Explorations in Psycho-Social Studies
We sometimes forget how much of Freud's published output focused on cultural, social and political issues. Works such as Civilization and its Discontents and The Future of an Illusion are still constant sources of reference and inspiration for generations of students in the social and human sciences. Sadly, psychoanalysis since Freud has been much more conservative, its gaze extending much less frequently beyond the consulting room. It has been left to non-clinicians, those in universities and research institutes, to apply psychoanalytic ideas to social issues and, with a few exceptions, such as the study of the Authoritarian Personality by Theodor Adorno and his colleagues, most of these applications have been at the level of theory.
But since the 1990s, partly due to the impact of feminism, the social sciences have begun to change. Traditional models of human rationality which opposed reason to passion are being challenged. The preoccupation with language and cognition has started to give way to an equal interest in emotion and affect. The familiar split between 'individual' and 'society', psychology and sociology, is now recognized as unhelpful to the study of both. And as ways have been sought to overcome such splits psychoanalysis has increasingly appeared in the breach.
Drawing also on some aspects of continental philosophy and anthropological and neuro-scientific understandings of the emotions, 'psycho-social studies' has emerged as an embryonic new paradigm in the human sciences in the UK. Psycho-social studies uses psychoanalytic concepts and principles to illuminate core issues within the social sciences. These have recently included the role of loss and mourning in the constitution of community; the nature of identities such as 'girl', 'white' or 'mother'; the experiences of rapid social change, particularly the experiences of the powerless; the negotiation of ethical dilemmas by public service professionals. Moreover it has applied these concepts and principles in empirical research as well as theory building. For example, it has informed several major research projects and seminar series funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), including a cluster of projects using such approaches in the recent £3.4 million ESRC research programme 'Identities and Social Action'. This application of psychoanalysis to social research in the mainstream of the human sciences is a quite new development, something which hasn't been seen since the demise of the influence of the Tavistock Institute in UK social science in the late 1950s.
One particular area where these new developments have made considerable headway is in the exploration of the relationship between social change and individual biography. This has introduced a new approach to social research and social policy, which begins with the complexity of the individual's experience of change, and the need for policies and practices that are sensitive to this. Psycho-social studies is also informing the development of new methodologies in the social sciences including the use of free association and biographical interview methods, the application of infant observation methodologies to social observation, the development of psychoanalytic ethnography/fieldwork and attention to transference/ countertransference dynamics in the research process.
The appearance of Wendy Hollway and Tony Jefferson's Doing Qualitative Research Differently in 2000 was a milestone in the development of these new methodologies, ones which are now also increasingly being used by a new generation of doctoral students. Psycho-social research centres and units now exist in several British universities (Essex, University of East London, Birkbeck, Open University, University of Brighton, Goldsmiths and UWE, Bristol) and clusters of leading researchers now operate in social policy, politics and public policy besides psychology and sociology.
However psycho-social studies remains at a very early stage of development. According to Stephen Frosh at Birkbeck, `the idea of the psycho-social subject as a meeting point of inner and outer forces, something constructed and yet constructing, a power-using subject which is also subject to power, is a difficult subject to theorize, and no one has yet worked it out'i. You could say that a lot hinges upon the nature of the hyphen in the psycho-social for a genuine integration must be more than simply the adding together of the two parts. Social scientists are certainly beginning to work in a systematic way in exploring what a genuine integration would look like and this is likely to lead to further developments. For example, at the moment these developments have not made many connections to those working in management and organisational studies where there is a longer tradition of applying psychoanalytic concepts and methods, particularly the work of Bion and others.
A psycho-social approach is thoroughly relational. Just as Winnicott once said that there is no such thing as the infant but rather the infant in relation to the mother, so psycho-social studies insists that there is no such thing as the individual or society unless each is studied relationally. Thus object-relations and contemporary north American relational psychoanalysis has become the natural counterpart to this development in the social sciences. Indeed in recent decades psychoanalysis has also become increasingly receptive to understanding the social and relational nature of the human subject and of clinical practice, as evidenced by developments in infant research, attachment theory and research on the inter-generational transmission of trauma. Moreover clinical practice has started to be applied in non-traditional areas, for example to work with refugees and asylum seekers and the development of clinical practice in community settings. Finally, and partly as the result of outside pressure, there has also been a growing interest in the development of research on the psychoanalytic process and its outcomes and the impact of the institutional setting (private, public) on psychoanalytic practice and the psychoanalytic practitioner. In other words, as a body of ideas and practices, psychoanalysis has itself become more permeable, less split-off from research, from the social and natural sciences or from public and social policy.
This then is an opportune moment to launch a series of publications which demonstrate the breadth, and innovation of this new paradigm. The new Karnac series, "Explorations in Psycho-Social Studies", welcomes contributions which approach contemporary social issues, research methodologies and new theories, concepts or forms of clinical practice from this perspective. The first two volumes in this series - Object Relations and Social Relations and Researching Below the Surface - will appear in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
i Frosh, S. (2003) Psychosocial studies and psychology: is a critical approach emerging? Human Relations, 56 (12): 1545-1567
But since the 1990s, partly due to the impact of feminism, the social sciences have begun to change. Traditional models of human rationality which opposed reason to passion are being challenged. The preoccupation with language and cognition has started to give way to an equal interest in emotion and affect. The familiar split between 'individual' and 'society', psychology and sociology, is now recognized as unhelpful to the study of both. And as ways have been sought to overcome such splits psychoanalysis has increasingly appeared in the breach.
Drawing also on some aspects of continental philosophy and anthropological and neuro-scientific understandings of the emotions, 'psycho-social studies' has emerged as an embryonic new paradigm in the human sciences in the UK. Psycho-social studies uses psychoanalytic concepts and principles to illuminate core issues within the social sciences. These have recently included the role of loss and mourning in the constitution of community; the nature of identities such as 'girl', 'white' or 'mother'; the experiences of rapid social change, particularly the experiences of the powerless; the negotiation of ethical dilemmas by public service professionals. Moreover it has applied these concepts and principles in empirical research as well as theory building. For example, it has informed several major research projects and seminar series funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), including a cluster of projects using such approaches in the recent £3.4 million ESRC research programme 'Identities and Social Action'. This application of psychoanalysis to social research in the mainstream of the human sciences is a quite new development, something which hasn't been seen since the demise of the influence of the Tavistock Institute in UK social science in the late 1950s.
One particular area where these new developments have made considerable headway is in the exploration of the relationship between social change and individual biography. This has introduced a new approach to social research and social policy, which begins with the complexity of the individual's experience of change, and the need for policies and practices that are sensitive to this. Psycho-social studies is also informing the development of new methodologies in the social sciences including the use of free association and biographical interview methods, the application of infant observation methodologies to social observation, the development of psychoanalytic ethnography/fieldwork and attention to transference/ countertransference dynamics in the research process.
The appearance of Wendy Hollway and Tony Jefferson's Doing Qualitative Research Differently in 2000 was a milestone in the development of these new methodologies, ones which are now also increasingly being used by a new generation of doctoral students. Psycho-social research centres and units now exist in several British universities (Essex, University of East London, Birkbeck, Open University, University of Brighton, Goldsmiths and UWE, Bristol) and clusters of leading researchers now operate in social policy, politics and public policy besides psychology and sociology.
However psycho-social studies remains at a very early stage of development. According to Stephen Frosh at Birkbeck, `the idea of the psycho-social subject as a meeting point of inner and outer forces, something constructed and yet constructing, a power-using subject which is also subject to power, is a difficult subject to theorize, and no one has yet worked it out'i. You could say that a lot hinges upon the nature of the hyphen in the psycho-social for a genuine integration must be more than simply the adding together of the two parts. Social scientists are certainly beginning to work in a systematic way in exploring what a genuine integration would look like and this is likely to lead to further developments. For example, at the moment these developments have not made many connections to those working in management and organisational studies where there is a longer tradition of applying psychoanalytic concepts and methods, particularly the work of Bion and others.
A psycho-social approach is thoroughly relational. Just as Winnicott once said that there is no such thing as the infant but rather the infant in relation to the mother, so psycho-social studies insists that there is no such thing as the individual or society unless each is studied relationally. Thus object-relations and contemporary north American relational psychoanalysis has become the natural counterpart to this development in the social sciences. Indeed in recent decades psychoanalysis has also become increasingly receptive to understanding the social and relational nature of the human subject and of clinical practice, as evidenced by developments in infant research, attachment theory and research on the inter-generational transmission of trauma. Moreover clinical practice has started to be applied in non-traditional areas, for example to work with refugees and asylum seekers and the development of clinical practice in community settings. Finally, and partly as the result of outside pressure, there has also been a growing interest in the development of research on the psychoanalytic process and its outcomes and the impact of the institutional setting (private, public) on psychoanalytic practice and the psychoanalytic practitioner. In other words, as a body of ideas and practices, psychoanalysis has itself become more permeable, less split-off from research, from the social and natural sciences or from public and social policy.
This then is an opportune moment to launch a series of publications which demonstrate the breadth, and innovation of this new paradigm. The new Karnac series, "Explorations in Psycho-Social Studies", welcomes contributions which approach contemporary social issues, research methodologies and new theories, concepts or forms of clinical practice from this perspective. The first two volumes in this series - Object Relations and Social Relations and Researching Below the Surface - will appear in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
i Frosh, S. (2003) Psychosocial studies and psychology: is a critical approach emerging? Human Relations, 56 (12): 1545-1567
