar. Groups: a psychoanalytic vertex. J. psicanal. [online]. 2015, vol.48, n.88, pp.95-109. ISSN 0103-5835.

Organized under the form of an entry of a dictionary, this paper was written in response to the kind invitation from the editors of this journal. It focuses on groupings of people, observed under the psychoanalytic vertex. This vertex can be seen as a transdisciplinary integration between, at least, two fields of observation. Roughly speaking, just for communicative purposes, one may define those fields according to their "levels" and/or "dimensions": macro and micro (levels). Being more specific, this is a study of emotional experiences, which may happen in certain human group, and of conscious and unconscious features that may act on interrelationships among individuals who are parts of a group. The study emphasizes some historical antecedents as well as some effects, in terms of group behavior - both the concrete, evident, express behavior (phenomenally observable), and the implicit, immaterial and ever present behavior (which Bion named "ultrasensuous" and "infrasensuous", and cannot be fully apprehended by human sense apparatus). This study about groups of people identifies two omnipotent and omniscient phantasies that share the same appearance - the appearance of an authoritarian postulate. Composing ideologies (or Weltanshauungen), those phantasies propose two tendencies of thinking, according to a vertex of the history of ideas (or, more precisely, two tendencies in which mindlessness - or lack of real thinking - does prevail). For didactic, operational purposes, the author names these tendencies "quantitative" and "qualitative". From this point, always under the psychoanalytic vertex, he describes the concept of working group and specifies few methods for the study of groups. The author finishes this study with a brief list of experiences in clinical practice (cases) that support his theory.

Keywords : group dynamics; institutional analysis; working group; basic assumptions; clinic.

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