Individual and group psyche against the wall
Psychic skin and the politics of borders
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22420902 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Monica Luci (0000-0002-0705-4402, University of Essex, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Psychoanalysis Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1088-0763 • E-ISSN: 1543-3390 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41282-026-00647-z |
| OpenAlex | W7168403386 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 23 |
This article examines the global proliferation of contemporary border walls as a psycho-political phenomenon. Despite limited practical efficacy in regulating migration or security, walls continue to multiply across the world. The article argues that their persistence cannot be fully understood within geopolitical or policy frameworks alone, but must also be approached through the unconscious dynamics of individual and collective psychic life. Drawing on Jung’s concepts of participation mystique and regression, and on psychoanalytic theories of the psychic skin and group envelope (Bick, Anzieu), the paper develops a framework linking early sensory boundary formation with the dynamics of large-group identity. It proposes that in periods of social and political instability the wall can function as a s ubstitute group psychic skin: a material surface that reactivates archaic experiences of containment, belonging, and separation. Through this process, political discourse mobilises sensory and imaginal forms of identification that tighten collective boundaries while intensifying mechanisms of splitting and exclusion. By theorising the reciprocal relation between individual psychic envelopes and large-group identity, the article reconceptualises contemporary wall-building as a reconfiguration of the psychic architecture of collective life.
Embodied cognition · Function (biology) · Geopolitics · Politics · Psyche · Psychic · Psychoanalytic theory · Unconscious mind · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
Border Walls
Place and Experience
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty
State Murals, Protest Murals, Conflict Murals
Torture, Psychoanalysis and Human Rights
Braiding Borders
The Group Ego-Skin
Displacement as trauma and trauma as displacement in the experience of refugees
The Many Guises of Populism and Crisis
Do Walls Work? The Effectiveness of Border Barriers in Containing the Cross-Border Spread of Violent Militancy
Politics of Nostalgia and Populism
Re-Imagining the Border
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |