In this book, Bruno Boccara argues that complex and changing psychosocial issues, in particular those related to the societal unconscious, must be assessed and incorporated in public policy analysis through Socio-Analytic Dialogue, a psychosocial approach aimed at understanding and addressing emotional issues surrounding public policies worldwide through empathic dialogue. Taking into account societal level anxieties and defense mechanisms—at both the conscious and unconscious levels—when formulating and implementing policies increases the awareness and understanding of psychosocial issues, and decreases the need, and therefore the likelihood, of societies adopting regressive social defenses. Covering international topics including research from the United States; Tunisia and the Arab spring; discontent and riots in Chile, Israel, and the United Kingdom; and humiliation in Sub-Saharan Africa, the book identifies how country-level psychosocial dynamics impact public policies, and suggests that policies themselves can become social defenses. Two case studies, firstly on the World Bank and foreign aid, and secondly on Bolivia, illustrate how a deep understanding of psychosocial issues can provide new insights on the functioning of organizations (perverse dynamics) and on a country’s policy choices and economic performance. Building upon recent work in sociology and psychoanalysis, the book demonstrates that Socio-Analytic Dialogue has the potential to make a significant contribution to understanding worldwide discontent and anxieties.

Socioanalysis is the study of groups, organisations, and society using a systems psychoanalytic framework: looking beneath the surface (and the obvious) to see the underlying dynamics and how these dynamics are interconnected. This book examines several of the methodologies used in socioanalytic work. Even though the beginnings of socioanalytic investigation lay in the mid-twentieth century, a broad look across several methodologies has not been done before, despite separate publications dealing with particular methods. In addition, several new methods have been developed in recent years, which the present work incorporates. Connecting all these methods is their aim of 'tapping into' the dynamic operation of what the author calls 'the associative unconscious' within and between social systems. The associative unconscious is the unconscious at a systemic level. Each of the methods discussed in this book accesses the associative unconscious in different ways.

This manifesto is motivated by the daunting psychosocial issues that were so strikingly revealed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Of particular interest is the collective denial of facts, which resulted in public health policy mistakes and fostered distrust. In hindsight, this could have been prevented. Boccara shows how the core psychosocial response to the pandemic observed in most countries turned out to be wishing for it to either magically go away, as if it had never happened or be dealt with in an effortless way. Magical thinking and, as a consequence denying reality, often prevailed. As such, the psychosocial dynamics deepened the denial even further as several countries ended-up deciding to “live with the virus”. Yet, deliberately choosing endemicity of the coronavirus may lead to insurmountable challenges. Humanity is, therefore, truly finding itself at a turning point. Boccara argues that successfully facing systemic challenges ahead will require societies to systematically take into account ways in which psychosocial dynamics -particularly those operating at the societal unconscious level- impact public policy and societal level dialogue. By this, we mean understanding how mental representations and fantasies, shared anxieties, and social defenses mobilized against those anxieties impact the society; in other words how nations function as social systems. There has probably never been a more critical time than now for societies worldwide to approach critical decisions from a psychosocial perspective. Failing to do so could lead to psychosocial tipping points whereas the world as whole would increasingly mobilized regressed defenses that would make it impossible for societies to manage such challenges. There comes a time when ideas potentially capable of profoundly changing the world must be brought to the centers of decision making. That time is now upon us.

This book demonstrates how the transforming experience framework (TEF) model can be used in organisational analysis, research, and consulting. It analyses the use of the TEF for examining both theoretical and practical issues in the field of socioanalysis and systems psychodynamics.

The psychoanalytic unconscious is a slippery set of phenomena to pin down. There is not an accepted standard form of research, outside of the clinical practice of psychoanalysis. In this book a number of non-clinical methods for collecting data and analysing it are described. It represents the current situation on the way to an established methodology. The book provides a survey of methods in contemporary use and development. As well as the introductory survey, chapters have been written by researchers who have pioneered recent and effective methods and have extensive experience of those methods. It will serve as a gallery of illustrations from which to make the appropriate choice for a future research project. Methods of Research into the Unconscious: Applying Psychoanalytic Ideas to Social Science will be of great use for those aiming to start projects in the general area of psychoanalytic studies and for those in the human/social sciences who wish to include the unconscious as well as conscious functioning of their subjects.

The Handbook of Research Methods in Organizational Change offers innovative and practical information to aid in the successful implementation of research methodologies. Written by a collective of experienced scholars, it provides inspiration for future academics wishing to advance research into human system changes.

The idea of social dreaming argues that dreams are relevant to the wider social sphere and have a collective resonance that goes beyond the personal narrative. In this fascinating collection, the principles of social dreaming are explored to uncover shared anxieties and prejudices, suggest likely responses, enhance cultural surveys, inform managerial policies and embody community affiliation. Including, for the first time, a coherent epistemology to support the theoretical principles of the field, the book reflects upon and extends the theory and philosophy behind the method, as well as discussing new research in the area, and how social dreaming practice is conducted in a range of localities, situations and circumstances. The book will appeal to anyone interested in the idea that social dreaming can help us to delve deeper into the question of what it means to be human, from psychoanalysts to sociologists and beyond.

The Psychology of Organizations and Workplace Issues: Resolving Everyday Conflicts introduces theories about the psychic life of organizations. It differentiates and clarifies both the objective structural elements and the subjective emotional elements. The objective part involves the conditions emerging from the describable features of the organization. The subjective perspective addresses the often more hidden emotional influences and manifestations in the organization: this will be amplified by what is now termed the psychology and social psychology of organizations. Contributions from leading authors in the field will cover the following themes: the organization in the tension field of psychic life and as a field of emotional experiences, individual and group unconscious, regular and irregular psychological processes and their influence on daily work functions, organization’s environment, specific concepts of the psychology of organizations, organizations and workplace issues, social sciences, and social psychology. This book is written for everyone interested in the field of organizations. It shows how psychological processes occur in organizations and how they cast their influence throughout.

Israelis are bold and visionary, passionate and generous. But they can also be grandiose and self-absorbed. Emerging from the depths of Jewish history and the drama of the Zionist rebellion against it, they have a deeply conflicted identity. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for the collective, but also to sacrifice that very collective for a higher, and likely unattainable, ideal. Resolving these internal conflicts and coming to terms with the trauma of the Holocaust are imperative to Israel's survival as a nation and to the stability of the world. Alon Gratch, a clinical psychologist whose family has lived in Israel for generations, is uniquely positioned to confront these issues. Like the Israeli psyche that Gratch details, The Israeli Mind is both intimate and universal. Intelligent and forthright, compassionate but sometimes maddening, it is an utterly compelling read. Drawing on a broad cultural and historical canvas, and weaving in the author's personal and professional experience, The Israeli Mind presents a provocative, first-hand portrait of the Israeli national character.

Why the free-market system encourages so much trickery even as it creates so much good Ever since Adam Smith, the central teaching of economics has been that free markets provide us with material well-being, as if by an invisible hand. In Phishing for Phools, Nobel Prize–winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller deliver a fundamental challenge to this insight, arguing that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, sellers will systematically exploit our psychological weaknesses and our ignorance through manipulation and deception. Rather than being essentially benign and always creating the greater good, markets are inherently filled with tricks and traps and will "phish" us as "phools." Phishing for Phools therefore strikes a radically new direction in economics, based on the intuitive idea that markets both give and take away. Akerlof and Shiller bring this idea to life through dozens of stories that show how phishing affects everyone, in almost every walk of life. We spend our money up to the limit, and then worry about how to pay the next month's bills. The financial system soars, then crashes. We are attracted, more than we know, by advertising. Our political system is distorted by money. We pay too much for gym memberships, cars, houses, and credit cards. Drug companies ingeniously market pharmaceuticals that do us little good, and sometimes are downright dangerous. Phishing for Phools explores the central role of manipulation and deception in fascinating detail in each of these areas and many more. It thereby explains a paradox: why, at a time when we are better off than ever before in history, all too many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation. At the same time, the book tells stories of individuals who have stood against economic trickery—and how it can be reduced through greater knowledge, reform, and regulation.