Group Analysis

A group-analytic approach is described within the context of a therapeutic community setting in a high security prison. In group therapy inmates are described gradually unfreezing and speaking about the locked and secret internal world experiences that have been sources of pain and trauma to them. The concept of trauma being frozen in time and undisclosed unless appropriate therapeutic space is available for its unfolding is contrasted with the prison inmate culture which normally discourages emotional openness.

Time is often thought of in absolute terms and scientists have sought its ever more precise definition. Indeed, time is often treated as an object or even a commodity. This article focuses on the writings of Norbert Elias on the different concepts and perception of time, also with reference to Bion's views on thinking linked to life experiences - views often endorsed by many poets writing about the concept of a human life of whatever length seen as a period of time complete in itself.

We experience time, like space, as something through which we journey. We speak of `looking forward' to an event in the future, and `looking back' on an event in the past. We describe the clock as `put forward' at the beginning of local summer time and `put back' at the end. When we say that an appointment has been `put back' we can get confused: some will take that as earlier, i.e. `back in time', others as later, i.e. `further away in time'. Nevertheless both parties to the confusion use words of location and of distance to speak about time.

This paper explores the ancient Greek quasi-mystical concepts of Chronos and then Kairos, particularly in relation to group analysis and individual analytic psychotherapy. It concludes with some thoughts on the nature of time and space and introduces Chaos, a third Greek concept, with a consideration of the chaotic patterns of movement in space-time which are, it seems, self-organizing and have led to the emergence from the matrix of space-time of matter, life and ultimately mind.

The subject of Time is one of the great themes of Literature. It is intrinsic to so many aspects of what it is to be human - the transience of beauty, loss and mourning, the importance of memory, hopes for the future and the nature of the creative act itself. Within a short space of time, it can only be possible to touch on some aspects of its representation in Western literature and for the most part I will focus on poetry.

The Time Unlimited Group was an event within the Millennium `Time' Winter Workshop, 2000. This article focuses on a questionnaire devised by the author as convenor/conductor of this innovative group and a summary of some of the responses from those taking part, revealing many different concepts of and views on Time, both inside and outside the group.

This article describes some ideas, theoretical and clinical, related to group treatment of residents in a New York City homeless shelter for mentally ill persons immediately subsequent to the World Trade Center disaster. I provide details concerning this group as it dealt with community-level crises that were both acute, as they related to the World Trade Center disaster, and chronic, as they dealt with the ongoing condition of being mentally ill and homeless. I discuss my experience in the group and the ways that a synthesis of group, interpersonal psychoanalytic, and community psychology principles formed a framework for working through traumatic experiences in this community.

Culture and groups are intertwined. Culture is essential in crystallizing our social identity and provides the common understandings that allow the social world to have a meaning. Culture is constituted from many groups that have common values. The social unconscious of a certain culture is reflected in groups, especially in large groups. This paper explores different aspects of the social unconscious and describes how the individual and the group/society always coexist. The concept of the binocular vision is used to integrate between two approaches to the social unconscious. Groups from different cultures and their unique features are described and entering a group is analyzed as a kind of immigration to a new culture.

This paper focuses on Günter Ammon's concept of dynamic psychiatry and how its practice can aid and enhance group dynamics. This is illustrated by an account of group dynamic therapeutic work in the Hospital Menterschwaige in Munich, demonstrating how this work has its roots in the theoretical concept of dynamic psychiatry.

This article focuses on Human Structural Dance, developed by Günter Ammon in Munich. Following a brief history of the development of dance therapy, the author documents the proven benefits of dance therapy, particularly in enabling patients to verbalize their feelings and supported by research findings relating to a group of 30 patients, all of whom had been diagnosed with `archaic ego disorders' and with all ages represented.