The Problem of Good and Evil

Abstract

In my contribution to the Group Analysis Special Section: `Aspects of Religion in Group Analysis' (Sandison, 1993) I hinted that any consideration of a spiritual dimension to the group involves us in a discussion on whether we are dealing with good or evil spirits. But if we say that God is in the group, why is not the Devil there also? Can good and evil coexist in the same group matrix? Is the recognition of evil `nothing but' the ability to distinguish between good and bad? If not, then what is evil? Is it no more than the absence of good?

These and other questions were worked on at a joint Institute of Group Analysis and Group-Analytic Society (London) Workshop entitled `The Problem of Good and Evil'. We considered the likelihood that good and evil coexist in all of us, as well as in the whole of the natural world, not only on earth, but in the cosmos and in God himself What we actually do with good and evil is to split them apart, thereby shelving the problem but at the same time creating irreconcilable opposites. This article examines this splitting and how we can work with it psychoanalytically.