Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewBruno Boccara has written what just may become a bible for mankind’s survival in this time of worldwide epidemic of suicidal misgovernance. Using tools and language derived from psychoanalysis, he has developed a discipline of Socio-Analytic understanding of national and international large-group unconscious behavior, social defenses and misunderstandings that threaten mankind’s existence. These disastrous adaptations derive from nationally shared deep-structure anxieties that promote short-sighted and narcissistic attempts at solutions to problems. Since these problems -- for instance the Covid pandemic or rampant nationalistic armed conflict -- threaten the wellbeing of many countries and of the world itself, these misguided attempts to counter shared anxieties have far-reaching destructive effects. Boccara proposes a new and creative way of understanding and intervening in these situations that offers hope in a time of crisis about humanity’s very survival.
-- David E. Scharff, M.D., Winner, The 2021 Mary Sigourney Award for the Promotion of Psychoanalysis
Dr. Boccara’s seminal work on socio analytic dialogue is an essential survival tool for our polarized world, mired in chaos. Hopefully it will be both read and applied by those in power but also by all of us, whose current cultural and socio-social reactions need significant modification if we as a species are to survive.
-- Guillermo Calvo-Mahe, Universidad Autónoma de Manizales in the Republic of Colombia
There was no global solidarity in dealing with Covid-19 and its variants. This book reminds us of the importance of and the necessity to incorporate psychosocial and systems dynamics into public policies and dialogue between various ethnic, national, religious and ideological large groups. Shared societal fantasies, anxieties and unconscious defenses need to be understood to shape a positive outcome for the existing complex psychosocial conditions but also to deal with issues we will face in the aftermath of the pandemic. As this book goes to press the war in Ukraine makes the reading of the author’s important observations and suggestions most timely for anyone, including individuals who are in positions to take actions for a better world.
-- Vamik Volkan, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, University of Virginia
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1: And Suddenly, The Future Got Cancelled
Chapter 2: Socio-Analytic Dialogue Time of a Pandemic
Chapter 3: From Psychosocial Extinction to Psychosocial Renewal
Chapter 4: Socio-Analytic Dialogue to the Rescue
Chapter 5: If Not Now, When? If Not You, Who?
Postscript: Socio-Analytic Dialogue and the Taliban
Appendix: Main Theoretical Notions Underpinning Socio-Analytic Dialogue
Bibliography
About the Author
