| Abstract: | Bullying is a pervasive phenomenon in human relations, in groups, and in societies. It literally, figuratively, and psychologically, is a phenomenon both in the outside world and mentality of the leader as well as group member. Bully/bullied motifs prevail in our clinical theorizing, thinking, and behavior—interwoven into the fabric of psychoanalytic culture and process. I present 5 key ideas: (1) Bullying/bullied dynamics originates and remains in the domain of the paranoid–schizoid position, involving shifting, bipolar perceptions of self and others as good or bad. (2) Bullying–bullied dynamics emerge immediately and unmediated by thought in situations of emotional intensity, i.e., frustration, anxiety, threat, challenge, and competition. (3) These dynamics represent an aspect of our inheritance as a herd animal, which play out in all societies and groups, families and dyads, psychoanalytic and otherwise. (4) Bullying is linked, metapsychologically, to the creation and sustenance of the superego (Freud, 1921). (5) Each individual is both the bully and bullied, and an aspect of “mutual recognition” resides in acknowledging the pleasure as well as the pain in our co-participation. |
