The cost effectiveness of the group

Abstract

In this chapter we attempt to propose an organic connection between certain elements of the relational economy and group analytic theory as it is described in the treatments of Elias, Foulkes, Pines and other colleagues, active scholars and researchers within this discipline.

Group analysis is an approach of dynamic psychology which focuses on the group dimension as the place for the creation of the psyche. According to this perspective, individuals are shaped through a continuous and dynamic interweaving between themselves and the original group, the family, and then following through the next sub-groups until the larger group dimension of the polis, the place of civis individual recognition, full-fledged participant of oikòs nomos.

The individual is, at the same time, subject and part of the community. One part can not be separated from the other. It can instead be identified by imagining one in a central position, as a figure, while the other is on the background and vice versa. The Moebius strip can represent this continuum.

It is not surprising that this theoretical approach is particularly "suited" to collect a deep connection between psychology and economics, especially when you consider the etymological meaning of the word " oikòs - nomos " which contains, and at the same time, is built on a relational meaning: the rule of the house, the rule that governs the parties involved.

The micro-credit, a practice that in its original version is based on group relations, is a particularly interesting case study for this consideration.