From http://www.iga-kbh.dk/Blog.120/Group-Analytic-Dictionary-.9.aspx
The first few steps.
10 years ago a Psychodynamic Dictionary was published in Denmark (edt. Ankjær Olsen). Around 25 colleagues, most of us from psychoanalysis, analytical psychology and group analysis, were engaged. But before coming to the point of writing Ankjær Olsen had initiated a long interacting process with possible prospect contributors to the dictionary and which terms could and should be included and which should not, in order to ensure a general and comprehensive work. After these exchanges and discussions the actual writing began. I wrote about 25 references mainly on technical terms in psychoanalysis and group analysis.
As a pragmatic approach I have taken over this ”search–model” in the initial phases of the project for a group analytic dictionary in order to establish some certainty that nothing important is left out, fundamentally in an effort to pick up and cover as many terms in use as possible including their theoretical backgrounds.
Initially, in July 2011, I divided terms in 3 major categories as a search-model for the project as a whole. The division and mentioned examples reflects the common use and terminology in theory-teaching and supervision, not an epistemological endeavor.
- Specific group analytic terms: etc. group-as-a-whole, matrix, basic assumption group(s), conductor, anti-group.
- Terms from related professional fields with specific meanings or significance in group analysis: etc. transitional space, transference, projection, transpersonal, conscious/unconscious, dream(s), sub-groups, chaos, intersubjectivity, attachment,
- Terms from various professional areas generally used in group analysis: etc. play, leadership, authority, role, power, field, research, empirical studies.
The idea obviously being to put this search-model into operation. Before doing so, in the Autumn 2011, I presented the idea and plan for a ”local” group of colleagues: Tove Mathiesen, Bente Thygesen, Lars Bo Jørgensen, Peter Ramsing and Robi Friedman (he is not exactely ”local”: but all of us participate in regular seminars on dream-work with Robi in Copenhagen).
The general response of the group was positive, both in respect to the professional usability of a group analytic dictionary and also concerning the proposed processes of producing it. Many ideas and possibilities were mentioned: seminars and workshops on different terms and topics could be arranged, exchanges and discussions on the internet could arise, new concepts might emerge, etc.
So the message from the group was: go ahead!
In October, November and December 2011 I handed out a sheet with a short description of the project and the 3 categories of terms, and asked colleagues and senior candidates in the IGA, Copenhagen to put down 25 specific and related terms (category 1 and 2) and 15 general terms (category 3). I had responses from about 15 participants; half of them group analytic colleagues, the other half candidates.
In January 2012 I gave a lecture at the institute in Copenhagen, centered around this project and its (very) preliminary ”results” – simply enumerated by frequency of appearance in the lists I received from the participants. ”Results ”were as follows, with 25 terms in each category, ordered alphabetically:
Specific group analytic terms:
anti-group
antigroup phenomena, ex. scapegoating
basic assumption groups: dependency, flight-fight, pairing
basic group dynamic law
difference as a therapeutic factor
dynamic administration
ego-training in action
free floating discussion
figure-ground
group analysis
group analytic principles
group analytic psychotherapy
group analytic standard group
group-as-a-whole
group conductor
group intervention/-interpretation
group specific factors: condensation, exchange, mirroring, resonance, socialization
large group
levels of communication: actual, transferential, projective, primordial
malignant mirroring
matrix: foundation and dynamic
median group
phases of group analytic psychotherapy
transpersonal processes
work-group
Terms from related professional fields:
acting out/in
clarification
collective unconscious
conscious/unconscious
container/contained
defense/resistance
empathy
idealization/devaluation
intersubjective
interpretation
manifest/latent
mentalization
parallel processes
potential space
projection
projective identification
regression
self-object representations
social unconscious
splitting
sub-grouping
termination
therapeutic alliance
transference/countertransference
transitional space
General terms used in group analysis:
affect/affect-regulation
authority
change
chaos/chaos theory
circle
communication
conflict
development
dream
effectivity/evidence
empirical and qualitative studies
environment/culture
family
hierarchy
leader(ship)
network
organization/organizational context
play
power
relation
research
role/role-theory
sociology
symbol/metaphor
system/systems-theory
These are, within the frames of the described search-model, the data of a simple counting – with no claims what so ever of being exhaustive or final, only preliminary.
These data comes from IGA Copenhagen, so certain questions must be asked.
How similar and/or different will these catalogues be in other group analytic institutes?
And what may individual group analysts wonder about, add, delete, etc.?
These are still, in the initial phase of this project, the questions and an invitation to all colleagues to comment within this frame (web blog solution)
Some final words of clarification of process and procedure.
The search-model of the 3 categories is not to be taken as an editorial guideline. Just a glimpse at the 75 terms – and many more terms will emerge – indicates a wide range of fields for clarifications and discussions among colleagues, say in workshops and seminars. A future editorial board will have quite a number of principal and pragmatic decisions to make as to the general grouping of contents in the dictionary and guidelines for writing it.
COMMENTS
David Kennard – Nodal point – 30-05-2014
I am just looking at how to contribute to this blog, not that easy to find the way in. My initial brief contribution is that the group analytic concept i find useful that isn’t yet listed here is the idea that each group member, being part of the group network, behaves in some ways like the nodal point within brain synapses (Goldstein/Foulkes). He or she never speaks only for him/herself but also at some level for the whole or part of the group. When a member speaks (or is noticeably silent) they are activated by something in the group, not only in themselves, and their utterance can be understood as communicating something from the group. I find this quite helpful to keep in mind, and would like to understand better the parallel Foulkes saw between how a group and the brain function as interacting networks.
Torben Voigt – Comments to David K. – 31-05-2014
Hi David
Interesting point you bring forward. I suggest that you write a contribution regarding the “Nodal point”.
Take a look at the user manual (right side at the page top) to see how
Alle the best
Torben Voigt
Orit Mass-Goldman 27-02-2014
it is very interesting to read all this. i will be able to share more in a few weeks.
i just want to say for now that i am very plesed with this project , and i think we, as group analists, can gain a lot from it. orit mass- goldman
Chris Powell 16-02-2014
Encouragement
Torben Voigt 25-12-2013
I greatly applaud this endeavour. This will be very useful resource, and I hope I shall be able to make some contribution towards it.
MY INITIAL – AND ONGOING REFLECTIONS ON A GROUP ANALYTIC DICTIONARY
Søren Aagaard – December 2013
Background – Or how it all started.
As a theory-teacher at IGA, Copenhagen delineation and definition of group analytic and adjacent concepts is very often at stake.
As a tutor and supervisor uncertainties and discussions about basic concepts very often come to the fore – sometimes confusing and frustrating, at other times informative and productive,
As an editor of Matrix, Nordic Journal of Psychotherapy, I have time and time again been in need of a well-informed group analytic lexicon,
As an author of articles on group analytic topics, most often clinical-conceptual, problems of clear and informative descriptions and delimitations of terms appear,
As a theoretically orientated clinician of group analysis and psychoanalysis in 2001-2002, in a Danish Psychodynamic Dictionary (edt. Andkjær Olsen), I wrote about a number of group analytic terms and most of the technical concepts of psychoanalysis
The starting point
In spring 2011 Robi Friedman asked me to comment on a paper he was to give at a conference. In some passages he seemed to use the terms intersubjectivity and transpersonal more or less synonymous or interchangeable. I wondered and objected: inter is between, trans is beyond, I looked up a bit in the group analytic literature – but, and this is the starting point.
I had no dictionary to consult!
Robi and I had a preliminary discussion about the group analytic meanings of the terms, he gave his lecture and I started to investigate whether I was right about the none existence of a group analytic dictionary. After all group analysis as a professional field has existed for more than 50 years. But as far as I was able to find out – also by asking my Danish colleagues: Gerda Winther, then president of GAS, London and Kristian Valbak, former president of EGATIN – there is no group analytic dictionary. Later I learned that a number of colleagues earlier have taken initiatives and steps to make one, but, as I am informed, for various reasons did not succeed in or finish their Projects.
Why is it so?
Such a general dictionary in our professionl field does not exist today – and surely there is a need for that kind of dictionary.
Or is it, due to the interdisciplinary multiplicity of group analysis, too difficult, next to impossible, to make one?
Or whatever the reasons are – and there may be many.
Søren Aagaard
COMMENTS
Cynthia Rogers – 23-02-2014
Existing online dictionary
The late Angela Molnos compiled a comprehensive dictionary of Group Analytic and analytic terms. When the publisher declined to publish she made the finished product available online for use with appropriate attribution at keresofi@fox.klte.hu
‘A PSYCHOTHERAPIST’S HARVEST – A to Z of clinical practice and theoretical issues with special reference to brief forms of psychoanalytically based treatment 1998’
I think it is an amazing resource and hope your efforts might bring it to the attention of a wider audience.
Cynthia Rogers Group Analyst
Meri Rizzi, italian psychiatrist, psychotherapist and group analyst, 14-02-2014
new words?
I’m very pleased to share my doubts!
The words Transference and Contertransference, for instance, were born in a definite context. Can we use the same words, now, more than 100 years later and not in the original setting?
GAD – INTRODUCTION FOR LISBON SYMPOSIUM JULY 2014
By Søren Aagaard
The idea, and eventually the plan, of a Group Analytic Dictionary (GAD) started off accidentially: Robi (Friedman) had asked me to comment on an article and we got into some reflections and discussion on the terms intersubjective and transpersonal, their meanings and use in GA.
Let us look them up in a dictionary, I suggested. But GA has no dictionary! To my supprise. GA has existed for 60-70 years as a professional and scientific field. I asked in my network, among others Danish colleagues – is that right? Yes, it is – there is no general comprehensive dictionary in GA – although various efforts has been done through out the years to make one.
So, let us make one! A bit easier said than done. And how to do it? In an article in Context (Dec. 2012) I have described the first steps of the project and that text, more or less the same, is now on the blog.
What is most important to underline is that the approach adapted, the working model of the project if you like, is pragmatic and inclusive. May be I can say that it is group analytic in the sense that all participants´ contributions and ways of thinking about GA concepts and connected (bits of) theories are welcome – all participants being interested and active GA colleagues.
The format of the workshop we have set up here will hopefully be an example and experience of shared participation. It is a model that we more or less intuitively have used in Danmark at a number of workshops and at a Nordic GA-conference 2013: we sit in a circle, a number of colleagues give short presentations of GA concepts and then there is good time and space for shared reflections and discussion, that we all can take part in and possibly also gain and learn from, some might be stimulated to make a comment on the blog and the presenters have various feedbacks for further work.
The purpose of GAD-project is – by way of shared and common working-processes among colleagues and institutes – to assemble, formulate, up-date and eventuelly also re-think/new-think aspects of GA – that is how GA can and may be conceptualized by us in our period of time.
We wish that these processes can and shall lead to a product: so far I have said dictionary, dictionary in one form or the other, a kind of encyclopedia of GA, possibly a thesaurus. On paper and the net.
In our period of time – Horkheimer & Adorno (1969) by the re-issueing in 1969 of their book Dialektik der Aufklärung (Dialectics of Enlightenment) which first came out in 1947 talks of a ”theory that ascibes truth a core of time”, (p. 7, my translation). A core of truth in the time/period in which the text was written, contrary to the idea of unchangability in relation to (or against) historical movements. Horkheimar & Adorno acknowleged that many of their formulations from 1947 were not too congruent with the present (1969) reality. But at the same time they had been invited to re-issue, and also they thought that many lines of thinking and perspectives in the book might still be pertinent.
GAD now, 2014
We must understand and write about GA both in respect of the first theoreticians and practitioners of GA and their texts, and in relation to the present, our time and societies, our clinical experiences, present GA theories and research. This is the task – and I think it is both challenging and meaningful – contributors to GAD face: to use their professional knowledge and capabilities, to read and think, re-think the chosen themes and concepts, and to formulate ourselves informatively and clearly. And, I think what is most important: with a sense/feeling of freedom, of free thought.
If I may put it a bit ”high”: I have always thought of GA as a forum for the possiblity of free speach – free speach being partly synonymous with some freedom in thinking and feeling. Hopefully a sense of that freedom can be with us working with and writing GAD. It is an informative enterprise and, to quote Horkheimar & Adorno once more: ”freedom in society is inseparably combined with informative/illuminative thinking”, (p.11, my translation).
In 1967 Laplanche & Pontalis published their Vocabulaire de la Psychoanalyse (Dictionary of Psychoanalysis). By and large it is a Freud-dictionary. The authors say in the preface that a review of loads of psychoanalytic litterature convinced them that most of the concepts in use were fundamentally Freudian – though, Klein in some measures being an exception. But, 1967, almost 30 years afrer Freud´s death, a number of important psychoanalytic theories and new concepts had developed. So in their reading of psychoanalytic litterature Laplance & Pontalis seem to have been strictly conservative Freudians; others might or would have ended up with different categories and concepts. In that perspective Vocabulaire de la Psychoanalyse was/is a histotical document – of a very high quality.
Alors, sans comparison – but still: how can and will we read, understand and re-formulate the texts of the founders and next generations of GA? Which new concepts have developed, what new theories have created new meanings to old concepts, which new and different clinical experiences have emerged, ect.
What is Group Analysis? That question coins what the whole GAD project is about. But surely, GA may be defined in one or two sentences: ”GA is a form of psychodynamic group therapy where treatment of individual patients takes place in the group and is effected by the group , including the leader. The group of people gathered is therefore the actual treatment instrument, and it is the therapist´s task to involve the group in this proces”, (Lorentzen 2013, p. 3). I quote these lines both as an example of a recent formulation and as an effort in one or two sentences to describe GA as a whole, (that is what definitions aim at doing: to bound a whole field or area), since there is a professional need of ”knowing what we are talking about”. But also there is a more fundamental need of relating to and have some kind of relationship to ”the whole-ness of GA/GA as a whole”. Obviously this has much to do with professional identity, but as a writer about GA, say in the GAD project, it is difficult next to impossible to talk or write, say of one of the 5 subjects that are in this workshop, (GA and mind, matrix, group-as-a-whole, potential space, socialization; contributors coming from Denmark, Israel and Sweden)) without having some sort of conceptualization of ”what GA is”. Or I should say: ”what GA is for me, talking or writing of this specific subject”.
You easily find descriptions more complicated of the scope of GA – that is: if it is excactly the same area described? In Group Analysis, the journal, GA is delineated as ”a form of psychotherapy (that) brings together concepts derived from psychoanalytic psychology, social psychology, group dynamics, sociology and anthropology”. And even more fields might be added, fx analytical psychology, systems theory, chaos theory, ect. – The scope of GA is immense; none of us, I dare say, can know of or ”cover” it all, even though the image of a classic polyhistor may come to mind.
So, GA is theoretically and conceptually pluralistic, both in its various actual practices and as a scientific field. There are many and many different parts. But still GA can, I think should, be seen as a coherent field of theoretical knowledge and psychotherapeutic practices, some kind of a whole that we as professionals and right now as participants in this conference all take part in.
If think that one of the major dynamic dimensions in the GAD project will be the relationship between parts and wholeness in GA. 100 years ago Durkheim (1914) wrote an article on the dualism of human nature. He opened the text with some remarks on the relationship between sociology and psychology, society being the whole, the individual the parts. He was convinced that a great number of mental states are of social origin, and ”it is the whole that, in a large measure, produces the part; consequently, it is impossible to attempt to explain the whole without explaining the parts – without explaining, at least, the part as a result of the whole”, (p. 325). In GA-terms: it is the group, the whole group analytic situation that to a large extent produces the mental states of the group members; neither the whole nor the parts can be explained without the other.
Generally, a project of this kind is quite overwhelming: so (how) many subjects, so (how) many different approaches of GA in theory and practice, so (how) many interfaces, ect.? One major field in the GAD-project is the theoretical and conceptual relation between clinical practice and research, both in respect to terminology but also concerning outcome and results. This seems to me an obvious part and task of the GAD-project.
To set out to produce a dictionary, in one form or the other, implies some kind of confidence in language: in the use and utility of language as such, and in the specific codes and categories within our field. That we can ”do something with our language” – describe and explain, but also, possibly and hopefully, that the verbal work with themes and subjects deepens or opens further understanding and insight..
Inger Christensen, a Danish poet, wrote a fabulous volume called ”it” (1969) where she touched upon many existential dilemmas and paradoxes – open-ended, of course.
About the relation between world and words she says in one place:
because the words stages the world
because the world anchors the words,
(my translation)
We find ourselves in that cross field all the time, I think in special ways when we try to formulate ourselves professionally in script.
What do we have in mind to write, what is (not) desribed and what is (not) describable?
Inger Christensen again:
what is written is always something different
and what is descrribed something else yet
between these is what is not described
which, when it is desribed
open new undesribed areas
that is indescibable
(my translation)
Here we go!! Whether we, and to what degree, succeed or not? In my opinion it would be a mistake not to try. The GAD project is international. A number of colleagues have taken interest and we hope that involvement will grow and activity increase. We invite and welcome participation in all aspects of the project! Please USE THE BLOG: www.iga-kbh.dk
In Copenhagen we have formed a management-/workgroup around the project (Helle Østerbye Andersen, Lars Bo Jørgensen, Torben Voigt and Søren Aagaard). Our plans for the next period of time are to continue to make workshops – hopefully the idea in one form or the other will gain further ground in other places, there are now similar workshops in Israel. Further we intend to stimulate more contributions on the blog and intensify communication on it. Within the next ½ year we shall make some kind of evaluation of processes and material so far. And then, in collaboration with interested institutes and colleagues, we want to set up a conference/workshop on the project in the best suitable place, say in May or June next year.
References
Aagaard, S. (2012) Project for a Group Analytic Dictionary Context 58 p. 47-54
Christensen, I. (1969) ”det” Gyldendal
Durkheim, E. (1914) The dualism of human nature and its social origin. In: Essays on sociology & philosophy by Emile Durkheim et al. Harper 1960
Group Analysis (journal): Aims and Scope
Horkheimer, M. & Adorno, Th.W. (1972) Oplysningens dialektik Gyldendal
Laplanche, J. & Pontalis, J.-B. (1973) Das Vokabular der Psychoanalyse Suhrkamp
Lorentzen, S. (2013) Group Analytic Psychotherapy Routledge