ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part argues that group analysts can complete the psychoanalytical structure of a theory of mind by adding a genuine social function that develops from an inherited biological base. It deals with a clear statement of the conceptual tools provided by systems-centred training and interpersonal neurobiology. In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, S. Freud wrote that, from the very first, individual psychology is at the same time social psychology as well: all intrapsychic object relationships can be considered as social phenomena. Social images of the self come about when the person recognizes himself or herself in the various social formations, as in so many mirrors. The basis of the social is the interaction–mutual, reciprocal and complementary. Group analysts ways of understanding the social unconscious may themselves be a product of it.
