The Social Unconscious: Beyond the Individual and Beyond the Group

In May 2024, Dr. John DiMartini invited me, on behalf of San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis (SFCP), to do an online presentation in the program “Dialogues in Contemporary Psychoanalysis.” After discussion, he suggested that it could be a brief initial presentation followed by an interview intended to further explore my thinking on the matter, and then an open discussion with the audience. The subject would be my ideas on the social unconscious and the need for a new paradigm of the human being. It was decided that the date would be January 2025.

Some time after that, I met again with John and the colleague who would interview me, Dr. Jyoti Rao, and had an in-depth discussion on the subject of my presentation. This was followed by an active interchange with Jyoti, which furthered our mutual understanding.

Finally, On January 18, 2025, the event took place with a significant number of attendants, both in person and virtual. Jyoti's brilliant conduction of the interview and the following discussion with the audience, chaired by John, were most stimulating.1 This publication is the text of my initial presentation, together with a new written commentary by Jyoti.

I have not modified the text of my presentation to give it a more academic style, but have kept it in its original form in order to preserve its conversational spirit.2

The creation of psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud represented a true revolution in our conception of the human being, as well as an

epistemological revolution, which should have introduced a radical