Queer Perspectives in Group Analysis

As group analysts we believe that individuals are conceptually inseparable from the social world around them; the social is internal not just external. Gender and sexuality, as core parts of our identities, are central to understanding ourselves and our relationships with others. However, sexuality and gender are arguably invisible (or at least less visible) products of identity. The body, generally hidden under clothing, reveals itself through contour, behaviour, and imagination. They require an extra effort within language to state a position or ‘come out’ to use a colloquialism. As clinicians, none of us are beyond the language of politics and history. We are as prone to prejudices such as homophobia and transphobia, consciously and unconsciously, as anyone else. And the language of sexuality and gender is changing at pace.

Much has changed over recent decades in terms of the attitudes of mental health systems towards gender and sexual minorities. It is a complex task weighing these changes without disavowing history. For example, how we reconcile these two quotes from the group analytic literature, separated by nearly 50 years, as group analysts?

Foulkes, Therapeutic Group Analysis, 1975: “…we should rule out people who are pervert to a marked degree – for instance (…) homosexuals (…). We do not want people who are out for their own advantage, material or otherwise, those who are vain and oversensitive, fanatic, and those who think they have a mission to fulfil”.

Anderson, The Body of the Group, 2022: “Such regulatory structures of space, time, and contact, both of bodies and language, offer a unique experience that is particularly regulated, for [the analytic group] is neither a social space nor (in due course) are group members total strangers to each other. The analysands are positioned somewhere in between, both ill-defined and refused definition, and open to debate and movement”.

There has been extensive historical discourse on the perceived pathology of so-called homosexuality. However, insufficient attention has been given to examining the discourse within certain schools of psychoanalysis that contribute to pathologising homosexuality and transgender identity. The issue lies in counselling, psychotherapy, and group analysis specifically, being influenced by historical interpretations of the relationship between homosexuality and classical psychoanalysis. Consequently, non-normative sexualities and genders have often been labelled as (and often still are in some areas of the world) perverse, developmentally arrested, or over-simplified into singular identity categories.

As always, change is inevitable. Our recently established Queer Perspectives in Group Analysis special interest group via GASi (conducted by Claire Barnes and myself) is progressing well with a good range of international group analysts, group psychotherapists, and students. The group analytic literature on sexuality and gender is growing rapidly and delving into clinical areas previous not explored (such as via Stuart Stevenson) and developing new group analytic theory accordingly (the late Morris Nitsun and my recent book come to mind, to name a few).

Let’s hope the next GASi Symposium reflects this rapid growth and places sexuality, gender, and also race, at the centre of the programme. Intersectionality, and the work of Alasdair Forrest and Suryia Nayak and their new book Intersectionality and Group Analysis, deserves a special shout out.

danieledwardanderson@icloud.com

Dr Daniel Anderson is a consultant psychiatrist, group analyst, and psychodynamic psychotherapist working in the NHS at The Christie cancer hospital in Manchester, England, and in private practice. He is the lead for postgraduate supervision and coaching to doctors training in oncology and related specialties and is an honorary associate professor of psychotherapy at the University of Central Lancashire. Dan completed his PhD at the University of Manchester’s Institute of Education and consequently authored the book The Body of the Group: Sexuality and Gender in Group Analysis by Karnac Books. He is also a fellow of The Royal Society of Arts.