Current essay discusses a concept from Biology of Knowledge and metaphorically applied to human groups. Trophallaxis refers to the chemical communicational process used by certain animals, such as social insects, to communicate the needs of their communities in terms of defense, feeding or reproduction. When applied to groups, trophallaxis explains certain mechanisms of group regulations in which, mainly through language, individuals may produce the group identity, the group’s restricting borders and the dynamic elements that permit inter-individual interactions. If trophallaxis permits communication, ontogenetic alterations and phylogenetic adaptation in insects, symbolic trophallaxis in human groups makes possible the generating of specific ontogenesis of distinct psyches, required for human relationships.
Psychoanalysis; groups; links