Alienation, Conscious and Unconscious

R. D. Hinshelwood is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He had a long interest in alternative psychiatry and worked as a part-time Consultant Psychotherapist in the National Health Service whilst also running a private practice as a psychoanalyst for more than forty years. Subsequently he became professor in the Centre For Psychoanalytic Studies at Essex University (now the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies), and is now Professor Emeritus. He has written widely on psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts, as well as comparative psychoanalytic research, the psychodynamics of institutions, and a number of political topics (that make up the contents of this current volume). Giuseppe Caruso is a psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He works in private practice in London. As a social theorist he has published widely on global justice movements and cosmopolitanism and, more recently, integrating psychoanalytic insights to explore emotional cycles and leadership in groups. His earlier research involved ethnographic fieldwork with the Shipibo-Konibo people in Peru, leading to a monograph about their traditional medical practices.

‘Drawing on decades of explorations of the interface between the social, the political, and the unconscious, R. D. Hinshelwood, a prolific writer, examines some important topics. These include the idealisation of democracy and how this idealisation inevitably leads to disappointments and grievances. Hinshelwood convincingly shows how disappointment in one’s own self can be unconsciously projected and dumped into other racial groups. He also shows how unconscious difficulties with sustaining uncertainty can lead to the prevailing attraction to conspiracy theories. These kinds of insights are crucial to understanding the rise of contemporary populism and fascism. Hinshelwood's conversations on these various topics with Giuseppe Caruso, an anthropologist, a social theorist, and a psychoanalyst, add depth and richness to this important book.’

• AcknowledgementsAbout the authorsAbstracts of the papersIntroduction: A preliminary discussionPart I: Setting out the psychosocial divide1. Marxist and psychoanalytic alienationsPaper 1. Projective identification and Marx’s concept of man (1983)2. Seeking the synthesisPaper 2. Convergences with psychoanalysis (1996)Discussion of Part I Part II: Individual psychology with its interpersonal dimensions3. Affect flowPaper 3. The individual and the influence of social settings (2005)4. Fluid identitiesPaper 4. Social possession of identity (1988)5. Stability or annihilationPaper 5. Psychological defences and nuclear war (2002)Discussion of Part IIPart III: The sociopolitical penetrated by the mental6. Tracking down ideologyPaper 6. Ideology and identity (2009)7. Socially stabilising identityPaper 7. Intolerance and the intolerable: The case of racism (2007)8. Belonging and identifyingPaper 8. The function of symbol-formation: Pinning down the ego function (2020)Discussion of Part IIIPart IV: How do we “take action”?9. Is reflection an action?Paper 9, Reflection or action: And never the twain shall meet (2017)10. Democracy weaponisedPaper 10. The disappointment of democracy (2021)11. The inexistence of debatePaper 11. Political action, psychoanalytic action (2023)Discussion of Part IVConclusionIndex