Towards a Psychoanalytic Concept of Community (I): Consideration of Current Concepts

Abstract

Abstract “Community” is a word that is used frequently in everyday exchanges and, increasingly, in public policies and government funding strategies. Mental health promotion campaigns strongly promote “community‐focused” initiatives. The predominant discourse on the topic of “community” has been from socio‐political perspectives. Very little has been written specifically about the nature of communities, or their psychodynamics, from a psychoanalytic perspective. This paper, the first of three, considers three major conceptualizations of communities – philosophical, sociological and ecological – from a psychoanalytic perspective. Within this paradigm, a community, unless arbitrarily defined, is as much a subjective notion as it is an objective entity. Psychoanalysis has much to add to the current thinking on this subject by adding a description of its dynamic qualities, and highlighting the subjective experience (both individual and collective, conscious and unconscious) of communities. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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