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C H A P T E R T E N

Projective processes: gangs, bullying, and racism

Groups and gangs

W hen does a group become a gang? Hamish Canham (2002) defines a gang mentality as one in which de- structive forces have taken over. It is paranoid-schizoid

functioning where there is no thinking, only a need to rid oneself of parts of the personality that might expose the individual (or group) to feelings of neediness, ignorance, or weakness. Within the personality, this is achieved by imposing a reign of terror on the vulnerable parts. In gang behaviour, the reign of terror is directed towards other groups. A gang is anti-thought, anti-parents, and anti-life.

Hamish offers a commentary on William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies and tracks the way in which the boys lose touch with an idea of parental function and give way to the lure of the gang. He draws attention to the way in which Ralph and Piggy manage to impose some structure by making the rule about the conch: in com- munity meetings, boys cannot speak unless they are holding the conch. At the beginning of their time on the island, the older boys are in touch with the idea of rules (which Hamish suggests are a representation of parental function), and they agree to this arrange-

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ment. Later, the rule is cast aside, the conch smashed, and order is overthrown in an outpouring of paranoid-schizoid behaviour.

Jack, the leader of the choir, represents the pull in the group away from feeling lonely, afraid and dependent on each other for survival. The de-personalisation that sets in is represented by the dyes with which these boys begin to daub their faces. Jack, in particular, is gripped by an idée fixe which is that their survival is dependent on killing the pigs which inhabit the jungle interior of the island. This culminates in a horrific scene where a sow with a litter of suckling piglets is killed by Jack and his band of followers. This action represents most dramatically the gang mentality at work. Faced with a life without parents to look after them, vulnerability and loss is projected into the pig family, with the piglets made into the orphans the boys feel themselves to be. As those who have read the novel will know, this cruelty extends to brutal savagery from Jack and his gang towards the other boys, in particular Piggy, who is killed towards the end of the book. Piggy is an overweight, asthmatic boy who has an ability to see the truth of their situation and to continue thinking about what needs to be done to ensure the survival of everyone. Pig- gy’s thoughtfulness and insight is under constant attack from the gang. They steal his glasses—representing his capacity to see—and eventually they kill him. Ralph is the character who struggles most between the lure of the gang and his desire not to lose the capacity to think. As he is pulled towards the gang, Golding describes a shutter coming down in Ralph’s mind. This shutter seems to cut him off from what he knows he should be doing—keeping the fire going, looking after the younger children, building shelters and keeping everyone working together. It represents the temptation for him to for- get these responsibilities and to join Jack’s gang who seem to be leading a life free from these worries as they hunt for pigs. It is most striking that the only two characters in the book who make reference to their families in any significant way are Piggy and Ralph. It seems that it is this ability to keep alive a sense of helpful, loving parental figures that sustains these two boys and helps them not to climb into identification with the parodies of powerful grown-ups as Jack and his followers do. [pp. 119–120]

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Children and young students in schools are not faced with this kind of ordeal, involving total separation from adult control and protection. However, there may be times when the experience of groups or individuals will have some elements in common with what is described in the novel, and their emotional responses may be similar.

Hamish Canham summarizes what can be seen as the teacher’s (or school institution’s) role as follows:

The presence of figures in authority who can maintain a thought- ful and considerate attitude towards all those for whom they have responsibility inclines people towards groupings rather than “ganging”. This may be within a family, the classroom, work place or in government. The presence of these figures is, of course, not sufficient in itself, for they will be distorted by the perceptions of those reliant on them. This relationship is crucial and is centrally determined by the results of working through the Oedipus complex in individuals. [p. 125]

The internal world and the gang state of mind

This brings us back to the question of what is going on in the internal worlds of children and young people who, as Hamish suggests, distort their perception of external reality such that they cannot make use of thoughtful, concerned adults. He writes about a “ganging” within the mind, which drives children towards gangs in the external world or turns them into nasty, scheming bullies. “The dominant and destructive parts of the self take hostage what they feel to be those other parts which would expose them to feelings of neediness, littleness and ignorance and they do so by imposing a reign of terror on those other parts.” In this state of mind, the individual is clinging to the illusion of omnipotence and omniscience; there is no separation from the object and no acknowledgement of dependency. The parent in the internal world is a nasty, narcissistic version, seeking only to rid him/herself of any awareness of vulnerability or need for others.

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Bullies and victims

The bullies of school stories (e.g., Flashman in Tom Brown’s School- days, Squeers in Nicholas Nickelby) fit neatly into this psychological account of extreme splitting and projection. They are unrelenting in their attacks on their victims and continue with their escalating cruelty until such time as they get their just deserts. Most of the time, the situation is much less polarized. If paranoid-schizoid functioning and the depressive position are seen as states of mind between which all human beings oscillate, then it follows that everyone is capable of bullying behaviour of one kind or another. When interviewed sensitively and encouraged to be honest, most children admit to having at one time or another bullied a weaker member of the class, a younger sibling, or an animal. Most children can also describe interactions or relationships in which they have been the victims of bullying. They are also able to speak eloquently about how they understand the motivation behind bullying, seeing very clearly that the bully is trying to get rid of feelings he does not want to have.

The cliché about there being a coward inside every bully is, of course, accurate. However, a psychoanalytic account would suggest that the perceived threat comes as much from within the individual as from the external world. If, after an episode of bul- lying behaviour, the individual is able to get back in touch with good internal objects and associated depressive functioning, he will be able to think about his own culpability and to feel some remorse. If this is not possible, the bully is indeed in a terrifying world, one in which his hostile projections lodge in objects which then become all the more toxic and threatening, as the fear of re- taliation increases. When bullying becomes entrenched, the bully has to redouble his efforts to make sure that there is no chink in his armour. Part of this is likely to be to surround himself with a gang—a group of followers who have their own reasons for stick- ing close to the bully. The leader of the gang works hard to make sure that everybody knows it would be dangerous to leave—a clear projection of his own knowledge that he would be in danger without them. This is the theme of many books and films as well as the school stories mentioned above. The Mafia, for example, is

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not an organization that people choose to leave or, indeed, where there is room for independent thought!

Origins of the gang state of mind

In terms of child development and early experience, the lamenta- ble internal situation of the hardened bully or gang member may come about in a number of ways. Hamish Canham (2002) draws at- tention to the kinds of experiences that, in his view, may create the “gang state of mind”. He refers to the impact of extreme anxiety and the tendency in human beings to look for someone to blame. He also identifies deprivation in terms of a deficit in containment in early life, which he suggests renders the individual less able to hold on to depressive position functioning and more likely to resort to projection and splitting. He writes about the impact of abuse and the way in which children who have been the victims of abusive treatment often seek to rid themselves of the feelings of fear, anger, guilt, and shame by passing on the experience, by vacating the position of victim and putting another in their place.

CASE ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT

Robert was a bully. At 10 years of age, he had a reputation in his school for terrorizing anyone who was smaller or weaker than he was. His teachers knew what he got up to but could rarely catch him at it. If they did see him, for example, leaning over a younger child against a wall in a corner of the playground, they would try to intervene, but he would quickly put a posi- tive spin on what he was doing and his hapless victim would corroborate his story. He was usually flanked on either side by boys of physical bulk and low intelligence. They considered themselves to be highly privileged to have been singled out by him, and if they ever felt a tinge of discomfort about what they were seeing, they were very quickly pulled back into line.

Robert seemed entirely comfortable in his position as leader of his gang. Without actually causing physical hurt, he managed to provide himself and his followers with extra money, extra

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food, the best seats in the dining hall, and first turn on the foot- ball pitch. He was intimidating. He was also capable of making his own classmates fall about with laughter, and they looked on with some satisfaction as he tried out a bit of mockery (verbal bullying) of an inexperienced supply teacher.

Shortly before he was due to visit possible schools in advance of secondary transfer, he was accused of going into the girls’ toilets and of looking up the girls’ skirts. A 9-year-old girl had been upset at home, and her parents came into the school to complain. The head teacher subsequently spoke to Robert, who first denied it and then broke down and begged him not to tell his father. The next day, having received a call from the head and a letter giving the reasons for a three-day exclusion, Robert’s father stormed into school. He barged past the recep- tionist and straight into the head teacher ’s room, demanding an explanation. Towering over the head’s desk, he shouted that his boy was innocent and that it was just typical of this school to pick on an innocent child. He thumped the desk as he said that if there was any more trouble of this kind, he would make life miserable for the head, adding that he did not need anyone to tell him how to bring up his child. If there was any punishment to be meted out, he would do it himself.

A very much cowed Robert returned to school three days later. The head spoke to him immediately and suggested he see the school counsellor. The counsellor continued to see him until he moved on to secondary school. Sessions were filled with a great deal of empty bravado, but Robert did manage to talk more honestly as the relationship developed, and his bullying behaviour diminished over the last few months of his primary school career. The counsellor came to understand that Robert was terrified of growing up. He had very little internal sense of supportive adults who would help him to do so. He was sure that he would be bullied in secondary school and that his father would mock him for it. He was already mocked by his older brothers for not being more sexually advanced, hence his exploit in the girls’ toilets. He had no confidence in his academic ability and so believed that physical strength was his only way of staying “ahead of the game”. Being “ahead of the

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game” seemed to be his version of being able to survive—phys- ically, emotionally, and psychologically. The counsellor was convinced that Robert was treated harshly at home, but he was fiercely loyal to his father and would not give anything away about his home life.

The way in which Robert fits in with Hamish Canham’s descrip- tion of the development of a gang state of mind is clear. At 10 years old, he has a model in his mind which is of needing to make him- self feel better by making others feel worse. He surrounds himself with supporters and provides himself with stolen goods to boost his flagging self-esteem. He cannot dwell on his fears for the future and is heavily identified with his bullying father. Mockery threat- ens him from without and from within. It is a hopeful sign that his counsellor managed to make some contact with a more vulnerable and honest aspect of Robert, and one would want to think that a similar resource would be made available for him in secondary school. The onset of puberty, with all the associated physical, psy- chological, and emotional changes, could so easily throw him back into an identification with a gang leader.

Envy and the bully

I want to broaden the discussion about deprivation in the inter- nal world and make some links with deprivation in the external world and with the destructive forces of envy. It is absolutely clear that poverty does not, of itself, breed destructive envy. If there is a secure internal structure based on experiences of containment and of having been helped to negotiate separation, the materially impoverished individual is unlikely to be consumed by envy of his richer neighbour. However, where internal deprivation of the kind Hamish describes meets external deprivation, there is fertile ground for envy and hatred. Poverty and deprivation may then be used by individuals to justify their membership of gangs which, they argue, only exist to right the perceived injustice. This is a particular danger when the impoverished individual is constantly brought up against the affluence of others. There have been major changes in this aspect of the external-world context since the early

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psychoanalytic theorists were struggling to reach an understanding of projective processes. This kind of provocation—the provocation of relative wealth—can be seen in inner cities, where rich and poor communities live side by side. It can also be seen in communities where there is widespread poverty and despair but where satellite television suggests that there is a shiny, exciting world just out of reach. Envy of what others seem to have acquired without effort is one of the major determinants of the gang state of mind. Globaliza- tion, advertising, ideas of instant wealth and fame, and the preoc- cupation with celebrity all serve to challenge the sense of identity of the individual, and particularly so if feelings of relative poverty resonate with an internal picture that is full of deprivation.

Racism

Bullying and racism are different in some important detail but also have much in common with each other. I do not intend to suggest that a psychological account of racism can replace a sociological or political account. As Stephen Frosh (1989) suggests, racism, like sexism, is deeply embedded in Western society, having its external, historical roots in economic and political oppression. However, the question to be addressed is whether a psychological understand- ing of the internal dynamics of racism can contribute anything of value to those who are charged with responsibility for managing the issue in our schools. Frosh makes the point that it is the rac- ist fear and hatred in the psyche of individuals that perpetuates institutionalized racism.

This is a debate that is often felt to be too risky to address. Our language in health, education, and social care is peppered with phrases that are designed to make everyone feel more comfort- able—“working with difference”, “anti-discriminatory practice”, “cultural sensitivity”, and so on. These may be worthy aims, but they all too easily serve to inhibit thought, in that they sanitize and oversimplify an area of discourse that is rife with passionate feelings of love, hatred, and fear. I want to be clear that I am not dodging the question of how schools can make a contribution to the anti-racist cause, but, rather, arguing that enhanced under- standing of the mechanism within individuals must surely make

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a contribution to thinking about the curriculum and about whole- school policies.

The racist individual

On an individual level, racism is another manifestation of pro- jective processes. The racist targets a particular individual or an ethnic group, who become the recipients of a cluster of hostile projections. Thoughts and feelings that the individual does not want to own get attached to a racial identity. That race is then hated because of the characteristics that have been attributed to it and feared because there is an unconscious expectation that there will be retaliation. The racist has to ensure that he is justified in his hatred, and this he does—in a similar way to the bully—by gathering like-minded supporters around him and by justifying his position with arguments about the way in which the hated race has brought it on itself. Economic realities such as pressure on housing or benefits are brought into the argument in the service of bolstering a system that is actually about generating paranoid fear and hatred in an attempt to manage internal anxiety. Envy fuels the racism when the racist thinks he sees the hated group succeeding where he feels himself to be failing.

Fear of difference and change

It is easy to write or speak about “the racist”. It is much more dif- ficult to address aspects of fear, prejudice, and intolerance in our- selves. In the chapter on beginnings and endings (chapter 6), I have written about the tendency in the human psyche to try to hold onto the status quo, actively resisting forces that challenge our assump- tions and threaten our equilibrium. “Working with difference” and “celebrating diversity” suddenly become much more challenging notions if we are genuinely open to new experience and really al- low for the fact that we might need to change our perspective and that change involves discomfort.

For my own generation, growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, ignorance was a major part of the picture. The idea of “The

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Commonwealth” was a comfortable cocoon in which to hide from the realities of inequality, exploitation, and oppression. Childhood songs, rhymes, and stories were racist in content, but we did not know it (consciously) and were not called upon to be ashamed of reciting them. Things have moved on since then, and children now have the benefit of a more rounded version of history and first-hand knowledge of other ethnic groups and other cultures. Schools have played a vital role in educating children over several generations about each other’s histories and cultural identities, and this has done much to eradicate some of the stereotyping and racist assumptions which, historically, were based on ignorance.

The situation in the early twenty-first century is very different. Mass migration has continued to grow over the past fifty years, and we now live in much more mixed communities. We are also subject to the inexorable impact of world news and commentary. Social divisions are now racialized in a way that can all too read- ily be used to legitimize the words or behaviour of the racist in- dividual.

Cooper and Lousada (2005) make some interesting points in a paper that they call “The Psychic Geography of Racism”. They suggest that in the last decade or more, there has been a loss of the “believed-in family”, by which they mean that there has been a change in the relationship between citizen and state. “Upon the quality of the relationship between citizen and state depends the depth or shallowness of social concern” (p. 86). They suggest that in the past there was a relationship with an idea of the “Wel- fare State”, which was built on assumptions of benign leadership where government and those in positions of authority would con- cern themselves with the needs of all those for whom they have responsibility. The population now knows much more about the actual people and institutions who are invested with these respon- sibilities and so has developed a much more cynical attitude.

Cooper and Lousada’s thesis is that with the loss of the “believed-in family” comes the loss of a capacity for concern for the stranger. Acceptance of the stranger gives way to fear of the stranger and the growth of “nationalism, racial and social indiffer- ence”. Schools reflect the society they serve, and I would suggest that there is something one might call the “believed-in” school institution where there is sufficient containment from the senior

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management team for tolerance and concern to hold sway. If the “believed-in” school is undermined, there is fertile ground for pro- jective processes (ganging, bullying, and racism) to take hold.

Whole-school policies

Anti-racist and anti-bullying policy statements are important doc- uments that give a clear message to staff, pupils, and parents as to what is and is not acceptable in school. Many local authorities now require that any incidence of bullying or racist behaviour be recorded. The record becomes part of the annual report from each school and, in that sense, is a public document. A thoughtfully con- structed policy can be a genuine indication that a school is aiming to offer a “believed-in-family” context for learning and teaching. It can also, in some instances, be used defensively, as if the existence of a statement can in some way guarantee a tolerant and inclusive institution. Children and teachers should, of course, be prevented from speaking or behaving in a racist way. The curriculum should, of course, be genuinely multicultural, reflecting the experience of every member of the school community. All this is part of thought- ful and containing (Bion, 1961) management of the institution.

However, prejudice cannot be managed didactically. Teach- ing tolerance and understanding is a much more complicated task. There is a danger that Personal and Social Education (PSE) becomes infected by unconscious anxiety and unwittingly settles for teaching “about” diversity, never finding a safe way to explore some of the more primitive fears and feelings that groups have about difference. There is also a danger that the teaching takes up a rather comfortable “us” and “them” position, encouraging “us” to make space for “them” (the newcomers) and not address- ing the nature of the minority experience and the feelings “they” have about “us”. In my view, the very use of the word “minority” highlights one of the most powerful unconscious forces: the need to reassure oneself that one is in the “majority”.

A major challenge of the early twenty-first century is how to understand the way in which international and inter-communal hatred has resulted in barbaric acts of terrorism in so many parts of the world. What is it that drives a young man to sacrifice his

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own life in order to take the lives of others in the name of nation, race, or religion, and what impact does this have on the polariza- tion of religious and political factions? At the time of writing, the response of the UK government to the London bombings of 2005 has been to introduce legislation to prosecute those who incite hatred. Again, we see a device to control behaviour, which may be necessary but which seems to be entirely split off from thinking about the underlying issues.

These are huge questions, and we do not currently know how events will unfold, but there is a very simple point to be made about the importance of education and the vital role of schools. We neglect issues of racial, cultural, and religious identity at our peril, and it may be that combining a psychological account with a socio-political account in relation to human development and school communities would provide us with new and energizing perspectives.

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