Abstract
107 1 Director, Child and Family Specialization, Clinical Psychology Department, Antioch University Los Angeles. Correspondence should be addressed to George Bermudez, PhD, Antioch University Los Angeles, 400 Corporate Pointe, Culver City, CA 90230. E-mail: gbermudez@antioch.edu. This article describes and summarizes exploration of the unconscious group self (a self psychological–like configuration proposed by Heinz Kohut for group-level phenomena) by applying social dreaming (SDM), a group dreamwork practice developed by the neo-Bionian psychoanalyst Gordon Lawrence. A brief overview of the scant literature on the group self concept and social dreaming is provided, followed by a summary of several applications (SDMs on American xenophobia and Whiteness) with a focus on the creation of a communal home for witnessing, bearing, and integrating the dissociated affect related to collective trauma. In addition to the illuminating application of the group self concept, three other group self psychology concepts are proposed and defined: group self state dreams; the forward-edge function of social dreaming; and social dream moral witnessing, which promotes the emergence of a communal home for collective trauma.
Published Version
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