Abstract
By Bernard Reith (Swiss Society of Psychoanalysis) and Renate Kohlheimer (Vienna Psychoanalytic Society)
The challenge—for democratic societies as well as psychoanalytic organisations—is to preserve dialogue under conditions of profound disagreement and to mobilise conflict in the service of thinking together rather than splitting apart.
Freud's writings suggest three complementary models of the relationship between the individual and civilisation. In Civilization and its Discontents, civilisation is achieved through the repression of sexual and aggressive drives, creating an enduring tension between individual satisfaction and social order. Yet in Totem and Taboo, Freud had developed a more reciprocal model, in which the drives themselves become the source of institutional formation. The concept of the ‘band of brothers’ transforms libido and violence into a symbolic order, insisting on a collective responsibility for controlling the dangers of murder and incest. In between these works, in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, he discusses the narcissistic component of libidinal and aggressive drives, where identification with a leader, a group, or an ideal creates the bonds from which either destructive mobs or enduring institutions can emerge. Since these relationships are internalised, becoming part of the psychic structure of the individual, the question is not whether persons and institutions oppose one another, but how they mutually constitute either rigid and oppressive, or living and creative organisations.
To stay alive, democratic psychoanalytic organisations depend on the creativity of their membership and therefore on diversity of opinion, dissent, and the capacity to tolerate conflict. We suggest that creativity and conflict may stimulate institutional renewal. Yet, when the group’s narcissistic defences are threatened, they may also be experienced as destructive. This may lead either to further narcissistic institutional regression or to breakdown, with polarisation and fragmentation.
In this interactive panel we hope to explore the conditions under which conflict promotes democratic culture and innovation, and when it undermines institutional cohesion. We will consider whether Bion's concepts of containment and group dynamics together with contemporary democratic thought can illuminate such democratic processes within psychoanalytic organisations and how institutional structures can either facilitate or inhibit collaborative dialogue, thinking, and scientific progression.
Particular attention will be given to current clinical and scientific controversies surrounding psychoanalytic training, with their associated issues around authority, participation, and freedom of thought. Historical examples will also serve as points of reflection.
By bringing together psychoanalytic theory, organisational reflection, and contemporary democratic thought, this interactive panel aims to explore conflict not merely as a danger but as a potentially indispensable source of institutional creativity.