Between “Ethical-Political Affectivity” and the “Politics of Affects”: Intersubjectivity, Alterity, and Group Psychoanalysis

Abstract This article demonstrates that beyond understanding the conscious motivations behind social actions, it is essential to enable individuals and groups to identify both individual repressions and social constraints, thereby allowing them to recognize their unconscious dispositions. It is worth noting that both consciousness and the unconscious mobilize affects and, with the aid of individual and group psychoanalysis, can transform into an “ethical-political affectivity”—challenging us to move beyond the “politics of affects.” The article explores the possibility of transposing psychoanalytic work into social groups as a means of overcoming discursive asymmetries and fostering individual and collective self-reflection, thereby enhancing communicative action, as it is through intersubjective processes and conditions of alterity that ethical-political affectivity emerges, ultimately shaping political and collective subjects. To this end, the first section addresses the concept of ethical-political affectivity, drawing on Brandão’s (2012) theoretical framework. Next, the discussion turns to Habermas’s (2012) theory of communicative action, highlighting the symmetries between the concepts of ethical-political affectivity and communicative action. The third section discusses the interplay between the conscious and unconscious in relation to the previously discussed concepts, highlighting group psychoanalysis as a key tool for both individual and collective self-reflection.