George Bermúdez Towards a Socio-centric Psychoanalysis Contributing to Deliberative Democracy: Social Dreaming, Community Psychoanalysis, and Reflective Citizenship

Towards a Socio-centric Psychoanalysis Contributing to Deliberative Democracy: Social Dreaming, Community Psychoanalysis, and Reflective Citizenship George BERMÚDEZ

[D]emocratic work…requires the creation and activation of potential spaces in which inclusive, dialogic encounters across entrenched lines of difference might take place. The inclusiveness of these processes not only fulfills democratic norms of respect but is a psychological necessity. …interaction and cooperation across lines of discord…are less occasions for social unity or political consensus and more opportunities for individuals and groups to mirror viable otherness and solicit a viable rearrangement of spaces that have caused and continue to perpetuate patterns of misrecognition. (McIvor, 2016, p.121)

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. Albert Einstein

My core thesis, threading through several publications (Bermúdez, 2018, 2019; Bermúdez & Kramer, 2016) is that if contemporary psychoanalysis aspires to contribute to addressing our socio-political and ecological challenges, we must develop an enlarged repertoire of theory and practice. My project aligns with the distinguished Harvard Law School Professor, Lawrence Lessig (Lessig, 2019), who has eloquently and creatively argued that repairing our dysfunctional democratic project is the “first problem” that must be fixed if there is to be any hope in effectively addressing all the other problems. I’ve developed the conviction that unless we co-create democratic processes and structures that authentically facilitate a citizenship that is engaged, informed, imaginatively deliberating together about the existential challenges we face, and having a meaningful impact on political decision-making, we will remain stuck in systemic dysfunction. However, I do believe that psychoanalysis has, over the course of its long history and multiple streams, generated both theory and practice that hold great promise for a socio-political contribution (Danto, 2005). In the next sections, I will outline some pieces of an emergent socio-centric psychoanalysis and suggest an emergent path forward.

In the words of psychoanalyst Francisco Gonzalez (2016), who advocates as I do for a new, more expansive and inclusive paradigm, a “community psychoanalysis”: “The established order has been wracked by tectonic forces—globalization, convulsive capitalism, climate change, unprecedented migrations, technological accelerations.” In a keynote speech (2019, Division of Psychoanalysis Conference, American Psychological Association), Dr. Gonzalez expanded his vision and articulated a call, in response to our global crises (moral, socio-political, and environmental), for social justice, advocacy, and community building, which would mean a radically transformative socio-centric turn and application of psychoanalytic principles.

The community psychoanalysis paradigm proposes a path toward the dismantling of disciplinary and communal walls. Can it be the future of psychoanalysis, as Twemlow and Parens (2006) rhetorically inquired in their seminal article? I suggest that the paradigm may be the integrative path forward with which psychoanalysis can contribute robustly to multidisciplinary strategies to addressing the multivalent “wicked problems” (Kreuter et al., 2004), which are challenging our regional, national, and global communities.

Wicked problems have no definitive formulation: these are problems that, in a seemingly infinite regress, are symptoms of other problems; problems that involve multiple stakeholders, who like the proverbial blind men and the elephant have divergent and often incommensurable perceptions of the problem and its causes; problems that generate attempted solutions, which in turn generate unintended consequences and new problems; problems with no objective right or wrong, requiring reliance on human judgment, subjectivity, and collective wisdom.

I propose in this paper something—a conceptualization and a potential practice— that seems to me both obvious and radical; it seems obvious to my sensibility as a community psychoanalyst but radical as an American citizen who remains psychologically influenced by the normative “psycho-phobia” (Bollas, 2018) and cynicism of our culture. I’m afraid that these ideas may be judged too idealistic, naïve, and even preposterous. Like a novelist who discovers that his or her characters have taken on a life of their own, with the narrative evolving in unimagined and incomprehensible directions, I have discovered that my theoretical and practice interests are emerging, converging, and concretizing in previously unimagined directions.

I suggest a path that borrows from and integrates several disciplinary streams. Integrating elements from the social dreaming matrix (Lawrence, 2000, 2003; Manley, 2014) and its application to “reflective citizenship” (Mojovic, 2020); from community psychoanalysis (Gonzalez & Peltz, 2021; Twemlow et al., 2005; Twemlow & Parens, 2006); from “whole systems change interventions” (Bermúdez, 2019; Owen, 1997; Weisbord & Janoff, 1995); and, finally, the political science literature and experiments with “deliberative democracy” (Dryzek, 2010; Fishkin, 2018; Fishkin et al., 2021; Mansbridge & Parkinson, 2012). I believe that the social dreaming matrix, which provides access to the “social unconscious” (Hopper, 1996; Weinberg & Hopper, 2011) and “unconscious citizenship” (Fromm, 2017), as well as potential containment (Bermúdez, 2018; Bion, 1961) and healing of culturally imposed trauma (Holmes, 2016), should be at the heart of our search for solutions to our multi-valent wicked problems, which include our climate crisis. However, as Lessig (2019) avers, restoring democratic processes is the first problem— because it is the foundation for solving all of our multi-valent problems. I believe social dreaming and community psychoanalysis have enormous potential to contribute to the development of deliberative democracy, a process of civic engagement that promotes authentic democracy, facilitates generative and inclusive solutions, and reduces socio-political polarization (Fishkin et al., 2021).

What is Deliberative Democracy? An Introduction

Although not a cure-all for the multiplicity of challenges inherent in democratic governance, many political theorists argue that developing deliberative principles and practices can revitalize our democracy by engaging and informing citizens. Despite the often-heard cynical, anti-political attitudes, citizens yearn for more influence. In the words of one distinguished political scientist:

Everyone I meet believes in the need for some kind of political system, but they have grown frustrated or despondent with the existing model. They are, therefore, not “anti-political” but actually “pro-a-differentform-of-politics”. They want to “do” politics differently. …deliberative processes will not deliver eas y or painfree solutions to complex social or political challenges for the simple reason that easy or pain-free solutions do not exist. And yet injecting the people’s

verdict through…planned and adequately resourced deliberative mechanisms will undoubtedly strengthen the decision-making process in terms of legitimacy and may produce fresh and innovative ideas. (Flinders, as cited in Chwalisz, 2017, p.xi).

Focus on deliberative democracy surfaced in the 1980s among political scientists and political philosophers (Bessette, 1980; Dahl, 1982, 1989; Mansbridge, 1980). From those early beginnings, deliberative democracy developed in three stages (Mansbridge & Parkinson, 2012): at first, the ideal principles of deliberative democracy were outlined; this was followed by extensive experimentation in a variety of settings and countries (Chwalisz, 2017); finally, a third stage focused on addressing the challenges of self-interest and power in national and international politics (Barvosa, 2018; Dryzek & Stevenson, 2011; Mansbridge & Parkinson, 2012).

Although there are a variety of models, the prototypical deliberative democracy process involves the following steps:

1. A large, randomly selected representative sample (300-400) of the population is invited to deliberate on a specific issue. The group will include all demographic identities and political affiliations to represent a broad spectrum of perspectives. The goal is to have a truly representative microcosm of all social viewpoints on an issue.

2.Participants are provided balanced background information and the pros and cons on an issue.

3.The large group is sub-divided into smaller groups of 15. These small group deliberations are facilitated with an eye toward balanced participation, with no domination allowed based on gender, educational, or economic status. The process of deliberation occurs over a substantial period of months, sometimes years.

4.There are plenary sessions in which the mini-assembly addresses questions (written and spoken) to a balanced panel of competing experts.

5.The final decisions (the “considered judgments”) provided by the participants are recorded in a “confidential” questionnaire. Bulgaria, Mongolia, Hungary, Britain, the United States, and the entire European Union. The most recent example facilitated in the United States with a large representative sample of Americans (“America in One Room”; Fishkin et al., 2021) demonstrated that the deliberative democracy process reduces political polarization! There are a variety of deliberation approaches; some offer advisement to legislators, some provide binding decisions for legislatures, and other models place more emphasis on the consensual development and execution of collaborative action (Nabatchi et al., 2012). I will discuss later in the paper a widely used and effective example of the last collaborative action approach, “Future Search” (Weisbord & Janoff, 1995).

I am suggesting that the principles and practices of deliberative citizenship and democracy, in dialogue with the social unconscious (Hopper, 1996; Weinberg & Hopper, 2011), seem to have great promise in addressing our core first problem (Lessig, 2019)— the co-creation of authentic democracy.

The Community Psychoanalysis Paradigm

A potential partner in the construction of a psychoanalytically informed deliberative democracy process is the emergence in American psychoanalysis of community psychoanalysis, which proposes to partner with other disciplines and communities to promote ethical, engaged citizenship; integral leadership; and communal deliberation. In an article in the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry (Bermúdez, 2019), I summarized the work of Stuart Twemlow (2018) and his collaborators (Rudden & Twemlow, 2013; Twemlow & Parens, 2006), who originated the contemporary community psychoanalysis paradigm, and I go on to suggest the expansion of that paradigm by the integration of three potentially generative models for communal psychoanalytic practice: the social dreaming matrix, open space dialogues, and Future Search/Discovery. The article also outlines implications for psychoanalytic institutes’ organizational structure, dynamics, and the democratic co-creation of future psychoanalytic training. In this last regard, I’m inspired by Kohut’s concepts of the “group self” and his suggestion (Kohut, 1976) that psychoanalysts could contribute to understanding and resolution of larger social and political challenges by studying the group and socio-political dynamics of psychoanalysis itself.

Introduction to Social Dreaming: A brief History and Description

[D]ream-life matters—it matters both for the individual and for our shared political lives. These uncanny mental events are vehicles for otherwise unthinkable thoughts and a wellspring for the freedom of speech. Dreaming is an indispensable species of psychological work that can help transfigure the force of a harsh reality. …disclosing these events can become a political exercise that carries great force. In our own dark times, attending to this alternative form of thinking may just help us live through, resist, and ultimately transfigure our shared social and political landscapes …(Sliwinski, 2017)

Gordon Lawrence (Lawrence & Daniel, 1982), unhappy with the intrapsychic approach of Kleinian psychoanalysis, devised a dream group process composed of a group of participants who shared dreams and associations to those dreams, relying on the working hypothesis that the shared dreams reflected an unconscious cultural product, a social unconscious (Hopper, 1996; Hopper & Weinberg, 2017) comprised of dissociated social, political, and cultural experiences. In developing the radical paradigm of social dreaming and the social dreaming matrix (SDM), Lawrence (2003) was deeply influenced by Charlotte Beradt’s (1968) The Third Reich of Dreams. In her book, Beradt, a German journalist, recounts the dreams of ordinary German citizens she had collected during the period from 1933 to 1939—dreams reflecting their intuitive, dissociated, unconscious knowledge and foreknowledge of the Nazi regime’s intentions and the early unconscious traumatizing of the German psyche (Manley, 2014)].

There are several principles that guide the SDM:

l the dreams generated in the intersubjective field of the SDM are metaphors for unconscious, disavowed, dissociated cultural and community experience—the unconscious of the group self, a concept proposed by Kohut (1976);

l the dreams in SDM are the shared property of the dreaming community; focus must be on the dream, not the dreamer, which facilitates development of a safe mental space;

l ascertaining dream meaning collectively should be approached with the attitude of developing working hypotheses about the unfolding social unconscious being expressed in the matrix through dreams and associations;

l the social dreaming matrix and reflection engages with the “generative unconscious” (Lawrence, 2007; Newirth, 2003), promoting new ideas and thinking at individual, organizational, and community levels.

Social Dreaming as a Path to an Enhanced and Proactive Social and Moral Imagination

Freud (1930/1961), in his essay “Civilization and its Discontents,” seems to be expressing a sense of futility at being able to respond therapeutically to “culturally imposed trauma” (Holmes, 2016):

No matter how much we may shrink with horror from certain situations…of a victim of the Holy Inquisition, of a Jew awaiting a pogrom—it is nevertheless impossible for us to feel our way into such people … Moreover, in the most extreme possibility of suffering, special mental protective devices are brought into operation. It seems to me unprofitable to pursue this aspect of the problem any further. (Freud, 1930/1961, p.89)

I suggest social dreaming may provide the requisite collective response to social trauma. It serves a collective witnessing and sense-making function that is a group version of Bion’s “alpha function” and containment. In a previous publication (Bermúdez, 2018), I articulated the following:

[S]ocial dreaming is an emancipatory practice, representing a socially engaged group approach. Its practice is a form of social and “moral witnessing” (Boulanger, 2012; Margalit, 2002; Ullman, 2006, 2011), urging all dreamers and SDM participants to provide testimony to collectively and collusively dissociated human suffering and inviting participants to an “active commitment to social justice and human rights” (Boulanger, 2012). Stern (2012) has suggested that an internal witness is necessary for the mind to distinguish between past trauma and present reality; my view, influenced by Bion (1961), is that more than one mind is needed as witness to process “culturally imposed trauma” (Holmes, 2016). (Bermúdez, 2018)

Furthermore, I have proposed that social dreaming can be and should be included in the repertoire of community psychoanalysis (Bermúdez, 2019), applied to processing our eco-anxiety and discovering collective solutions to our climate crisis (Bermúdez, 2021), and becoming a generative contributor to the process of democratic deliberation. There is a tradition of political scientists applying insights from psychoanalysis into political theory and practice (McAfee, 2019; McIvor, 2016). For example, Glad (1969), in a review of Charlotte Beradt’s The Third Reich of Dreams (1968), suggested that “.… the work provides some very significant data for the political scientist. …further insight may be developed into the very central and too often ignored unconscious processes which tie rulers to rules in a variety of political circumstances” (p.546).

Social dreaming may serve in a national mourning process, as outlined by political scientist David McIvor (2016), who applies Klein’s developmental theory to our politics. McIvor suggests that the nation remains mired in a paranoid-schizoid position— unable to proceed to the depressive position. McIvor’s conception of a nation in need of mourning inspired me to propose a social dreaming matrix focused on “Revolutionary Mourning,” which may provide a pathway to collective mourning. Many of our contemporary political conflicts can be viewed as social groups contending for recognition of their historical traumas and losses, which have not been fully mourned.

The inclusion of reflection and dialogue in relationship to the social unconscious may provide access to the range of unconscious emotions organizing conscious reactions to the issues as well as generating new ideas and empathic understanding, as suggested by Hannon (2019).

Toward Deliberative Democracy: Social Dreaming and Reflective Citizenship

Dr. Marina Mojovic, a Serbian psychiatrist and group analyst, has pioneered a large group dialogue focused on unconscious citizenship (Fromm, 2017; Mojovic, 2020). The social dreaming matrix plays a central role in these extraordinary events. Entitled the International Reflective Citizens Community (IRC), it typically brings together over 100 participants representing 25 countries. The organizing principle is that the social dreaming matrix and dialogue/reflection will generate manifest and latent themes related to unconscious citizenship (Fromm, 2017). In addition, there is an “application” segment in which participants reflect and share how they imagine applying the emergent insights from the social unconscious (Hopper, 1996) to their specific home city, region, or country. One example of realized application is the use of the Reflective Citizens model to address the specific regional challenges regarding public health in Serbian villages (Mojovic, 2020). Another example of application has been the creation of a monthly “Reflective Citizens Group: A Conversation on Race” by The Group Analytic Practice of Dallas.

Inspired by the IRC approach to making conscious the impact of citizenship (the dilemmas, the wounds, the traumas, the strains—the despair and the joy), I’ve begun to experiment with integrating an SDM with a whole systems change process, “Open Space Technology” (Owen, 1997). I designed and facilitated virtual workshops at two professional conferences, the (2021) annual symposium of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA), “Social Dreaming: A Generative Pathway to Reflective Citizenship” and the 2022 Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (ISPSO). The Zoom video conference platform has a “breakout room” function that allows self-organizing small discussion groups to deepen reflection and linkage between the discerned dream themes. This simple technique generates an interactive process that replicates the hyper-connectivity of the dreaming mind and the inter-subjectively linked dreams of the SDM. The permeability and cross-fertilization foster a synergistic emergence of new associations, insights, and applications—what I’ve termed the “forward edge of the group self’s development” (Bermúdez, 2018) and what Gordon Lawrence called “new thoughts” (Lawrence, 2003; Manley, 2014).

Encouraged by the online Social Dreaming-Open Space integration, I am now imagining a process which links up more rigorously with the deliberative democracy framework—more actively promoting wide-spectrum citizen deliberation to foster communal decision-making and collaborative projects. This is where I believe integrating elements from Open Space, Future Search (FS), and deliberative democracy (DD) will be extremely productive. From both FS and DD, we borrow the process of curating representation so the “whole system is in the room,” thus populating a space with the spectrum of perspectives and social roles.

The ideal “whole deliberative system in the room” will have representation from a wide spectrum of perspectives and social roles. Ackerman and Fishkin (2004) have proposed a “Deliberation Day” for citizens (“DDay”, declared an official holiday with citizens paid for participating), during which the technique of “deliberative polling” would be used (Fishkin, 2018). Initially, their concept involved the assembling of citizens at multiple community “DDay” sites, but Fishkin has more recently proposed online deliberative polling (Fishkin, 2020)—which would create the possibility of a “deliberative society,” widening the impact of deliberation from a microcosm of mini-publics to a fully participatory macrocosm of deliberative democracy.

Influenced by the progressive and research-based proposal for a Deliberation Day (Ackerman & Fishkin, 2004), I’ve proposed (Bermúdez, 2019, 2021) a deliberative process organized on the principles of Future Search (Weisbord & Janoff, 1995), a widely used model for deliberation (Nabatchi et al., 2012) that facilitates the co-creation of common ground among citizens.

Future Search (Weisbord & Janoff, 1995), which I’ve described more fully in a previous publication (Bermúdez, 2019), allows for the orchestrated inclusion of representative stakeholders, the insertion of social dreaming matrices at several points in the overarching process, and facilitated large and small group dialogues. It is a “whole system” deliberation process that features all the core principles and processes of deliberative democracy: l a focus on a topic that requires community decision-making; l a representative group of stakeholders is assembled to deliberate; l the process includes both large and small group deliberation; l the deliberation process facilitates a dialogue with experts; l skillful facilitation so that all voices are heard; l concrete and specific outcomes.

However, FS has a unique deliberation process that fosters collaborative action. Future Search has the uncovering of common ground as its primary task, so the system develops concrete and specific action steps in the service of an imagined and co-created communal future. Future Search has five stages, an unfolding process over several days similar to the psychoanalytic goals of establishing continuity with the past, grasping how it influences present and future, and linking past and present. Also, most importantly, creatively and proactively constructing the newly imagined productive future.

The five phases of the Future Search deliberation are:

1. Discovery of the Past. Small and large group discussions focus on the pasts of the individual and communal self. Participants respond to the question, “Who were we 10, 20, 30 years ago?” at three levels (individual, community, and global contexts), developing a shared community narrative, which includes historic traumatogenic events needing to be metabolized.

2. Discovery of the Present. Small and large group discussions focus on co-constructing a collective “mind map” of the contemporary “external world’—events, trends, and potentially traumatogenic shocks—and self-reflectively assessing how they are coping with that world.

3. Discovery of the Future. Small and large group discussions focus on imagining a future for the community and creatively presenting that imagined future to the whole system, using visual, action, or symbolic/narrative means.

4. Discovery of Common Ground.

The whole system dialogues and collaboratively discerns the “common ground” that has emerged from the community’s unformulated social unconscious.

5. Discovery of Future Action.

Participants self-organize into small groups who commit to developing concrete and specific action steps based on the “common ground” future.

Social dreaming matrices (45-60 minutes) could be hosted at the beginning of each phase or selectively at transitional phases 2 (“Discovery of the Present”) and 3 (“Discovery of the Future”), for example.

In summary, I am imagining the equivalent of a psychoanalytic “moonshot”—a socio-centric systems psychoanalysis that contributes to the evolution of an authentic deliberative democracy—a syncretic synthesis of social dreaming, community psychoanalysis, and reflective citizenship that cultivates a deliberative democracy with reflective and engaged citizens. z

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