Jung, Bion and social phenomena: Intra-psychic dynamics, inter-psychic dynamics or something else?

This paper traces the evolution of Jung’s ideas on the collective and Bion’s ideas on groups stemming from their personal experiences during WWI and their respective observational studies. A comparison of their psychoid and proto-mental concepts on the basis of this historical development demonstrates an overlap in their understandings of social phenomena but a divergence in their primary interests and hence in the application of their concepts