Survival has been a preoccupation since the beginning of civilization, taking different forms in the evolution of time. This chapter poses the question of survival in the twenty-first century as a framework within which to consider the potential of group analysis to make a contribution in the continuing century. While physical survival is likely, given the overall positive thrust of civilization, this is less true of ‘life as we know it’, including our changing social configurations. It is suggested that the quality and speed of change, in technological, environmental and social spheres, is of such an order that some revision of group analytic theory is necessary, including the need for a more robust understanding of anxiety about ‘real’ group and social processes as opposed to virtual connections through the Internet. This may include a greater awareness of the anti-group and its manifestations at different levels. At the same time, the group analytic emphasis on human connection and dialogue in groups is a valuable medium through which to uphold the value of direct relationships and communication and to counterbalance the increasing drift towards the virtual world of the Internet. These are vast themes to which I can do scant justice in a brief chapter but I present some preliminary thoughts.
The individual is permeated to the core by the colossal forces of society. This belief, formulated by S. H. Foulkes, the founder of group analysis, distinguishes group analysis from most other psychotherapies by its emphasis on the social as a primary force in individual development. At its most committed, it states not simply that social factors are important and influential but that all that is human, including paradoxically the individuality of individuals, is a reflection of the pervasive impact of social processes (Stacey 2003). That group analysis as a methodology was born at the Northfield Experiment, in the throes of World War II, is itself significant, given the profound impact of war on society (Harrison 2000). Subsequent to this, however, Foulkes himself did not pay much attention in his writing to wider social processes. Once group analysis was established on firmer footing in the UK, the focus became more directly clinical, with theory and practice development emerging in the setting of group psychotherapy. Later group analysts, such as Dalal (1998) and Stacey (2003), have focused more directly on the social, both recognizing and challenging group analysis as a foundational theory, but not confronting the overall and profound tide of cultural and social change that is a feature of the twenty-first century.
In this chapter I explore the social and technological changes that are presently occurring in society at a time of rapid transformation and that augur a future world that looks very different from anything we have previously known. To what extent is group analysis able to address these changes from within the existing theory? Since in principle all that we are is constructed within the social domain, this would presuppose that our theories are also affected by social change. A theory that is relevant in one era may not be relevant in another. An example is Freudian theory that had to undergo considerable revision in the face of social change over the twentieth century and that was required to respond to challenges about its relevance and viability in an altered social and psychotherapeutic universe. As we know, the ‘modernization’ of psychoanalysis has been controversial, some would argue unsatisfactory, and there are important questions about the survival and continuity of psychoanalysis in the emerging culture, with differing viewpoints on the issue (Chessick 2007). I suggest that we face a similar question about the future of group analysis and whether in its present form it can accommodate the significant social change that we see all around us. Further, what does group analysis have to offer in a positive sense to a developing social world that promises to redraw many personal and institutional boundaries?
Much of what I say will be familiar, since most of the changes I am describing are already part of our lives. We must all be aware of the speed and turbulence of change in many areas of our lives. The points I will make about subjects such as environmental change, globalization, technological advancement, crises of leadership and authority and so on, will come as no surprise. Equally, the overall framework within which I consider these changes will be familiar, since the question of survival has been uppermost in the minds of environmentalists and other commentators on the state of the world for many decades (Weintrobe 2013). In parallel to the universal anxieties about survival there have been increasing concerns about whether psychotherapy in general in its present form/s will survive into the future of this century (Norcross et al. 2007; Burch and Campbell 2013). So, my territory will be familiar, except perhaps for the specific questions about group analysis and its relevance and value in the continuing century. I will draw loosely on my concept of the anti-group, since, in my view, much of the debate about the future hinges on the principle of social cohesion and group belonging vs group destruction and alienation.
Although I believe that there are good reasons to be anxious about the future, even in our lifetimes, I am cautiously optimistic and will suggest areas of group analysis that are open to review and development, as well as areas of social change to which group analysis could make a continuing and valuable contribution. The overall challenge to us in general and to group analysis in particular could be described in ecological terms. Many of the changes that are now altering the world we live in can be seen as changes in the global ecological balance, in both environmental and social terms. Ecology emphasizes the interdependencies of processes within a larger environment and the extent to which existing structures can continue to survive and co-exist. We are all part of an evolutionary process that sometimes seems too fast for some of us, yet we recognize as inevitable and unstoppable and to which we have to adjust if we choose to live in the world.
The subject matter of this chapter has been popularized by the media, newspapers, books and films. The problem with popularization is the loss of proportion, with a tendency to distort, magnify or trivialize issues, fantasy sometimes becoming decoupled from fact, creating cultures of rumour and speculation that acquire a life of their own. However, there is also a respectable literature on most of these themes and I draw on some of this literature to develop my arguments. The theme takes several forms. Will we survive as a species? Will the world survive? Will our way of life, the societies and communities in which we live, survive? Will psychotherapy survive? There are no ready answers to these questions but at least we can raise the questions.
Current preoccupations about the twenty-first century
While the overall framework of this chapter is the issue of survival in its broadest sense in the twenty-first century, I will focus on changes that are most relevant to social processes, while leaving a fuller consideration of what we might consider a ‘group analytic future’ to a later section of the chapter. I consider the following:
- the accelerating rate of change;
- the social impact of technology;
- the loss of society;
- the collapse of time;
- climate change and environmental chaos;
- the question of immortality;
- crises in authority.
The accelerating rate of change
One of the most common experiences of the ‘man in the street’ at the present time is a sense of rapid and escalating change in the cultural and technological milieu (Stapley and Rickman 2009, 2012). There is a sense of feeling overwhelmed, baffled and ill-prepared to deal with the avalanche of change. Although there has presumably never not been change in the inexorable march of civilization, the impression is that change is now experienced as exponentially faster and qualitatively different from anything that has previously been encountered. The reasons for this are generally attributed to the relentless advances of technology and, in particular, the power and ubiquity of the Internet, which has become a primary mode of connection in a changing world and which itself is subject to galloping change.
Interest in the notion of accelerating change, although felt acutely at present, goes back at least several decades. Toffler (1971), in his famous treatise Future Shock, highlighted the overwhelming nature of change to come, a view that remains as, if not more, pertinent than ever. Hawkins (2002) in his book Mindsteps to the Cosmos, formulated the notion of ‘mindsteps’ as cataclysmic changes to existing paradigms which bring us closer to ‘reality’, seen as our understanding of the human relationship to the cosmos. Whether the changes or mindsteps take us closer to ‘reality’ is, in my view, debatable, since much of current technological change, especially as mediated by the Internet, is associated with the production of new and different realities. At the same time, the ‘reality’ of our relationship to the cosmos is also deepening, as science brings us closer to the mysterious and the unknown.
Vinge (2003) created a vision of accelerating technological progress in which more and more sophisticated technologies are separated by shorter and shorter time intervals, until they reach a point beyond human comprehension. In 1992 he formulated the evolution of a super-intelligence developing through an exponentially accelerating process and ending in a transcendent, almost omnipotent power unfathomable to mere humans. Kurzweil (2001) proposed ‘The Law of Accelerating Returns’, predicting a dramatically transformed universe:
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century – it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate) … Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to … technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and non-biological intelligence, immortal, software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.
(italics added)
For most of us who have lived long enough, certainly dating back to the postworld war period and beyond, the world has in some respects already changed beyond recognition. There is little doubt that this process will culminate in unimaginable technological change in the twenty-first century and that the change will spawn yet further change in an accelerating way.
The social impact of technology
‘Technological change is social change’ (Harris and Sarewitz 2012, p. 29). These authors describe the intensification of complexity and uncertainty in the current world, produced largely by dramatic advances in science and technology. Recognizing the progressive aspects of technological change, they at the same time highlight the enormous social and cultural disorganization this generates, with the loss to many of familiar social beacons, including employment, community and our assumptions about social relationships – all resulting from the ‘complex and tragic essence of our commitment to technology’ (p. 31). They also describe the narratives people use to make sense of prodigious change and suggest that ‘we make sense of complexity via notions of progress that celebrate the creative and sweep aside the destructive aspects of innovation’ (p 32). This leads these authors to use the term ‘creative destruction’ and its converse ‘destructive creation’ as defining the paradoxical impact of progress and change.
This is by no means the only century in which there has been technological growth: every century has been powered by its own forms of technological innovation. One of the distinguishing and far-reaching effects of technological progress in the current century, however, is its impact on human connectedness. The Internet has spawned multiple forms of communication that dispense with face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact – or that entrain facial and verbal communication in altered ways – providing dense systems of communication that transcend time and space in previously unimaginable ways. There are great advantages here of which we are all aware and take daily advantage of, considerably extending our fields of social interaction, our access to knowledge and our opportunities for creative enterprise. But the advent of social networking has also contributed to the demise of local communities and social groups, creating an obsession with the virtual universe and in many ways a retreat from the ‘ordinary’ relationships that for most of us have been the foundation of our social and personal lives. Sherry Turkle (2011), in the last part of a trilogy dealing with technological development in the past few decades, concludes her studies with a sober, concerned and sometimes dystopian account of the social distancing and alienation that is as much a part of technology as the forging of expanded networks. But if there are already problems in the present, an unbalancing of actual and virtual relationships in our accumulating networks, what does this tell us about the future and the nature of society in decades to come?
Turkle, amongst others, comments on the ambivalence about human intimacy implied in the rush to technological connectedness. Technology appeals through the alternatives it provides to human vulnerability. Ensconced in a networked life, we can hide from the demands of others and the challenges of intimacy. The satisfactions of wider connectedness supplant the riskier pleasures of face-to-face, body-to-body contact. If the ‘ordinary’ verbal communication that underlies all our personal and social relationships, that through symbol and language has mediated the social world for millennia, remains difficult because of the anxiety and ambiguity associated with such communication, the computer offers us compelling alternatives. ‘Cybersex’, for example, in various forms provides sexual stimulation and release in place of sex with real others – or provides shortcuts to intimacy. It also opens up avenues for searching and realizing divergent desires and preferences, in various ways liberalizing desire but at the same time limiting the need and the capacity to find solutions to sexual and other difference in actual relationships. Th...
