Purposes outside ourselves

Abstract

This article is derived from a talk given before the Psychotherapy and Liberation, May '68 Anniversary Conference held at the IGA, 2–4 May 2008. It examines the potential for realizing two aspects of liberation: individual and social. The article suggests that individualism emerged as the dominant strand and has been made use of by capitalism to deepen our subjection. The article offers an explanation of our compliance with this exploitative economic system, drawing on the psychoanalytic concepts of projection, projective identification, oedipal conflict, narcissism, paranoid‐schizoid functioning and the group matrix