Emotional Axes of Group Life

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Brian Ngo-Smith returns for the second half of our miniseries on projective identification! In this episode, Abby, Patrick, and Brian pivot from the difficult terrain of theorizing projective identification in terms of individual development and abstract mental mechanisms to the much more tangible – and dramatic – manifestations of projective identification in group behavior. Indeed, as the three explore, thinking about projective identification in the interpersonal rather than intrapsychic domain is incredibly clarifying for understanding how groups come together, encourage various roles for their members, experience friction, manifest antagonisms, and otherwise function (or break down) in the real world. Building from two-person dyads to small groups to large collectivities, Brian, Abby, and Patrick apply the concept of projective identification at scale, thinking about everything from psychotherapy and marriage to classrooms and family businesses to giant corporations and politics at the national level and beyond. From “role suction” to scapegoating to Bion’s threefold model of group types and more, the three unpack some essential – and highly portable – terms, and work through how the idea of projective identification can help re-frame broader, longstanding questions about interpellation, leadership, solidarity, and more. They conclude with an extended consideration of the contemporary landscape of American mass incarceration, homelessness, and precarity, unpacking how the all-too-personal aspects of projective identification manifest in tandem with the operation of ostensibly impersonal histories, institutions, and policies to generate suffering, perpetuate inequality, and normalize logics of enactment, blame, trauma, indifference, and more.

More about Brian Ngo-Smith at https://ngosmiththerapy.com/ and https://ngosmithconsulting.com

Part I: https://ordinaryunhappiness.buzzsprout.com/2131830/episodes/18416396-127-projective-identification-part-i-feat-brian-ngo-smith

Our previous episode with Brian, “Hate, Help, and Housing: Psychoanalysis and Social Work”: https://ordinaryunhappiness.buzzsprout.com/2131830/episodes/14213981-36-hate-help-and-housing-psychoanalysis-and-social-work-feat-brian-ngo-smith