Socio-Analytic Dialogue: Incorporating Psychosocial Dynamics into Public Policies

In this book, Bruno Boccara argues that complex and changing psychosocial issues, in particular those related to the societal unconscious, must be assessed and incorporated in public policy analysis through Socio-Analytic Dialogue, a psychosocial approach aimed at understanding and addressing emotional issues surrounding public policies worldwide through empathic dialogue. Taking into account societal level anxieties and defense mechanisms—at both the conscious and unconscious levels—when formulating and implementing policies increases the awareness and understanding of psychosocial issues, and decreases the need, and therefore the likelihood, of societies adopting regressive social defenses. Covering international topics including research from the United States; Tunisia and the Arab spring; discontent and riots in Chile, Israel, and the United Kingdom; and humiliation in Sub-Saharan Africa, the book identifies how country-level psychosocial dynamics impact public policies, and suggests that policies themselves can become social defenses. Two case studies, firstly on the World Bank and foreign aid, and secondly on Bolivia, illustrate how a deep understanding of psychosocial issues can provide new insights on the functioning of organizations (perverse dynamics) and on a country’s policy choices and economic performance. Building upon recent work in sociology and psychoanalysis, the book demonstrates that Socio-Analytic Dialogue has the potential to make a significant contribution to understanding worldwide discontent and anxieties.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Policies in the Age of Contempt Chapter 2: Policy Making and its Emotional Underpinning Chapter 3: Narcissistic Denial in Foreign Aid Chapter 4: Undoing Traumas in Bolivia Chapter 5: Understanding the Past; Creating the Future End Notes

About the Author :
Bruno Boccara is the founder of Socio-Analytic Dialogue. He has a Ph.D. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has worked at the World Bank, UBS, and Standard & Poor’s. He completed his psychoanalytic studies at the NYU School of Medicine Psychoanalytic Institute in New York.

Review :
Bruno Boccara has written an important and highly original work. With telling and well-explained examples, he shows that country-level psychological issues, especially at the unconscious level, should play a major role in both the formulation of public policies and the understanding of their consequences. Socio-Analytic Dialogue opens a new window in the social sciences and especially in economics. Boccara’s achievement is based on deep expertise in many disparate areas, based on PhDs from MIT in both economics and civil engineering, in-depth psychoanalytic study at NYU, and extensive international experience in finance and economic development. This is a ground-breaking book that is must reading for politicians, government officials and political scientists as well as psychoanalysts. Demonstrating the key role played by unconscious myths and fantasies in the fate of nations, it forges an important link between the fields of psychoanalysis and political science. This far-reaching and highly innovative book shows that inadequate understanding of psychosocial dynamics is always a significant impediment to leadership and international relations. Socio-Analytic Dialogue is a groundbreaking approach because it incorporates large group unconscious dynamics in the formulation and implementation of public policy. As such, this book should be of great interest to public policy makers seeking to implement change. This book provides a startling demonstration of its central thesis about the effects of unconscious dynamics on national policies. Bruno Boccara has extended the work of social scientists and socioanalysts on organizations developing crippling structures and cultures in response to anxieties to a much broader field, and the implications are immense for us all. His bold and thorough examination uses a variety of country case studies, where he shows how governments at times, through the development of unconscious defensive strategies by policy makers, enact ‘country romances’ that increase the propensity for delusional policies. Beyond such an examination, the book raises the possibility of how countries could reflect on the psychosocial effects of their histories using Socio-Analytic Dialogue. The message of this book should go to all involved in policy formulation and implementation. This remarkable book opens a door for applying psychoanalytically informed thinking to economic and social transformations. It illustrates well that public policies also have psychosocial functions, something key for policy makers to appreciate if they wish to improve their understanding of worldwide discontent and resistance to change. It also shows psychoanalysts that psychoanalysis can play a fundamental role in helping societies understand and address their issues.