Farhad Dalal
Biographic Data
| ID | 234712 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Farhad Dalal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Farhad |
| FAMILY NAME | Dalal |
| SIGNATURE | DALAL F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Institute of Group Analysis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5428-8690 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
A meditation on hope in a time of despair
This is based on an invited talk given at the Annual Conference of the Association for Psychosocial Studies (APS), 9–10 June 2025, titled ‘Hope and Despair: Crisis and Opportunity’. This talk is a personal account of the struggle to find hope in these despairing times. When faced by the grim reality of a world overrun by right-wing populists pedalling their politics of hate, violence, malice and greed, is it even worth the effort to look for hope…
Fluctuating gold standards and the processes of inclusion and exclusion in group analytic training institutions
This paper takes a critical look at the rationales that drive the processes of inclusion and exclusion that operate in the European Group Analytic Training Network (EGATIN) and the training institutions that constitute it. It is claimed that these processes are akin to the processes of racialization which utilize two strategies, lineage and typology. It is argued that ‘standards’ are generated by contingency, and post-hoc rationalized by theory. …
De Beauvoir, the Great Chain of Being and the Caste System: The psycho-politics of psychotherapy trainings
The medieval Christian notion of the Great Chain of Being that arose in the ‘West’, and the Hindu caste system that arose in the ‘East’, are both rationales that legitimate specific worldly hierarchies as expressions of the Natural Divine Order. I will argue that the culture and conventions of psychotherapy training institutions embody these sorts of hierarchies and ways of thinking to a greater or lesser degree. More specifically, I will argue t…
The ethics of supervision: Reciprocity, emergence and prefiguration
The paper asks: what makes for an ethical supervision? It begins by looking at the differing ethical requirements in situations of persons and things (science), and in situations of persons and persons. It is argued that if psychotherapy (and consequently supervision) is thought to be a scientific activity, then it will require the supervisor to subscribe to the ethics akin to those of the natural scientist. However, if psychotherapy and supervis…
Psychotherapy: A kind of clinical philosophy
I will speak up for philosophy as a deep, questioning attitude and a form of critical thinking. I will argue that the development of this kind of attitude is not only necessary to the therapeutic endeavour, it is identical to it. The work of developing this attitude requires courage not only from the ones-who-come-for-help, but also the ones-who-try-to-help. Amongst other things, I will contest the idea of psychotherapy as ‘treatment’ that seeks …
Ethics and the bureaucratization of the psychotherapy professions
The paper investigates the role of ethics and codes of conduct within psychotherapy organizations. It is argued that managerialist bureaucracies have usurped codes of ethics and put them in the service of compliance and control. The paper begins with a critical delineation of the three ways that philosophers have approached ethics: deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics. It asks the question: is psychotherapy a scientific activity? The an…
Tangling with the four responses to ‘The entangled relational’
Intimate Others and the Othering of intimates: The gendered psycho-politics of the entangled relational
The article begins with an exploration of the ambivalence experienced by the author when invited to speak at a conference in Tel Aviv, Israel. This followed by introducing two notions, ‘ethical distress’ and ‘entangled relational’, both of which speak to the ambivalence. Next, it is argued that the notion of ‘the relational’ in psychoanalytic literature is largely apolitical, and that it has required women—who speak from the margins—to theorize a…
Back to the rough ground: From predictability to radical uncertainty
In this article I will begin by thinking about how schools of psychotherapy come to be created, and argue that this is a political process rather than a ‘scientific’, technical or rational one. I describe ways in which practice can at times be unhelpfully rigidified into techniques which are used to build borders between schools. I follow this by a description of how Eliasian gossip is used to reinforce methodological silos. Finally I consider gr…
The Analytic and the Relational: Inquiring into Practice
In this article I track the shift in my practice from the ‘analytic’ towards a ‘relational’. I contrast the positivist stance of the classical analyst with a post-modernist stance of the relationist. I argue that whilst the ‘analytic’ norm requires the therapist to be opaque and detached, the ‘relational’ stance requires the therapist to be involved and transparent. I suggest that a form of radical uncertainty is at the heart of the therapeutic p…
Group Analysis in the Time of Austerity: Neo-liberalism, Managerialism and Evidence-Based Research
In the current climate of cuts and austerity, efficiencies and evidence, targets and outcomes, has group analysis anything to offer and can it survive? This article looks closely at the assumptions and claims made by these ruling utilitarian conventions. I argue that the reality is very different from the rhetoric; and that the ruling ethos is in the service of being seen to do good, rather than actually doing good. The article argues that group …
The Individual and the Group: The Twin Tyrannies of Internalism and Individualism
Individualism and internalism tend to be the norm within almost all schools of psychotherapy, be they humanistic, cognitive, or analytic. While one might expect this of the individual psychotherapies, surprisingly, it is also the norm within many forms of group psychotherapy. To these ways of thinking, the sources of all social phenomena—racism, greed, hate, violence, love, empathy, whatever—are to be found in the internal worlds of individuals. …
Forgiving the Unforgivable: Mortals, Saints and Sinners
This article is a personal reflection on the nature of the complexity called forgiveness. The article tries to avoid moralizing by situating the reflection in the social and personal context of the author. Through this route reasons are established as to why it is difficult to be a reflective citizen, and why the author is more prone to being a paralyzed citizen. The individualistic and internalist account of forgiveness is discredited, and it is…
Prejudice as Ideology: The Creation of “Us” and “Them” Groups in Society (and Psychoanalysis)
Prejudices are never experienced as prejudice: they always seem reasonable. Forms of multiculturalism presume that we are prone to prejudice when we are faced with strangers whose ways and looks we are unfamiliar with. They think that one can be taught to think and experience differently though a process of familiarization and education. This work takes place in the conscious realm. Psychoanalysis, meanwhile, provides a range of explanations that…
Group Analytic Training and the Social Context: Who is influencing Whom
This article inquires into the group analyst’s capacity to influence the social sphere. To this end, I begin by introducing the principles of ‘managerialism’, or ‘New Public Management’, as this is the norm that currently prevails in the social sphere. This is followed by a critical excursion into the values of classical psychoanalysis, which I argue continues to prevail within group analysis. Next, I critically reflect on contemporary group anal…
A Rumination on Intimacy and its Defences in the Consulting Room: A Response to Elizabeth Rohr’s 38th Foulkes Lecture
Specialists without Spirit, Sensualists without Heart: Psychotherapy as a Moral Endeavour
Over the last few years I have come to question the centrality and value attributed to the ideas of ‘analysis’ and ‘interpretation’ in the psychotherapies in general and the analytic traditions in particular—ideas which draw on the prestige of the natural sciences. The lecture develops the reasoning behind the shifts in my thinking and practice. With the help of the moral philosopher Raimond Gaita I will build on my prior thesis that the psyche i…
The paradox of belonging
Racism: Processes of Detachment, Dehumanization, and Hatred
The author looks at definitions of racism from the viewpoints of various theoretical frameworks, addressing the role of projection and other phenomena. Racism is then examined according to principles of psychoanalytic relational theory, attachment theory, and radical group analytic theory. Power relationships, the psychosocial process, a sense of us versus them, and the universal importance of a feeling of belonging are also taken into considerat…
Response to Article by Joshua Lavie: With reply by Lavie and further response
Bridge Building Between Two Discourses: The Economic and the Group-Analytic
Foulkes insisted that human beings are constituted through, and by, relationships from the first. Over recent years, corroborating evidence for this insight has been accumulating in a surprising variety of disciplines which include physics, biology, sociology, mathematics, complexity and economics. It turns out that the insight was more profound than Foulkes himself realized – that the nature of existence itself is relational. These insights have…
The Social Unconscious: A Post-Foulkesian Perspective
The paper begins with a critique of orthodox renditions of the social unconscious which (a) retain divisions between a personal sphere and a social sphere, and (b) which are said to be in conflict with each other The ways in which these are instituted in various psychoanalytic and group-analytic theorizations are briefly delineated. Next, the two versions of the social unconscious (an orthodox and a radical) that are found in Foulkes are describe…
Commentary on Articles by Ralph Stacey and Philip Schulte
A Transcultural Perspective on Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Addressing Internal and External Realities
The paper suggests that just as skin colour plays a significant part in the structuring of society, it also plays a significant role in the structuring of the psyche. The argument is built on the hypothesis that the internal object world is colour-coded. The paper looks at how this might come about and explores its consequences. Therapists need to have worked through this area in their training and therapy, otherwise it will reappear as the thera…
Conductor Interventions: To `Do' or to `Be
This paper is an exploration of what constitutes the `Group-analytic' approach. It examines the repertoire of possible interventions their content, timing and motivation. The discussion is framed in a larger debate that explores some of the differences and similarities between humanistic and analytic philosophy and methodology. The thoughts and questions raised in this paper have arisen in the clinical setting. The references made to the practice…
Racism: Processes of Detachment, Dehumanization, and Hatred
The author looks at definitions of racism from the viewpoints of various theoretical frameworks, addressing the role of projection and other phenomena. Racism is then examined according to principles of psychoanalytic relational theory, attachment theory, and radical group analytic theory. Power relationships, the psychosocial process, a sense of us versus them, and the universal importance of a feeling of belonging are also taken into considerat…
The Social Unconscious: A Post-Foulkesian Perspective
The paper begins with a critique of orthodox renditions of the social unconscious which (a) retain divisions between a personal sphere and a social sphere, and (b) which are said to be in conflict with each other The ways in which these are instituted in various psychoanalytic and group-analytic theorizations are briefly delineated. Next, the two versions of the social unconscious (an orthodox and a radical) that are found in Foulkes are describe…
The racism of Jung
The paradox of belonging
De Beauvoir, the Great Chain of Being and the Caste System: The psycho-politics of psychotherapy trainings
The medieval Christian notion of the Great Chain of Being that arose in the ‘West’, and the Hindu caste system that arose in the ‘East’, are both rationales that legitimate specific worldly hierarchies as expressions of the Natural Divine Order. I will argue that the culture and conventions of psychotherapy training institutions embody these sorts of hierarchies and ways of thinking to a greater or lesser degree. More specifically, I will argue t…
The racism of Jung
Response to Lecture by Liesel Hearst
Race' and Racism: An Attempt to Organize Difference
This article addresses the issue of `race' and racism in the context of Group-analytic psychotherapy. My contention is that at present there is no specific Group-analytic understanding of racism. 7he article is aimed at group conductors, focusing on what terms might be used to view these issues as they manifest in groups. It challenges the notion of `race' as an objective category and examines ways of viewing the phenomena of `race' and racism as…
Conductor Interventions: To `Do' or to `Be
This paper is an exploration of what constitutes the `Group-analytic' approach. It examines the repertoire of possible interventions their content, timing and motivation. The discussion is framed in a larger debate that explores some of the differences and similarities between humanistic and analytic philosophy and methodology. The thoughts and questions raised in this paper have arisen in the clinical setting. The references made to the practice…
A Transcultural Perspective on Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Addressing Internal and External Realities
The paper suggests that just as skin colour plays a significant part in the structuring of society, it also plays a significant role in the structuring of the psyche. The argument is built on the hypothesis that the internal object world is colour-coded. The paper looks at how this might come about and explores its consequences. Therapists need to have worked through this area in their training and therapy, otherwise it will reappear as the thera…
Commentary on Articles by Ralph Stacey and Philip Schulte
The Social Unconscious: A Post-Foulkesian Perspective
The paper begins with a critique of orthodox renditions of the social unconscious which (a) retain divisions between a personal sphere and a social sphere, and (b) which are said to be in conflict with each other The ways in which these are instituted in various psychoanalytic and group-analytic theorizations are briefly delineated. Next, the two versions of the social unconscious (an orthodox and a radical) that are found in Foulkes are describe…
Bridge Building Between Two Discourses: The Economic and the Group-Analytic
Foulkes insisted that human beings are constituted through, and by, relationships from the first. Over recent years, corroborating evidence for this insight has been accumulating in a surprising variety of disciplines which include physics, biology, sociology, mathematics, complexity and economics. It turns out that the insight was more profound than Foulkes himself realized – that the nature of existence itself is relational. These insights have…
Response to Article by Joshua Lavie: With reply by Lavie and further response
Racism: Processes of Detachment, Dehumanization, and Hatred
The author looks at definitions of racism from the viewpoints of various theoretical frameworks, addressing the role of projection and other phenomena. Racism is then examined according to principles of psychoanalytic relational theory, attachment theory, and radical group analytic theory. Power relationships, the psychosocial process, a sense of us versus them, and the universal importance of a feeling of belonging are also taken into considerat…
The paradox of belonging
Specialists without Spirit, Sensualists without Heart: Psychotherapy as a Moral Endeavour
Over the last few years I have come to question the centrality and value attributed to the ideas of ‘analysis’ and ‘interpretation’ in the psychotherapies in general and the analytic traditions in particular—ideas which draw on the prestige of the natural sciences. The lecture develops the reasoning behind the shifts in my thinking and practice. With the help of the moral philosopher Raimond Gaita I will build on my prior thesis that the psyche i…
A Rumination on Intimacy and its Defences in the Consulting Room: A Response to Elizabeth Rohr’s 38th Foulkes Lecture
Prejudice as Ideology: The Creation of “Us” and “Them” Groups in Society (and Psychoanalysis)
Prejudices are never experienced as prejudice: they always seem reasonable. Forms of multiculturalism presume that we are prone to prejudice when we are faced with strangers whose ways and looks we are unfamiliar with. They think that one can be taught to think and experience differently though a process of familiarization and education. This work takes place in the conscious realm. Psychoanalysis, meanwhile, provides a range of explanations that…
Group Analytic Training and the Social Context: Who is influencing Whom
This article inquires into the group analyst’s capacity to influence the social sphere. To this end, I begin by introducing the principles of ‘managerialism’, or ‘New Public Management’, as this is the norm that currently prevails in the social sphere. This is followed by a critical excursion into the values of classical psychoanalysis, which I argue continues to prevail within group analysis. Next, I critically reflect on contemporary group anal…
The Individual and the Group: The Twin Tyrannies of Internalism and Individualism
Individualism and internalism tend to be the norm within almost all schools of psychotherapy, be they humanistic, cognitive, or analytic. While one might expect this of the individual psychotherapies, surprisingly, it is also the norm within many forms of group psychotherapy. To these ways of thinking, the sources of all social phenomena—racism, greed, hate, violence, love, empathy, whatever—are to be found in the internal worlds of individuals. …
Forgiving the Unforgivable: Mortals, Saints and Sinners
This article is a personal reflection on the nature of the complexity called forgiveness. The article tries to avoid moralizing by situating the reflection in the social and personal context of the author. Through this route reasons are established as to why it is difficult to be a reflective citizen, and why the author is more prone to being a paralyzed citizen. The individualistic and internalist account of forgiveness is discredited, and it is…
The Analytic and the Relational: Inquiring into Practice
In this article I track the shift in my practice from the ‘analytic’ towards a ‘relational’. I contrast the positivist stance of the classical analyst with a post-modernist stance of the relationist. I argue that whilst the ‘analytic’ norm requires the therapist to be opaque and detached, the ‘relational’ stance requires the therapist to be involved and transparent. I suggest that a form of radical uncertainty is at the heart of the therapeutic p…
Group Analysis in the Time of Austerity: Neo-liberalism, Managerialism and Evidence-Based Research
In the current climate of cuts and austerity, efficiencies and evidence, targets and outcomes, has group analysis anything to offer and can it survive? This article looks closely at the assumptions and claims made by these ruling utilitarian conventions. I argue that the reality is very different from the rhetoric; and that the ruling ethos is in the service of being seen to do good, rather than actually doing good. The article argues that group …
Back to the rough ground: From predictability to radical uncertainty
In this article I will begin by thinking about how schools of psychotherapy come to be created, and argue that this is a political process rather than a ‘scientific’, technical or rational one. I describe ways in which practice can at times be unhelpfully rigidified into techniques which are used to build borders between schools. I follow this by a description of how Eliasian gossip is used to reinforce methodological silos. Finally I consider gr…
Intimate Others and the Othering of intimates: The gendered psycho-politics of the entangled relational
The article begins with an exploration of the ambivalence experienced by the author when invited to speak at a conference in Tel Aviv, Israel. This followed by introducing two notions, ‘ethical distress’ and ‘entangled relational’, both of which speak to the ambivalence. Next, it is argued that the notion of ‘the relational’ in psychoanalytic literature is largely apolitical, and that it has required women—who speak from the margins—to theorize a…
Tangling with the four responses to ‘The entangled relational’
Ethics and the bureaucratization of the psychotherapy professions
The paper investigates the role of ethics and codes of conduct within psychotherapy organizations. It is argued that managerialist bureaucracies have usurped codes of ethics and put them in the service of compliance and control. The paper begins with a critical delineation of the three ways that philosophers have approached ethics: deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics. It asks the question: is psychotherapy a scientific activity? The an…
The ethics of supervision: Reciprocity, emergence and prefiguration
The paper asks: what makes for an ethical supervision? It begins by looking at the differing ethical requirements in situations of persons and things (science), and in situations of persons and persons. It is argued that if psychotherapy (and consequently supervision) is thought to be a scientific activity, then it will require the supervisor to subscribe to the ethics akin to those of the natural scientist. However, if psychotherapy and supervis…
Psychotherapy: A kind of clinical philosophy
I will speak up for philosophy as a deep, questioning attitude and a form of critical thinking. I will argue that the development of this kind of attitude is not only necessary to the therapeutic endeavour, it is identical to it. The work of developing this attitude requires courage not only from the ones-who-come-for-help, but also the ones-who-try-to-help. Amongst other things, I will contest the idea of psychotherapy as ‘treatment’ that seeks …
Psychology (25 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications (15 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Psychoanalysis (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology (10 works)