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Group Analysis
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Exploring Social Disintegration

Sabar Rustomjee

International Association of Group Psychotherapists, Monash University, Melbourne, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne Sandringham, District Hospital

Social disintegration is occurring daily in today's modern, democratic society through dehumanization and anti-professionalism, along with enforcement of arbitrary decisions on crucial issues made by ill-informed leaders without adequate research or collaborative consultation with those carrying out the work. All this is justified by global economic rationalism which dictates every part of living today and takes precedence even over human safety and human survival Individuals in society today feel isolated and insignificant as their previously held value systems fail to contain them. For such individuals destructiveness can be seen to be an escape from the unbearable feeling of powerlessness. Mass destructiveness, however; to the extent of disintegrating society, needs to be associated with feelings of primitive omnipotence. In such a state, the problem is not simply that of death wishes, but a wish for total annihilation of the existing society which is perceived to be the enemy. The author explores the psychopathology of social disintegration through the writings and paintings of Edvard Munch, the renowned Norwegian artist, and also attempts to describe how society and its leaders have responded to such annihilatory experiences.

Key Words: annihilation • destructiveness • economic rationalism • powerlessness • social disintegration

Group Analysis, Vol. 34, No. 1, 115-127 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/05333160122077587
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S. Rustomjee
Containment and Failures of Containment
Group Analysis, December 1, 2007; 40(4): 523 - 537.
[Abstract] [PDF]