“Just Following Policy”: Group Defenses, Moral Disengagement, and the Psychology of Collective Harm
David Songco, PsyD
Harm rarely announces itself as harm. More often, it arrives cloaked in procedure, policy, or necessity—rendered palatable through language that distances us from its human consequences. Group psychology teaches us that the most dangerous actions are not always driven by cruelty or malice, but by compliance, silence, and shared rationalization (Bion, 1961; Bandura, 1999). History reminds us—painfully—that when groups outsource moral responsibility to systems, ordinary people become capable of extraordinary harm.
This is not merely a historical observation. It is a contemporary one.
In recent years, unlawful immigration enforcement practices, family separation, prolonged detention, and the public normalization of dehumanizing rhetoric have unfolded in real time. While political debate often centers on legality, security, or policy preference, group psychology offers a different—and essential—lens: how groups collectively defend against moral discomfort, justify harm, and disengage from ethical responsibility (Bandura, 2016).
For group psychologists and group psychotherapists, this moment invites reflection not only on societal group processes, but on our ethical obligations as professionals trained to recognize, name, and interrupt them (American Psychological Association [APA], 2017).
Group Psychology and the Architecture of Justification
Group psychology emphasizes that individuals do not act in isolation; behavior is shaped, reinforced, and constrained by group norms, identities, and shared defenses (Yalom & Leszcz, 2020). When groups face moral threat—situations that challenge their self-image as “good,” “just,” or “law-abiding”—psychological defenses often emerge at the collective level (Bion, 1961).
Common group defenses include:
- Rationalization: “It’s unfortunate, but it’s the law.”
- Intellectualization: Abstracting policy discussions away from human suffering.
- Splitting: Constructing rigid binaries—citizen vs. “illegal,” deserving vs. undeserving.
- Projection: Attributing threat, criminality, or moral failure to an out-group.
These defenses serve a protective function: they reduce anxiety, preserve group cohesion, and maintain a coherent moral identity. However, they also obscure reality and blunt ethical awareness. In groups, defenses become contagious. Once normalized, they no longer feel like defenses at all—they feel like common sense (Bion, 1961; Hopper, 2003).
Albert Bandura’s concept of moral disengagement further illuminates this process. Moral disengagement allows individuals and groups to participate in harmful actions without experiencing moral distress through mechanisms such as euphemistic labeling, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, and dehumanization (Bandura, 1999, 2016). From a group perspective, moral disengagement is not merely an individual failure—it is a shared psychological achievement.
Language as a Group Intervention
Language plays a central role in shaping group consciousness. Groups use language not only to communicate, but to regulate emotion and define reality (Fairclough, 2013). When language sanitizes harm, it functions as a psychological anesthetic.
Terms such as illegal, removals, or processing are not neutral descriptors. They collapse complexity, erase humanity, and facilitate emotional distance. Over time, such language reshapes group norms, making once-unthinkable actions feel routine (Bandura, 2016).
Group psychotherapists are acutely aware of how language functions within treatment groups—how certain words silence affect, reinforce power hierarchies, or perpetuate shame (Yalom & Leszcz, 2020). The same principles apply at the societal level. When entire communities adopt language that abstracts suffering, the group’s capacity for empathy diminishes.
This is not accidental. It is psychological.
Lessons from the Holocaust: Process, Not Equivalence
Any discussion that references the Holocaust must be approached with care, clarity, and humility. Drawing parallels does not mean equating events, outcomes, or suffering. Rather, it involves examining psychological processes that history has already shown to be dangerous when left unexamined (Arendt, 1963; Lifton, 1986).
The Holocaust did not begin with death camps. It began with categorization, dehumanization, bureaucratic compliance, and silence. It unfolded incrementally, with each step made possible by prior normalization (Arendt, 1963).
Critically, participation was not limited to ideological extremists. Ordinary professionals—including physicians, psychologists, social workers, and civil servants—played roles within systems that framed harm as duty, neutrality, or necessity (Lifton, 1986). Many did not view themselves as perpetrators, but as functionaries.
Group psychology helps us understand how this occurred. Authority structures diffused responsibility (Milgram, 1974). Professional identity became a defense against moral reckoning. Group belonging depended on compliance rather than conscience.
The most sobering lesson may be this: ethical collapse does not require widespread hatred. It requires widespread disengagement.
Contemporary Echoes in Immigration Enforcement
In current immigration enforcement practices, we see familiar group dynamics at play. Family separation has been justified as deterrence. Detention has been framed as administrative necessity. Human suffering is reframed as collateral damage.
Public discourse often relies on legality as a moral endpoint: If it is lawful, it is justified. Yet group psychology reminds us that legality and ethics are not synonymous. Groups frequently use legality as a defense against moral responsibility—particularly when laws themselves produce harm (Bandura, 2016).
Bystander dynamics further complicate this landscape. Diffusion of responsibility allows individuals to believe that someone else—courts, agencies, leaders—will intervene. Pluralistic ignorance convinces many that their discomfort is isolated, discouraging dissent (Darley & Latané, 1968). Over time, silence becomes interpreted as consensus.
From a group perspective, the danger lies not only in overt acts of cruelty, but in the collective accommodation to harm.
Ethical Neutrality and Professional Silence
For psychologists, and particularly group psychotherapists, the temptation toward neutrality can be strong. Professional training emphasizes objectivity, restraint, and respect for diverse viewpoints. These values are essential within the consulting room. However, when extended uncritically into societal contexts of injustice, neutrality can function as a defense.
Ethical neutrality is not the absence of values—it is a position that implicitly supports the status quo (APA, 2017).
The APA Ethics Code emphasizes principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and respect for dignity and rights. These principles require active consideration of how systems impact vulnerable populations and how professional silence may contribute to harm (APA, 2017).
Group psychologists are uniquely positioned to recognize when group processes are producing moral injury, a construct describing the psychological distress that arises when individuals violate deeply held moral beliefs under authority or institutional pressure (Litz et al., 2009). Silence does not protect against moral injury. It compounds it.
Group Psychotherapy as Ethical Practice
Group psychotherapy is, at its core, an ethical endeavor. It rests on the belief that healing occurs through relationship, truth-telling, and mutual responsibility (Yalom & Leszcz, 2020). Group therapists routinely intervene when defenses obscure reality, when power dynamics silence voices, and when harm is minimized or rationalized.
These same skills are urgently needed beyond the therapy room.
Naming group processes—splitting, projection, rationalization—is itself an intervention. Making the implicit explicit disrupts unconscious collusion and restores ethical agency (Bion, 1961; Hopper, 2003).
Witnessing as Professional Responsibility
One of the most powerful roles group psychologists can play is that of witness. Witnessing is not partisan advocacy or moral grandstanding. It is the act of seeing clearly, naming truthfully, and refusing to collude with distortion.
Witnessing interrupts group defenses by reintroducing reality.
This may occur through scholarship, teaching, supervision, consultation, or public discourse. It may involve supporting colleagues experiencing moral distress. It may involve challenging dehumanizing language within professional spaces.
Witnessing is not about certainty. It is about courage.
Reflective Questions for the Profession
Rather than prescribing answers, group psychology invites inquiry:
- What groups am I part of that benefit from silence?
- What defenses do I rely on to manage moral discomfort?
- When have I confused role compliance with ethical action?
- How does my professional identity protect—or constrain—my moral agency?
These questions are not meant to indict, but to invite reflection—ideally within groups.
Closing Thoughts: Interrupting the Group Process
Group psychology teaches us that harm becomes possible when groups decide—implicitly or explicitly—that it is acceptable. This decision is rarely made all at once. It unfolds through small accommodations, shared justifications, and quiet disengagement.
The ethical task before group psychologists is not to predict history’s judgment, but to intervene in the present. To recognize when defenses function as absolution. To notice when silence masquerades as professionalism. To remember that our training equips us not only to treat individuals, but to understand—and disrupt—group processes that cause harm.
History does not repeat itself mechanically.
But psychological processes recur when left unexamined.
The question is not whether we recognize them.
It is whether we choose to respond.
References
American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. https://www.apa.org/ethics/code
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Bandura, A. (2016). Moral disengagement: How people do harm and live with themselves. Worth Publishers.
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Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377–383. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025589
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Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. Harper & Row.
Yalom, I. D., & Leszcz, M. (2020). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy (6th ed.). Basic Books.