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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SOCIETY, AND
THE INNER WORLD
Embedded Meaning in Politics and Social Conflict

David P. Levine
First published 2017
by Routledge
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© 2017 David P. Levine

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I

1 Applied psychoanalysis

2 Object relations

PART II

3 Relating and not relating

4 Ambivalence about the self

5 Moral order and moral defense

6 The power of words

PART III

7 Social movements and the method of introspection

8 Hate in groups and the struggle for individual identity

9 Affordable care

10 Truth in politics

Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Matt Bowker for his suggestions on early drafts of
several chapters and Pam Wolfe for her editorial work on the manuscript.
Material in chapters 9 and 10 appeared originally in Organisational and
Social Dynamics 3, 2 (2003) and 15, 1 (2015) edited by Laurence J. Gould
and Paul Hoggett (published by Karnac Books in 2003) and is reprinted
with kind permission of Karnac Books.
INTRODUCTION

In this book, I explore ideas from psychoanalysis that I think are important
in understanding social processes and institutions. These include, in
particular: the idea of a core self (Heinz Kohut and Donald Winnicott), the
idea of an internal object world (Melanie Klein), the ideas of a moral
defense and a closed system (Ronald Fairbairn), the ideas of impingement
and the isolation of the true self (Winnicott), and the idea of the use of
projection as an alternative to thinking (Wilfred Bion). Together, these ideas
offer a framework for understanding how social processes and institutions
establish themselves as part of the individual’s inner world and how
imperatives of the inner world influence the shape of those processes and
institutions. Of equal importance, these ideas can help us understand the
struggles over social institutions and social policy that occupy so much of
public life in the contemporary world. In exploring the contribution
psychoanalytic ideas can make to the study of society, I have found post-
Freudian trends that emphasize the role of the internalization of
relationships as an essential part of the process of building psychic structure
of considerable value. In this book, I attempt to bring out more fully the
potential of these trends for the study of society.
To do so, I begin, in chapter 2, with a discussion of how internalized
relationships are involved with the way we relate to others. I follow up on
this discussion in chapters 3 and 4, where I indicate how relating to others
can be considered not simply an expression of man’s innate natural
endowment, but a developmental achievement. Important trends in
psychoanalysis going back to Freud and continuing into the present (drive
theories, attachment theory, and the application of neurobiology) emphasize
the search for biological foundations. Here, by contrast, I emphasize the
suspension of natural imperative and the developing importance of
subjectivity in establishing the basis for social processes and institutions.
Related to this, in chapter 4, I consider the important matter of not relating
as something made possible by the provision during the development
process of an appropriate environment, including an appropriate experience
of relating.
In chapters 5 and 6, I focus specifically on the nature and consequences
of what I refer to as ambivalence about the self. My main theme is that the
roots of social conflict will be found in ambivalence about the value of the
self. The individual is driven to ambivalence by factors both internal and
external, or, more precisely, by factors that exist simultaneously as part of
the inner world and the world outside. Social institutions may foster
ambivalence about the self or they may not. A main theme of the book is
that distinguishing between institutions on the basis of whether they do or
do not foster ambivalence can shed light on the nature and sources of social
conflict. Institutions that foster ambivalence also foster conflict at a societal
level that mirrors and is mirrored by conflict over the standing of the self in
the inner world.
Ambivalence about the self is rooted in the experience of the self as a
destructive force. In the language of object relations, this experience of the
self as a destructive force is spoken of as its identification with, or
perception as, a “bad object.” Ambivalence about the self has a special
connection with the development of social arrangements around a moral
core and their constitution as a moral order. A moral order is a particular
kind of social arrangement that both fosters ambivalence as the animating
force of the inner world and expresses the prevalence in its members of
ambivalence as the decisive aspect of psychic organization or structure. The
idea of a moral order organized around what Fairbairn refers to as a “moral
defense” is important for understanding destructive forms of endemic
conflict in society. In chapters 9 and 10, I explore some examples of this
connection.
An important implication of the emotional life of the individual as it
develops in a moral order is rejection of reason and thinking in favor of
more primitive mental processes. In chapters 6 and 10, I explore the
important matter of the dominance of these more primitive mental
processes in shaping public life and the way social relations and institutions
assure dominance of primitive mental processes in the psychic lives of
individuals. Of special importance is the stasis associated with the
dominance of these processes, in other words their tendency to block
movement and change and make social processes the site of repetition
rather than creativity.
 In the end, the forces that lead to repetition and reenactment are the true
conservative forces in social institutions and processes. The imperative to
repeat rather than create can be built into social institutions and embedded
in the individual psyche through the shaping of early relationships. When
this is the case, there will be significant resistance to the kinds of change
that free up the individual to shape a life not already determined. In chapter
8, I consider this matter of social change and its relationship to
psychoanalytic methods.
Methodologically, my premise in the book is that psychodynamic
processes and social processes are not two distinct or opposed phenomena,
but two levels on which the same processes work themselves out. This
means that psychodynamic processes do not determine the functioning of
social systems, nor are those processes “socially determined” if by that we
mean governed by factors originating at the macro-social level. Rather
society and the inner world are two sites on which common sets of dynamic
processes express themselves.
Throughout the book, I seek to combine general discussion of ideas with
examples and case studies. I should emphasize that my intent is not to use
the examples and cases as evidence in support of the general propositions,
but as aids to the reader in his or her effort to understand the ideas and to
see more clearly what their implications might be.
PART I
1
APPLIED PSYCHOANALYSIS

When I began my formal study of psychoanalysis, it was not with the

purpose of becoming a clinician, but rather with the expectation that I
would gain valuable insight into phenomena taking place outside the
clinical setting. In brief, I had it in mind to do what is sometimes referred to
as “applied psychoanalysis.” I no longer consider this a helpful way to
speak about the use of psychoanalytic ideas outside the clinical setting.
After all, analysts engaged in clinical work are themselves “applying”
psychoanalytic ideas. As I thought about it, the important distinctions had to
do not with whether psychoanalytic concepts were being “applied” but with
how those concepts were being used. In making distinctions about the way
psychoanalytic concepts are used, the following possibilities now strike me
as important.
The first possibility is that what the individual does in the name of
applied psychoanalysis is simply to use psychoanalytic terms. Thus,
observing generational conflict, we might refer to what we see as, for
instance, oedipal conflict, and we might do so regardless of whether we
have any real knowledge of the inner world of those engaged in what we
refer to in this way. Similarly, we might use the term countertransference to
describe an emotional experience we have in the presence of another person
or while visiting an organization even though we have no real basis for
assessing the origin of the emotional experience or the character of the
transference, if in fact transference is in some significant way implicated.
If countertransference is defined simply as the emotional experience
provoked by the presence of another or by entering into an organizational
setting, we might reasonably ask: why have a special word for this
experience if no additional insight is provided by invoking the word? We
might begin to answer this question if we bear in mind that when
psychoanalytic terms are invoked in this way the intent is not to analyze,
but to label. And labeling has its uses.
 One such use is as a weapon in an emotional (and sometimes political)
struggle against a chosen enemy who, once labeled, has also been
diminished by the negative connotations of the label now attached to him or
her. Another use of psychoanalytic terms as labels is to lend credibility to a
conception of ourselves as people connected to the psychoanalytic
enterprise. There is in this use of words something of the symbolic equation
as described by Hanna Segal in her classic paper (1957). In other words,
there may be the belief that word and thing are synonymous and therefore
saying the word creates the presence of the thing. The confusion of words
with things exemplified in this first way of using psychoanalytic language
suggests that using words has been confused with understanding the
phenomena to which those words are applied. Then, the ability to use words
substitutes for the ability to understand and therefore also for the thinking
process to which the term understanding applies.
Attachment to words may represent attachment to a group, perhaps one
that is considered to have a psychoanalytic expertise. Then, use of words is
meant to indicate expertise whether or not any real expertise has been
gained through a process of learning and development. Words can play a
special role in group life, as when the group is held together by the special
use of words available only to its members. Wilfred Bion draws our
attention to this phenomenon when he considers how joining a group can be
used as an alternative to development (1961: 89).
The second possibility for use of psychoanalytic terms is that the
individual uses psychoanalytic terms to invoke or represent concepts. This
happens when, to continue the example, the term oedipal conflict is used to
refer to a complex, especially unconscious, process resulting from a specific
developmental situation and experience. The presence of intergenerational
conflict is not, then, assumed to be synonymous with oedipal conflict any
more than having an emotional experience stimulated by the presence of
another is assumed, in itself, to indicate that what we experience is an
instance of countertransference.
The use of psychoanalytic concepts as distinguished from the use of
psychoanalytic terms represents a considerable advance. We can see
evidence of movement in the direction of use of concepts when we observe
that the individual is able to convey his or her meaning without the use of
the terms referring to the concepts. In other words, psychoanalytic thinking
is present even when recognizably psychoanalytic terms are not. Indeed,
this is the first indication that meaning results from a thinking process.
Communication indicates that the concept is understood by the individual
using the term when the term is used in such a way as to establish that the
phenomenon to which it is applied has the relevant qualities, and reasons to
think this is the case are offered consistent with the complex connotations
of the concept.
Too great a dependence on technical terms suggests a weak
understanding of concepts. Because of this, the inability to communicate
without technical language can indicate a weak understanding of that
language. This is not to say that use of technical terms ought to be avoided.
Doing so would no doubt be cumbersome and awkward; it might even
undermine the effort to speak rigorously and precisely. Without the use of
technical terms, we would be placed in the position of having to reproduce
the idea to which the term refers every time we wished to use it. The point
is not that we ought to avoid use of technical terms, but that excessive
reliance on them indicates a lack of understanding of the concepts to which
they refer.
The possibility that there might be an application of psychoanalytic
concepts without this excessive dependence on psychoanalytic terms
suggests a third possibility for applying psychoanalysis. I will refer to this
third possibility as the internalization of an idea. Through internalization,
the idea is woven into the individual’s thought process in a way that makes
it inseparable from that process. At this point, the term application becomes
to some degree inappropriate because the individual no longer confronts
phenomena with a tool box of terms and concepts choosing among them
those he or she has reason to believe can be usefully applied to the task at
hand. While there may be something like a tool box of this kind, there is
also something more. This something more is a shaping of the thought
process, indeed the thinking organ, by an integrating idea. This third
possibility is closely linked to the second, but takes it one additional step.
This step involves integrating internal experience, including that experience
we refer to by the term thinking, or thinking about.
For this third alternative to make sense there must be a distinction drawn
between ideas and the simple hypotheses about the world sometimes
equated with them. The term idea used in the way I have used it refers not
to a simple cognitive construct that might be set against reality and
evaluated, but rather to a complex integration of concepts implicit in
thinking and relating. Most importantly, it refers to the integrating principle
that makes the object of the thinking process not to have thoughts but to
integrate them. One way to capture this use of the notion of an integrating
idea is to speak of the development of a capacity. The result of internalizing
an idea is the reshaping of mental processes in a way that enables the
individual to do something he or she would otherwise be unable to do. In
other words, the product of the internalization of an idea is a capability.
To clarify what I have in mind, consider for a moment an example from
another discipline, that of statistics. What makes someone a statistician is
not that he or she knows the steps required, for example, to do a t test on the
assumption that by doing such a test he or she has done statistical analysis.
Rather, a statistician is someone who understands stochastic processes and
can judge what sorts of tests, if any, suit the available data and how suitable
data might be acquired. But, more than this, a statistician knows something
important about the limits of knowledge gained from the analysis of data.
He or she also knows how eager people are to reject the null hypothesis and
embrace the truth of hypotheses that coincide with their beliefs even though
the empirical support is weak. Knowing this, the statistician is able to resist
that temptation because of an internalized ideal that runs counter to it. It
might even be said that a statistician is someone who is reluctant to reject
the null hypothesis not only when doing statistical analysis, but as a basic
way of relating to the world.
Similarly, those who have internalized the psychoanalytic idea
understand how eager people are, themselves included, to externalize
responsibility for their emotional states. Those who have internalized the
psychoanalytic idea understand that the use of psychoanalytic terms
provides no protection against the proclivity to which I have just referred.
They understand that, because of this, self-analysis is an important part of
the process that internalizes a psychoanalytic orientation. It is not, then,
access to technical terms but training in and development of psychoanalytic
habits of mind that offers a measure of protection against the impulse to
externalize responsibility for what originates inside and enhances sensitivity
to the presence of that impulse in others.
What I refer to above as the internalization of an idea can also be
considered the development, or perhaps elaboration, of an interest of a
special kind (Caper 1999: 118). The presence of a psychoanalytic interest
leads the individual to favor that which, to adapt a phrase from Heinz
Kohut, we might refer to as the “method of introspection” (Kohut 1982).
Without the method of introspection, we do not have full access to the inner
world and cannot really come to know it. This is a knowledge that requires
a distinct method of inquiry, which is the method Kohut refers to in the
language of empathy. In the use of this method, the capacity for empathy
plays a special role.
Empathy offers a good example of the distinctions introduced above.
This is because it is clearly possible to use the term (1) without
understanding the concept to which it refers and (2) without having a
sharply tuned capacity for it. When used in the first way, the term
participates in the labeling activity to which I refer above. In some cases,
this labeling is linked to the use of the term to establish a wished-for self
and to make real the fantasy that the individual is attuned to emotional
communication, when this is not in fact the case. The dependence of
empathy on an emotional-cognitive capacity to receive, interpret, and
convey to others an interpretation of emotional communication suggests
that neither the use of the term nor the cognitive understanding of the
concept is enough to establish that the internalization of the idea has taken
place.
In light of what I have said so far, it might be useful to note an important
meeting point between the method of introspection and the discipline of
statistics. Both psychoanalytic interpretation and statistical analysis are
methods designed to free the individual from his or her attachment to a set
of prior assumptions about the world established in an essentially subjective
way. Both seek to free us from the conviction that what we wish were true
is true, what we hope is possible is therefore possible, and what we fear
must be must be. In other words, both seek to enable us to engage with
objects over which we do not exert control of the kind that assures they
behave in ways consistent with our fantasies about them. Thus, both
psychoanalysis and statistical analysis begin with a negative moment, the
moment in which what we already know, want to know, or believe we know
is suspended, though each offers its own distinct method for arriving at this
moment and proceeding from there.
Let me offer a brief example. Some years ago, I found myself in my
office waiting for the scheduled time of a faculty meeting. Because I did not
have much to do, I began, in a casual way, to review an enrollment report.
At the time, my faculty was under the impression that enrollments had been
increasing steadily as interest in our field grew. This was, however, the first
time I had been provided with a time series of relevant data. So, I entered
the data into a computer program and began to produce charts and graphs,
none of which supported the assumed trend in enrollment that had become
an article of faith in my School.
When I put together a brief memo including the results of my informal
analysis of the data, the head of my unit dismissed my effort in a somewhat
hostile way by attacking me for having written a “pessimistic” report. In
response to this, I attempted, as politely as possible, to point out that these
data were a record of the past and that it was not possible to be pessimistic
about the past. Predictably enough, this only increased my unit head’s
hostility. In this case, it is clear enough that rejection of data was a way of
protecting emotionally-invested assumptions about reality and that the
ability to do statistical analysis, even very simple and primitive analysis,
depended on the ability to suspend that emotional investment, in other
words to enter into the negative moment to which I have referred.
In my unit, robust and growing enrollment was taken to be a measure of
the worth of our programs and of those of us delivering them. In other
words, it was an indicator that we had something of value to offer and were
in that sense the locus of the good. At my School, students’ desire to enroll
in our programs was taken as irrefutable evidence that our School was, in
fact, the source of the good things, which presumably students were seeking
when they enrolled. Robust enrollment was the primary quantitative
measure of our wished-for reality, and much effort was expended to assure
that perceptions of actual numbers could be interpreted to conform to that
wished-for reality. Preserving the idea that our enrollment was robust was a
way of preserving our identification with the good. Appeal to reason and
evidence expressed a willingness to cast that identification into doubt.
To take this point a step further, we might consider the possibility that
what is distinctive about the use of psychoanalytic concepts is not only, or
even primarily, their descriptive power with respect to specific phenomena,
but their connection to the development and use of the capacity to arrive at
the negative moment. Here, it needs to be emphasized that the capacity to
arrive at the negative moment is not a matter of deciding to do so, though
such a decision needs to be made. Indeed, to assume that we can simply
decide to relate to objects existing outside the sphere of what in
psychoanalytic language would be referred to as omnipotent control runs