Psychoanalysis, Socioanalysis, and Social Work: Psychodynamic Contributions to Understanding Diversity, Power, and Institutions in Social Work Practice

Abstract

Understanding and supporting a person-in-environment (PIE) have been a center for social work practice (Kondrat, 2013). Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic approaches have contributed to our understanding of intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics in clinical social work practice,mostly in the realms of “the person” and the “environment,” of maternal functions, and family and group dynamics. Several scholars apply psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches to expand the scope of “environment” into the social issues (e.g., racism) and conflicts (e.g., hate crime and after-war reconciliation) on community, national, and international levels (Hirvoner, 2017; Rasmussen & Salhani, 2010; Zevnik, 2017). In this special issue, we like to align with this scholarship and further expand its scope to various levels of governing institutions (e.g., social work profession, media, schools, governments and laws), especially how psychodynamic approaches help social workers better understand diversity, power, and the working of the institutions in serving clients. Invigorating the “social” environment in social work from psychoanalysis and psychodynamic approaches, we draw from scholarships in socio-analysis. In a book titled On Socio-Analysis, Bain (1999) offered the definition of socioanalysis by drawing from Bion’s (1970) construct of “container and contained” which was originally used to explore phenomena in psychoanalysis but later used to explore group and institutional phenomena. Bain refers to socio-analysis as “the transformation process, or co-evolution, that occurs between organizational container and contained during socio-analytic consultancy” which can be used as “a measure of organizational learning” (p. 3).He further offers how this socio-analysis can be used in four senses as: (1) socio-analytic ideas and theory (a container for the practice of socio-analysis, and thinking socio-analytic thoughts), (2) design and methodology (for an exploration, e.g., for consultancy and action research, for studying small group behavior), (3) the institution (as a container for encouraging, and carrying out socio-analytic work), and (4) the individual (as a container for the