This paper discusses how some of the ideas and approaches with which Bob Hinshelwood has been identified can be applied in examining political extremism, particularly destructive forms of fundamentalism. It considers the application at a societal level of concepts of psychosocial dynamics in therapeutic communities. Topics such as the management of ambivalence amongst community staff, the institution's primal scene, and the small group as container are shown to have parallels in the relationships between extremist groups and society. The degree of support for or tolerance of a particular form of fundamentalism in a sector of the public is often an important influence on the extent to which it may generate violent extremism. It is suggested that psychoanalytic understandings of the superego and its relationship to the current external world can throw light on the social supports for extremism.