The Significance of Rosa’s Theory of Resonance for Group Analysis
Abstract
Even though resonance is a group specific factor, no group analytic theory of resonance exists. Using illustrative examples, I argued that intertwining Rosa’s theory of resonance with the group analytic concept of resonance increases its explanatory breadth and depth. Outlining the development of resonance and assumptions the theory of resonance is based on, I demonstrated its compatibility with Group Analysis. My discussion revealed that this theory encompasses many group analytic conceptualizations. Integrating Rosa’s work enables group analysts to critically examine social structures, experiences, relationships, the quality of life and other challenging aspects of modernity from a resonance perspective. This theory could also enrich group analytic conceptualizations of religion. Given the asymmetrical relationship between resilience and depression, between alienation and resonance/the good life, resonance theory is significant for Group Analysis, because it injects explanatory breadth into the neglected concept of resonance.
Introduction
Rosa’s (2016, 2019c, d) resonance theory has aroused much interest amongst scholars in the humanities and social sciences. In Group Analysis, resonance is a crucial concept as Agazarian and Peters (1981), Brown (1994), Pines (2003), Thygesen (2008), Wotton (2012, 2013), Berman (2012), and Vosmer (2023) have shown. Forrest (2024) combined resonance and mirroring, considering them as diffraction[i]. Initially, Foulkes and Anthony (1964) regarded resonance as an unconscious reaction in response to a stimulus. Individuals resonate in the key to which they are tuned, that is, their psychopathology (Foulkes, 2002). A high congruence of thinking and feeling exists during resonance. People are sensitive to the rhythms and pitch variation of exchanges (Wotton, 2015). Many forms of resonance have been identified in the wider literature (see Schmetkamp, 2017).
Resonances were described as mirror reactions, resulting from the firing of mirror neurons (Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2008). When we see an action or gesture being performed, we imitate it. Attunement to internal states can also activate the mirror neuron system (Siegel, 2007). Mirroring[1] is conceptualized as a complex form of resonance in Group Analysis (Schlapobersky, 2016). Both mirroring and resonance are group specific therapeutic factors (Pines, 1998; Barnes et al., 1999). Despite its clinical importance, no group analytic theory of resonance has been developed.
Etymologically, ‘theory’ is derived from the Latin noun ‘theoria’, meaning to contemplate. Theory can be defined as an explanation of a particular social phenomenon that identifies several factors or conditions of this phenomenon (Abend, 2008). Like Weegmann (2014, 2016), I believe that theories are important and Group Analysis itself has developed by incorporating many theories (Dahlin, 2003), including Elias’ (1991, 1996) sociological theories.
In the absence of a group analytic theory of resonance, I suggest that we could make use of the work of the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa and his theory of resonance. Due to its emphasis on relationality, sociality, the political, and intersubjectivity, Rosa’s (2016) theory is compatible with group analytic thinking. He argued that without resonance in relations, consolidation of inter/subjectivity would be inconceivable. Intersubjectivity is an organizing principle and a complex relational field, where psychological processes come together, and experiences are shaped (Weegmann, 2001).
Rosa (2019a, b, c, d) intertwined sociology with phenomenology, hermeneutics, social critique, and normative theory in his holistic theory of resonance that is mainly based on capitalist world relations. It focuses on understanding, explaining, and critiquing society, and is additionally oriented towards changing it.
More specifically, Rosa (2013, 2016, 2017a) developed a contemporary social critique of the accelerating aspect of modernity and the alienating effect it has. Our relationship with and towards the world is both the consequence and cause of acceleration. Rosa (2016) argued that we can use resonance to critique social structures. So resonance is not only a moment of living or relating, but also a conceptual tool to critique the impact of modernity. It can additionally be used to measure the quality of our life.
Rosa (2016) defined resonance as a mode of relating, in which people feel moved, touched, or addressed by other people, by objects, or by places they encounter. He conceptualized resonance as bidirectional, consisting of three axes and spheres. He illustrated resonance by referring to soundwaves. Two entities are in relation to each other. In a vibratory medium (resonant space), they mutually affect each other in such a way that they can be understood as responding to each other, but each is speaking with its own voice. It is about the relationship between subjects and an object. Rosa (2016) compared it to a vibrating wire that exists between people and the world. Something emerges when resonance occurs between them.
He used the words ‘affectivity’ and ‘emotion’. Resonance is the dual movement of af←fection (something touches us from the outside) and e→motion (we answer by giving a response and thereby establish a connection). Inevitably, resonance has a bodily basis (Rosa, 2017b). It only occurs when affectivity and emotion are present at the same time. This necessitates that we must actively experience the world around us. Hence, Rosa (2016, 2019a) argued that resonance emerges primarily in momentary experience. Neither can it be forced nor held in place or made permanent.
In this article, I hope to demonstrate that the integration of Rosa’s (2019d) resonance theory would enable group analysts to critically examine social structures, experiences, the quality of life and other aspects of modernity from a resonance perspective. After outlining the development of resonance, I will describe Rosa’s (2016, 2019d) theory and assumptions that it is based on. Additionally, I will compare it with Group Analysis to demonstrate their compatibility and provide illustrative examples. I will argue that Rosa’s thinking is significant for Group Analysis, because intertwining the group analytic concept of resonance with resonance theory would increase its explanatory breadth and depth.
How Does Resonance Develop?
While resonance seems to be based on the infant’s introjection and internalization of cultural codes, which binds the individual with the group to whom s/he belongs (Weinberg, 2006), infants must possess an innate capacity that allows them to connect and introject in the first place.
Even though the mechanisms of introjection, projection, projective identification, and transference are involved in resonance, Foulkes (1964) suggested that resonance was more. It revealed the meaning that communication has regarding experiences. He placed resonance at the primordial level, the collective unconscious, which contains inborn patterns that influence our behaviour (Jung, 1917). Rosa’s (2016) argument that resonance is a fundamental characteristic of humanity, and that people have the need and capacity for resonance, overlaps with Jung’s (1917) notion, too. If resonance is a fundamental characteristic of humanity, then it will be innate, trans/intergenerationally transmitted, and affect everyone’s behaviour. Grounded on Darwin’s theory of evolution, Bowlby also conceptualized attachment as an innate capacity for human connectedness and the basis for sociality (Ezquerro & Caňete, 2023).
Resonance theory tallies with a group attachment perspective. Securely attached children can form secure attachments (resonant relationships), which underpin the development of sufficient ego resilience, self-esteem, and emotional health (Wallin, 2007).
Trevarthen and Aitken (2001) demonstrated that in the first year of life, resonance develops out of proto-conversations, i.e., a specific fit (attunement) between mother and infant that arises from their interactions (mother-infant dyad responds to each other’s nonverbal cues, vocalizations, gestures, emotions; infant’s cues are matched in timing, form, intensity by caregiver). Slavson (1943, 1978), who conducted children’s groups to foster attachment, observed that empathic resonance developed naturally in children’s peer groups.
Neurodiverse infants frequently struggle to engage in proto-conversations (Paul, 2008), which would suggest that resonance does not develop automatically in autistic children. Mirror neuron and resonance deficits have, indeed, been identified (Grecucci et al., 2013). Research evidence is inconclusive, however, and neurodiverse children often benefit from explicitly taught strategies for social responsivity (Hagenmuller et al., 2014). Furthermore, it is conceivable that autistic parent-infant dyads may develop proto-conversations more easily than non-autistic parents with their autistic babies.
Deliberately Fostering Resonance
To examine whether analytic groups could foster the development of resonance is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that therapeutic group work has successfully been used to develop children’s empathy. Pigott (1990) made a strong case for analytic groups, and Ávila and Moreira de Macedo (2012) reported that autistic children benefitted from their group.
While autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder from a medical perspective (affecting interaction, communication, language), the neurodiversity paradigm holds that all human brains and resulting perceptions differ to a degree (Chappel et al., 2021).
Both Foulkes[ii] (1977) and Rosa (2016) regarded music as an excellent relational medium, and resonance theory offers a more optimistic view than the medical model: the diagonal axis (music, literature) connects sociality with existence. Hence, music and literature can build resonances. Indeed, in neurodiverse children music developed empathy (Applewhite et al., 2022). Literature enabled autistic people to respond empathically and to engage emotionally (Chappel et al., 2021).
Arguing that fundamental relatedness precedes the division of subjects and object, Rosa (2019a, c) described resonance as an event though which subjects and the social world come into being. So resonance is a mode of relating to it. However, even though subjects feel moved by others, how they respond depends on their previous experiences and on social contexts. This means that it considers diversity.
Resonance, The Good Life & Acceleration
According to Rosa (2016), subjects find themselves already engaging in or relating to something or someone in the world. This relationship is not about exploration of surroundings. It constitutes subjects. When people connect with others (e.g. black Africans being in loving relationships with white Americans), or with cultural objects (thinking about life after watching a documentary about Israel), people and their worlds are transformed. Nothing will be the same after such a moment of resonance (Vorderer & Halfmann, 2019).
When life stories about socio-cultural life are shared, intimate resonant relationships often develop (Mc Adams, 1988), which are necessary for a good life. Rosa (2016) regarded resonant relationships with others and the world as a prerequisite for the good life. He emphasized that it is not based on material resources, but on how people are connected with the world. Additionally, a good life depends on how the world is experienced, actively appropriated, or adapted (Rosa & Henning, 2019).
Rosa’s (2016) theory is predicated on a connected relationship with the world, which counteracts alienation, and is achieved by suppressing acceleration. Time is crucial to this theory. His concept of social acceleration (Rosa, 2013) is based on the idea that modernization is not only something that happens in time, but that it refers to a transformation of time, and time itself. Social acceleration is defined as an increase in the decay rate of the reliability of experiences and expectations within/of society, and as the shortening of time periods in the present. The past no longer applies, and the future does not yet apply.
For Rosa (2013, 2017a), acceleration is the uniform trend underlying the multiplicity of European, Asian, American, African, and Micronesian modernities. Nowadays, time can be determined without space due to technology. We can experience and know everything, because we can connect with the entire world via the internet. There are no (or less) spatial barriers, causing us to feel disconnected from space. Rosa (2020) analyzed the mode of stabilization and dynamic reproduction. Modern society is characterized by a need to grow, by acceleration, innovation, and by increased speed and productivity. At individual and collective levels, we must run faster to sustain what we have and to keep up with the pace of the accelerating world. Paradoxically, acceleration can only be stabilized by increasing it (Rosa, 2017a). However, while everything increases in quantity and speed, time itself cannot. Rosa (2013, 2017a) compared acceleration to being in a hamster wheel. Moving faster from place to place results in a loss of how we orient ourselves in the spatial world and feeling isolated. Even though his social critique of the acceleration in modernity is based on the alienating impact it has, resonance is not about desiring that society deaccelerates, but about increased independence and multiplication of stabilization (Rosa, 2016, 2017a). Let me illustrate this by using the example of the German reunification:
Many East Germans experienced a loss of resonant relations with their country and of national identity (Orlow, 2006), leading to alienation. They had to adapt to capitalism and the fast pace that characterizes capitalist societies. Since the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) had rejected modernity as Western decadence, focusing on socialist values and attitudes (Hell, 1997), East Germans had to adopt a decadent ideology. When assimilating ideologies, which are unconscious (Dalal, 2011), it may give the erroneous impression that relations are resonant, harmonious, and flawless. But this is not resonance, because it requires openness to others and allows opposite perspectives (Susen, 2007).
Opposition was not allowed in the GDR, meaning that no genuine resonant relationships developed between dissidents and advocators of the political system. For opponents, liberating forms of resonance arose when the Berlin Wall was dismantled. However, due to the speed of events, demands for increased productivity, and the use of advanced technology, many East Germans started to feel disconnected (alienated) from their workplaces and from West German society. Rosa (2016) distinguished basic modes that can be discerned in our relationship to the world: resonance, alienation, indifference, and repulsion.
Alienation
In a resonant relationship to the world, we experience the world as responsive. Alienation is an experience of indifference or repulsion, involving encounters that are hostile or injurious. It results from a damaged subjectivity and a missing correspondence between the subject and the world. Alienated relations can also be described as mute relationships (Rosa, 2016). People feel that they do not belong, which is linked to mental health difficulties.
Hinshelwood (1985) discussed similarities between alienation (Marx) and projective identification (Klein). Group analysts are aware of the detrimental impact of alienation if they have read Max Weber, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Georg Lukács, Alex Honneth, or Rahel Jaeggi. Humans’ attempts to commodify relationships has preoccupied many scholars, who found that the world has become shallow, silent, and deaf by treating people like/as commodities. This has resulted in alienated relations. ‘Alienation’ is almost an umbrella term for a cold, harsh, and non-responding world, in which subjects introject coldness and feel dead (Rosa, 2017b). Whether described as anomia (Ėmile Durkheim), identification with a blasé attitude (Georg Simmel), disenchantment (Weber), a relationship without true relation (Jaeggi), or burnout (Alain Ehrenberg), alienation has a profound effect on people’s psyches and lives (Rosa, 2017b).
Arguing that in our alienated modernity the longing for salvation has increased, Rosa (2019a, b, c) highlighted that people must improve their relationships in all dimensions to become more resonant (Rosa, 2017a). Every ism (ageism, sexism, racism etc.) must be tackled. By placing resonance into socio-politico-historical contexts, emphasizing its importance for a good life and for our world, by criticizing alienation, and advocating for societal transformation, Rosa’s (2019a, c) theory is intersectional. Oliver (2001) demonstrated that a subject, whose experience has been alienated by dominant cultures or oppressive politics cannot possess agency/a voice, because racist structures create racist psyches. For Rosa (2016), alienation is the opposite of resonance. In resonant relationships, subjects mutually affect each other in a responsive manner. Each person is speaking with her/his own voice. So his theory shows that racist structures and oppression prevent the formation of resonant relations/relationships with others and the world.
Axes & Spheres of Resonance & Comparison With Group Analysis
According to Rosa (2016), resonance consists of three axes and spheres[2]:
horizontal axis (social sphere: love, friendship)
diagonal axis (material sphere: artefacts, clothes)
vertical axis (world sphere: existential)
Family, friendships, and politics belong to the social sphere. Democratic citizenships can also be conceptualized as resonant relationships within this dimension. Rosa (2019c) suggested that through communal experiences, sociality obtains a voice, and that resonances along the horizontal axis then become the normative world of sociality. Echoes of his optimism are found in de Maré’s dream that the large group could humanize society and in the notion of Koinonia: from hate, to dialogue, and to culture in the large group (society) (de Maré et al., 1991). To become thinking and speaking citizens in the world, we have to soften destructive socio-political forces. For Rosa (2019c, d), resonance is a political category and political alienation is the opposite of resonance (Schiermer, 2017).
Political consciousness emerges in adolescence and adolescents are responsive to economic injustice and human rights, and vulnerable for identification with collective ideals (Frankel 1998). Describing the social as the domain of the political, a conflicted field that is constituted by power relations, Dalal’s (2011) thinking is reflected in Rosa’s (2016) theory. Friendships and loving relationships are included in the social spheres together with politics. So the political infiltrates intimacy and may even exert its power.
Ezquerro and Caňete (2023) mentioned that emerging adulthood is the birth of the political self. A growing interest in politics enables the psyche to find expression in political choices. When emerging adults[3] (approx. 18-29 years old) are able and willing, they can develop mature and intimate citizenship (recognition of rights and obligations, how to relate as gendered beings etc.). Through the pursuit of purposive practices, a connection between horizontal and vertical axes is formed (Rosa, 2016).
Consumption, objects, work, sport, and school are also part of the diagonal axis. Tools and materials used for work or sports, amulets and other artefacts, belong to the material sphere. Along the vertical axis, religion, history, art, nature etc. are found (Rosa, 2016). Furthermore, through creative works (music, film, art, poetry, writing), the dialectic between alienation and resonance can be articulated, which lies at the heart of Rosa’s theory (Anderson, 2023). When listening to music or stories, we can feel deeply touched by them. This is why Rosa described music as the relational mode par excellence.
Nature may be experienced as a responsive reality and often people want to connect with the universe (Žalec, 2021a), which brings about religious experiences (existential dimension). For many Muslims, religion is a way of life and not only a faith (EUAA, 2022). Hence, their marriages and friendships are based on Islamic values (norms), and the individual is permeated to the core by the collective, which demonstrates that resonance is a normative concept. Rosa (2019c) defined religion as promises of resonance.
Even the cross can be understood as a connection between the horizontal and vertical axis of resonance. All axes are present in the celebration of Christmas. It is a family holiday (horizontal resonance), as well as a holiday of a special relationship to the crib (diagonal resonance) and to the child (vertical resonance). From a theological perspective, Žalec (2021a) highlighted that Christmas also signifies the transformation of God in relationship with man through the birth of a child, hence, we can speak of a resonance between man and God.
Described as a comprehensive system program of hope by Hűbner (2021), hope is important to Rosa (2019c), and instillation of hope has been identified as an important psychotherapeutic factor by Yalom (1990). Rosa’s thinking has contributed to understanding existential hope and meaning in the field of religion (Žalec, 2021a).
Even though resonance has not been theorized in connection to religion, which has a meagre literature in Group Analysis, faith, spirituality, and religious affiliations are nevertheless important for clinical practice. Thus, Rosa’s (2019c) theory could enrich group analytic conceptualizations of religion.
Sociality & Resonance
Rosa (2018, 2019b, d) argued that availability, transformation, emotion/affection, and self-efficacy are essential for the occurrence of resonance. Our entire life consists of relations with and towards the world (Rosa, 2016). Similarly, Foulkes (1964) conceived man as a social animal whose fulfilment can only be achieved in a group. According to Rosa (2016), relations are shaped by how we relate and our relationship towards the world influences all modes of our existence. Since the development or hindrance of resonance is caused by sociality, un/successful relations with the social world are influenced by society. In other words, the quality of our relationship is influenced by the world we live in (by sociocultural factors). This tallies with group analytic thinking that experience is co-constructed through diverse relationships and contexts. Psychopathology can result from unmet needs for belongingness and group attachment (Garland, 2010).
While acknowledging anti-group phenomena (hindrance of resonance), Rosa shares Foulkes’ hopeful view. Describing resonance as being shaped by a responsive, elastic, fluid, and even cuddly relationship to the world, Rosa (2016) viewed resonance as a flash of hope for adaptive transformation. Even though we can never fully establish resonance, constitutive axes of resonance nevertheless enable us to experience resonance and change the world (Van Egmond, 2022).
Is Group Analysis Resonant?
Group Analysis is theoretically oriented towards the social and sociality plays an important role in group psychotherapy. I wonder whether we as group analysts have chosen to train in this method, because we seek to find axes of resonance just as our patients do when they attend our groups. Perhaps Group Analysis can be conceptualized as a social activity along the horizontal axis, where we interact with colleagues at conferences, become friends or have intimate, loving relationships with other group analysts. Group Analysis may also be a means to relate to life (vertical axis). When reading group analytic literature or writing articles (diagonal axis), we form connections between horizontal and vertical axes to generate resonances. Thus, Group Analysis is very resonant.
The Body & Resonance
Rosa (2016) emphasized the physical nature of consciousness. The world only exists through the body, which is the medium/mediator between the reflexive self and the world. He distinguished between the body as object and the lived body. Resonance requires the use of the latter and a visceral engagement with the world (Van Egmond, 2022). When perceived as an object, it will always be a mute relation. For example, in pornographic films where female bodies are often treated as objects, indicating an alienation from society.
Whereas Foulkes (2002) was more concerned with networks than the body, group analysts nevertheless refer to the group as a ‘mother’, and to the matrix as ‘womb’ or ‘soil’ (Kent, 2019). This points to the importance of the female body and women’s propensity to form nurturing, resonant relationships. Females may be more in touch with their lived bodies because they give birth. However, even though women tend to have a deeper connection with their bodies than men, we cannot conclude that they have a more resonant relationship with the world (Van Egmond, 2022).
Resonance, Alienation & Transformation
Spheres of resonance are universal but differ in terms of the importance individuals and cultures attach to these. For example, socio-cultural practices in Sweden and Turkey will result in varying sensitivities to and spheres of resonance. I would compare spheres of resonance to matrices and to the social unconscious. Depending on where people reside in this world, the social unconscious structures their psyches in a particular way, as spheres of resonances do.
Weinberg (2006) clarified that the idea of the social unconscious reflects the socio-cultural arrangements of which individuals are unconscious (Hopper, 1996) and that it refers to the representation of social forces and power relations in the psyche (Dalal, 2001). It assumes that certain hidden assumptions guide the behaviour of a certain society or culture, meaning that a group, organization, or the entire society can also act upon unconscious forces. Similar forces exist in Rosa’s (2016) theory: social conditions can obstruct or facilitate the formation of axes of resonance. However, the emphasis on unconscious forces differs.
For Brown (1994), resonance was fundamental to group members’ identification with each other. It is necessary for empathy and the experience of being part of something. Processes in the group echo within oneself, reverberate through members, and sustain a deep sense of similarity between them. This tallies with Rosa’s (2016) notion that the vital element of resonance is tied to an encounter in which ‘I experience a transformation of myself’. ‘I experience the other, which transforms me’. It necessitates that both affectivity and emotion are present at the same time (Rosa, 2020). Then such transformation can even be achieved by inspirational and authoritarian leaders, or by educational and political systems. The application of Rosa’s (2016) theory of resonance enables a critical analysis of governmental systems and practices:
Political ideologies are successful when they find an axis of resonance (Rosa, 2016), for example, when socialism/capitalism touches people and individuals react with their bodies and minds (Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999). In the GDR, young people were moulded through education. Many children reacted physically and mentally to socialist practices (Brock, 2009). Even kindergarten children enthusiastically embraced the Army and knew how to load canons. Resonances par excellence were created through Russian pedagogy. However, in some cases it was only alienation, as Rescheleit and Krippendorf’s (2002) research on educational practices showed. They described how non-conforming youngsters were publicly shamed, humiliated, put into workhouses, and not allowed to go to university. In this society of paternal authority, the nature of rebellious students’ relationships with educational institutions was ‘a relation of non-relations’ (alienation). Ihe government tried to create normative resonant relations within the educational sphere by providing incentives and demanding that universities established mutually reinforcing relationships with students. Universities became socio-political instruments of the State, whose task it was to produce conformist personalities (Breitsprecher, 2020). Many identified with socialist attitudes. Those who rebelled were questioned by the Ministry of Defence and punished (Becker et al., 2020). So all the produced relationships were deeply political and transformative. Relatives were drawn into these relations in the ‘feeling of the moment’. Whereas an active, bodily engagement enables resonance, we can have very visceral experiences when feeling repulsed. Van Egmond (2022) viewed repulsion as an engaged, albeit unpleasant, relation. Art can shock or repulse, she argued, but it nevertheless keeps us connected to it. More often repulsion is an intense, embodied experience that results from a closing off or closed off relation to the world., however. This happens in violent relationships (Rosa, 2016). Due to alienation, people in these relationships are then incapable of successfully appropriating some segment of world. They become entangled in a ‘relationless relationship’.
Rosa (2013, 2016) explained that alienation has only meaning when one specifies what a subject or community is alienated from. People can be alienated from themselves, from their fellow human beings, and from the world. External or internal suppression/repression can result in human alienation, generating a non-relationship or echo chamber. Resonance is its antithesis. Historically, woman and in particular black women were excluded for centuries. By not being allowed to vote, they were alienated from public and political life. Along the social axis of resonance, we encounter an alienation between women and governments, when women were no longer gripped by laws that prevented them from voting, and confined them to the realm of the home to fulfil childcare and domestic duties. This became apparent in the women’s rights movement in the 1960s, 1970s, mid-1990s, and early 2020s (Britannica, 2024). During their fight for emancipation, resonances between the sexes were either disrupted or eradicated, and a cold disengagement occurred.
Depression & Resonance
In contrast to the group analytic concept of resonance, Rosa’s (2016) resonance theory can also be used to measure the quality of life. Depression is the commonest mental health condition worldwide. Its prevalence has increased and is linked to neoliberal economic policies and capitalist ideologies that favour individualism, materialism, and competitiveness, which are incompatible with people’s need for social connection and community, therefore, resulting in depression (Zeria, 2021).
Rosa (2016) defined depression as the death of human channels of resonance. Such internal state of alienation signifies a crisis of meaning and meaninglessness. It is the absence of resonance, because the channel of resonance is dead, silent, or blocked. Associated with consequences of modern neoliberalism, mute resonances additionally affect the quality of people’s lives. Žalec (2021) commented that humans try in every possible way to break alienation, because it is too difficult to bear. However, group analysts know that socio-economic and political forces also exert their influence through the social unconscious. Attempts to disrupt alienation may, therefore, be unsuccessful due to unconscious influences.
Clinicians will also be aware of the effect of contagion, the transfer of moods amongst people in a group at an un/conscious level (Barsade, 2002). This mechanism is somewhat at odds with the notion that resonance is a reflective identification that acts as an analytic agent in therapy groups, enabling members to respond at their own level of attunement to the predominant affect in the group (Foulkes, 1977). In the company of a depressed person, others may start to feel low due to contagion without suffering from low mood. On the other hand, contagious effects could be explained as resonance, an instinctive communication that is taking place without any specific message having been sent (Foulkes, 1977). But such a linear sender-receiver model of communication, originally developed by David Berlo in the 1960s, is too limited, because it does not account for all the complexities and dynamics that occur in interactions. It also does not fit with Rosa’s (2016) notion of a blocked channel of resonance, which is more akin to Foulkes’ disturbance in communication.
Dead resonance may indeed result from human alienation. I would compare it to the location of disturbance, which is a key principle of Group Analysis (Foulkes, 1964). What becomes manifest in one system can be symptomatic of a disturbance located elsewhere. Since disturbance is located between individuals or systems, it can never be attributed to a single individual or one group only (Kinouani, 2020). Phrased in Rosa’s (2016) terminology, the relationship with the world (resonance) is disrupted in depression.
A person may be more vulnerable to become depressed, because vulnerability is linked to resilience. Associated with good mental health, resilience itself is dependent on resonant relationships (Žalec, 2021b), and Alayarian (2024) discussed its importance when working with adversity in analytic groups.
For Rosa (2016), resonance is also a conceptual tool to critique the impact of modernity:
Mood disturbance itself can be caused by modern capitalist ideologies. If resonance is an integral part of resilience, and resilience depends on experiencing resonate relationships, and people are less resilient in a fast changing, unpredictable world, then people will be less resilient in modern neoliberal societies (Žalec, 2021b). Given the asymmetrical relationship between resilience and depression, it is high time that we transformed societies and focused on building resonant relationships, in line with de Maré et al.’s (1991) vision.
Love & Resonance in Film (‘The same Sky’)
Through creative works, such as art and production of films, the dialectic between alienation and resonance can be articulated (Rosa, 2016). Discussing diverse resonances and exploring different kinds of love in the interpretative encounter in the analytic group, Vosmer (2023) showed that affective resonances (mood, emotions, pain) are generated in stories.
Love is highly resonant (Žalec, 2021), because love relations involve horizontal (relationships with people), diagonal (sexually using the lived body) and vertical (existential elements that concern all humans) axes of resonance. Rosa (2016) explained that we can talk of love between people when a vibrating loving connection develops. Then they resonate together. As intimacy deepens, mutual love develops into a stable relationship (marriage) along the horizontal axis.
In the film Der gleiche Himmel (Hirschbiegel, 2017), a female data analyst at the National Security Agency succumbs to the charm of a GDR Romeo agent, whose mission it is to seduce her. Hirschbiegel depicts East-West ideologies and the life in the GDR. Applying Rosa’s (2016) theory, we notice just how crucial technology is for safety. Of course, the film cannot convey the immense loss of spatial boundaries, since it depicts the 1970s when artificial intelligence and the internet were less sophisticated. However, we observe a merging of bodies and loss of personal boundaries, and the simultaneously presence of affectivity (Lauren is being gripped) and emotion (how Lars affects her). Both, her emotional availability and his self-efficacy, result in development of a resonant relationship and transformation.
Training Romeo agents to skilfully woe their targets was a successful technique to create seemingly strong resonant relations and to obtain secret information, which is revealed in bed. However, since those relationships are not genuine, they are not truly resonant but alienating. Interestingly, they could be interpreted as resonant from a Foulkesian (1977) perspective, because Lauren responds at her own level of attunement to Lars’ flirtation. It does not matter that his feelings are not genuine. This is in stark contrast to Rosa’s (2016) theory, which emphasizes openness and authenticity, enabling a more honest and ethical analysis at an existential level than the group analytic concept of resonance.
Summary & Conclusion
Borrowing the term ‘resonance’ from physics, Foulkes (1966, 1977, 2002) used it to designate group members’ ability to detect and share each other’s preverbal emotions. He described resonance as an instinctive and intuitive process that spontaneously occurs and is shaped by personality and past experience. Resonance is a group specific factor. Despite its importance, no group analytic theory of resonance exists. Hence, I advocate to integrate resonance theory and have outlined similarities and differences between Rosa’s (2016) theory and Group Analysis.
In my critical discussion of neurodiversity, sociality, the body, love, alienation, transformation, depression, resilience, film, and resonance, I have shown that Rosa’s theory encompasses several group analytic conceptualizations (emphasis on intersubjectivity, belonging, alienation, power relations; different forms/aspects of resonance, power, matrices, social unconscious, collective unconscious, group attachment, Koinonia).
Rosa’s (2019a, b, c, d) theory has more explanatory breadth and depth than the group analytic concept of resonance and could enrich conceptualizations of religion. Resonance theory can explicitly explain and critique a variety of behaviour, relationships, events, structures, and relations in the world, as well as offering a worldview of modernity and effects of acceleration. Since our entire existence consists of relationships with others and the world, and is shaped by the way we relate, Rosa’s (2016) critical theory can also be used as an ethical tool and a measure of the quality of life.
Considering the asymmetrical relationship between resilience and depression, between resonance alienation and the good life, we need to focus on building resonant relationships. Rosa’s work shows us how to address the challenges of modern life. By injecting a theory into the concept of resonance, it is significant for Group Analysis.
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[1] Weinberg H and Toder M (2004) provide the most recent review of mirroring in: The Hall of Mirror in Small, Large and Virtual Groups. Group Analysis. 37(4): 492-507.
[2] The provided examples are not exhaustive.
[3] ‘Emerging adulthood’ is not an extension of adolescence, but a term used to describe people living in developed and urban areas of less developed countries (Arnett, 2015).
[i] Diffraction is based on quantum physics and explains how particles in a double-slit experiment may behave like waves in probabilistic diffraction-like patterns when observed. Forrest (2024) draws on Barad K (2014), who advanced the notion of diffraction and prefers this term to interaction.
Of interest to the reader could be: Barad (2014) Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart. Paradox. 20: 168-187, and to Faye J and Jakesland R (2021) Barad, Bohr, and Quantum Mechanics. Synthese. 199: 8231-8255, and to Pinch T (2011) Karen Barad, Quantum Mechanics, and the Paradox of Mutual Exclusivity. Social Studies of Science. 41(3): 431-441, and Haraway D (1988) Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies. 14(3): 575-599.
[ii] It happens when one string instrument is played at one edge of the orchestra and another string instrument reverberates without anyone touching it. Metaphorically speaking, the conductor takes care that each individual musical instrument will be heard, and that the music will sound harmonic.