Group Analysis

This article focuses on the relationship between group analysis and democracy with special reference to transference phenomena. Accordingly, Foulkes's concept of leadership and transference in groups is compared with Freud's analysis of mass formation, hypnosis and transference love, and the concept of transference further elucidated with particular reference to Laplanche's `General Theory of Seduction'. Finally, the group-analytic process and training is suggested as a training for citizenship, where group analysis and democracy are indissolubly linked.

Beginning with metaphorical comparison to a barber's shop, where patients in group-analytic psychotherapy may be `customers' or `the barber', this article explores the changing group dynamics where two small groups are merged to make one larger group. Some aspects of work with the unconscious in the psychoanalytic group are highlighted, documenting those aspects which changed in the course of the merger and with references to some of the concepts of Jacques Lacan and his view of the function of analysis.

The manifold interactions between the members of (therapeutic) groups lead to an actualization of past experiences with corresponding transferences as well as to a containment in the here and now. When the group is treated as a whole, narcissistic injuries may be experienced by the members that can culminate in a negative outcome of group psychotherapy. In groups led by a therapist focusing on both the participating individuals and the group situation, the narcissistic injuries in general do not reach so deep and can be contained by fostering cognitive sensitization and intellectual reflection. The density of interactions within the group confronts the triggered emotions with a containing social reality. Transferences to group members regarded as self-objects may also occur in the group leader The supervision of group psychotherapists, either singly or group style, may help the psychotherapists to liberate themselves from their narcissistic needs and thereby to gain more freedom themselves and allow more freedom to the group members whom they treat.

The aim of this article is to study the impact of parallel processes operating in the overlapping dimensions of history, politics, society, organization, staff and group participants. The focus of the article is the effort to try and make personal sense of and reach a professional understanding of an annihilating, painful process that took place due to combined forces, which will also be examined. These forces, which are of an unconscious, preconscious and conscious character, are very powerful and still exist. Bion's concepts of alpha and beta elements, as applied to organizations, and Nitsun's concept of the anti-group will be discussed as theoretical background that can explain some of the destructive forces. Some moderating factors essential to processes of survival and re-creation and other conclusions will also be discussed.

In the related fields of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and counselling, the interconnections between clinical practice and research have often been problematic. Clinicians feel frequently' that the findings of research projects have little practical use to offer them, while researchers feel that their hard-won results are ignored by the practitioners whose work they are intended to support. Clinicians are inclined to dismiss research findings as either over-elaborate or over-simplified: researchers see these dismissive responses as impressionistic and arbitrary. This article examines the continuing debate at the core of their differences, about the scientific status of therapy, in reference to which researchers and practitioners can often be seen to occupy opposing positions.

An analytic therapy group for family members of murdered victims of terrorist attacks offers particular benefits. This article discusses one such group, the members of whom were 12 surviving siblings of victims of terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv. Usually bereft of people with whom to share their darkest feelings, these siblings found among the group members people with whom they could do so. Their individual mourning processes were facilitated, and they were helped to move back into life. The firm analytic group boundaries and constancy were critical therapeutic elements, as were the conductors' attention to transferential and countertransferential processes. One peculiarity of the group was an uncanny sense of the ongoing presence of the murdered siblings.

Presented to a Meeting of Supervisors, Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists (Victorian Branch) Melbourne, 1 May 2000.