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A Note on the Protomental System and "Groupishness": Bion's Basic Assumptions Revisited1 Eric Miller2,3
In identifying the unconscious "basic assumption" behavior of groups, Bion made a significant discovery. Although he toyed with explaining this behavior as instinctive, he ultimately postulated that it was a postnatal defense. However, there is a strong case for the biogenetic explanation. This sharpens our understanding of some group and organizational processes that have been hitherto described in terms of psychoanalytic concepts. It may also have implications for management of, and interventions in, groups and larger systems.
KEY WORDS: group; instinct; groupishness; protomental system; basic assumptions; group culture; group mentality; splitting; projection.
INTRODUCTION
Psychoanalytic theory took a major step forward when Freud realized that attempts to understand neurosis by focusing on study of the individual patient had yielded only limited insight. His fundamental discovery was that the shift of focus to the analyst-patient dyad and to the transaction between the two-the transference and countertransference-could uncover rich material that was held in the patient's unconscious. That dyadic relation was an "intelligible field of study" (Bion, 1961, p. 104).4 As a result, Freud and his successors have given us a much deeper understanding of the processes of human development from infancy onward and of the ways in which they shape our perceptions and relationships as adults. One simple example is the recognition that an individual encountering a new authority figure is unconsciously bringing within him/herself images of earlier authority figures which are superimposed on this new person and will have a significant effect, through the feelings evoked, on the emergent relationship. Such processes of projection are now much more widely recognized.
Psychoanalytic theory has also contributed to our appreciation of the dynamics of groups and larger systems. Freud himself had at an early stage turned his attention to groups (Freud, 1913, 1921). In terms of organizational processes, one of the more influential later examples is the proposition that social systems operate as defenses against persecutory or depressive anxiety, which was put forward by Jaques (1953, 1955) [though he much later withdrew it (Jaques, 1995, see below)] and built on by Menzies (1959) and others. But probably the most significant original insights into group behavior came from Bion (1948-51, 1952, 1961)....