ABSTRACT

Psychoanalysis is a method of change centered on a certain kind of introspection. This chapter considers social movement’s more or less well-organized groups that seek to mobilize, and to an important degree create, a shared identity around an idea about the causes for their feelings of deprivation and what must be done to remedy or at least alleviate those feelings. Social movements organized around shame are involved with the matter of recognition. Social movements can be said to exist simultaneously with what Bion would call work groups and basic assumption groups. Refusal to acknowledge that the past cannot be changed plays a vital role in social movements and in their own unconscious resistance to change. Social movements tie their members to the group and to group-oriented ways of thinking. At the same time, they are special kinds of groups that are dedicated to freeing their members from group identification so they can enjoy the universal rights and opportunities of citizenship.