Notes on the Concept of the Social Unconscious in Group Analysis

The concept of the social unconscious and the theory in which it is embedded have a long history, drawing on sociology and psychoanalysis. Although the words social unconscious have been used in various ways to emphasise aspects of the unconscious restraints and constraints of socio-cultural-political arrangements of which people are unconscious, including the arrangements themselves, the actual concept and theory form the cornerstone of contemporary group analysis, as founded by S. H. Foulkes, which has been called the tripartite matrix, involving several realms and dimensions of social psychological reality. These ideas have important clinical, ethical, and political implications.