Article: Between Generations – On Becoming a Group Analyst

Group Analysis is complementary to psychoanalysis. It has enriched our understanding of the human psyche by adding the missing social dimension of the human mind.

Freud saw man as a hoard animal that seeks a strong, autocratic leader to protect him from sibling rivalry and, unlike Foulkes, he mistrusted groups. From the writings of Pines and other authors it might well be that this difference in perception stemmed from their personal histories. Both being Jews they seem to have been traumatised to a different degree by their Jewish origin. We are all familiar with Freud’s touching account of the humility, shame and contempt he felt for his father who showed no resistance when forced by an anti-semite to step from the pavement to a muddy street. He eased his shame by turning for comfort to his ego ideals: strong and brave historical figures (Hanibal, Bismarck, Napoleon) and soothed his pain in phantasies of revenge, he would never actualize. Instead he finally gave up and turned away from the painful and humiliating reality to an exploration of the intrapsychic world of phantasy and dreams, that finally brought him the respect and recognition he longed for.

Foulkes seems to have experienced less anti-Jewish discrimination before he was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and has not been as narcistically wounded as Freud. It is very likely that this affected Freuds therapeutic method that limited his exploration to the isolated individual in the diadic setting with no visual and facial contact. Foulkes on the other hand, under the influence of Gestalt psychology and the German sociologist Norbert Elias, underlied the importance of the social unconscious which is of central importance to the group analytic perspective that insists that persons must be understood not only in terms of the restraints of their bodies, but also in terms of their societies and emergent minds. Norbert Elias in his best known work, The Civilizing Process, underlied the importance of the changing social attitudes and norms through the history of western culture, from mediaval times on, that restrained human behaviours molding thus the internalized psychic structure that Freud named the super-ego.

It is interesting that during world war II on one side of the Atlantic, Europe was experiencing the most destructive potentials of groups under autocratic leadership whereas on the other side of the channel in Britain, the constructive and healing potentials of groups were being developed: group analisys in small groups and the therapeutic community in the context of an army hospital, the well known Nortfield experiment.

Foulkes did not use the concept of the social unconscious but introduced the concept of matrix, as the basis of all relationships and communication, a web of intrapsychic, interpersonal and transpersonal interrelationships within which the individual is conceptualised as a nodal point (Behr and Hearst, 1982) or in Foulkes’ words: “As in the case of the neuron in the nervous system so is the individual suspended in the group matrix.” He differentiated the foundation matrix as the web of social and culrural communicational systems of societies and the dynamic matrix as the social and cultural communicational network of groups including families, work groups and organisations.

I will turn now to the foundation and dynamic matrices in which our training courses started and developed. I will do this through my personal experience since I was the member of the first group of trainees as well as member of the trainers group that started the training courses in Slovenia.The first group of slovenian group analysts started our training in Zagreb in the context of the still prevailing Yugoslav belief in brotherhood and equality on one side and on the other the growing nationalisms: in Serbia with the ressurrection of the belief in great Serbia, in Croatia, as a reaction to the experience of half a centurys oppresssion of its national identity that grew into an irrational need to prove that during World war II it was not among the good guys who won the War; in Slovenia who tried to prove to itself and others she is not on the Balkan peninsula. And then there was Bosnia, left alone it turned to denial of the growing tensions that finally exploded in genocide silently witnessed by all including the UN. As we were passing the border we used to joke that there still is no passport control. But it did not take long for the joke to become reality. At the end of this senseless war and terryfying massacre of inocent people we were all left with our share of guilt and shame.

Pat de Mare, like Foulkes, cherished the belief in the positive and healing potential of groups, including median and large groups. I remember a particular large group when half the participants in eager anticipation of regression and mystical psychotic experiences set themeselves on the floor joking and laughing like little children. And then came Pat, with his energetic and charismatic appearance he invited us all to join him on a higher level of functioning, of thinking and sharing our thougths. It was Bion who thought that the human ability to think was in conflict with the desire to avoid the mental pain induced by the thinking process. In the course of the training median group composed of different nationalities: Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian, the mental pain was too great and we were unable to think and construct a dialogical context tha Pat named Koinonia. We were embedded in a foundation matrix that was in turmoil and felt unsafe. I once told Pat how listening to him I realised we had a visionary Slovenian politician, Edvard Kardelj, thanks to whom we have self-goverment: large meetings of all the employees from the cleaning lady to the manager. But they did not seem to work. We discussed at length why these groups felt unsafe to think and to talk. Self government induced a distrust of groups so in trying to use the large groups in the context of either a therapeutic community large group or a staff median or large group, patients and staff felt uneasy, with no thoughts and no voice. When I urged a patient, who in a dyadic context would bring up some brilliant observations of the relational context, to bring his observations to the large group he told me: “I am psychotic but I aint mad.”

From the theory of intersubjectivity we know that the encounter of two subjectivities contains the danger of failure or even morbid outcome. And how much danger and catastrophic outcomes can bring the encounter of many subjectivities. So groups do have a potential for personal growth and self realization but they also have the potential for inflicting pain and destruction. It is the subjectivity of the group analyst, the leader, the relational intersubjectivity of parents that affects the way a therapeutic or working group works and the way a family system functions. Psychopathologic symptoms and deviant behaviour develope when a group, family or society are incompetent or lack the ability and willingness to recognise its unconscious dynamics. As Ormont (1974) noted, the group or the family uses scapegoating in order to protect the therapist, the leader, the parents.

Group analytic training is not in itself a safeguard against therapists experiencing regressive phenomena in their work groups, as some or maybe many might have had opportunity to experience in the contexts of your training institutes or societies that often foster dual relationships. Dual relationships can lead to submissivness to a teacher, supervisor or leader who is perceived as strong, collusion in attempting to safeguard the leaders perceived strength, bonding in admiration of the leader, rivalry for the leaders attention and approbation, rivalry for recognition and positions of power.

Pepper (2004) distinguished three different group reactions that dual relationships can foster:

• The emperors new clothes – that is the denial of one’s own experience, thoughts and observations;
• Looping – refers to a lack of safe boundaries which allows information to spread from one context to another;
• Gaslighting – refers to the efforts to undermine and distort the perception of reality often resulting in scapegoating.

Due to unspoken and unworked through dual relationships a working group of experienced group analysts can regress from complexity to simplicity to a state of undifferentiated interpersonal merging that extinguishes the capacity to feel and think. In the words of a colleague: “I felt paralyzed. I could not move, I could not think, I could only stare. Somewhere deep down I felt this is not ok, I should say something, but I was frozen, just sat there and stared. Someone could have been excuted before me, I would not have moved a finger. Well actually someone was, and I feel terrible. Even now I feel I cannot bring myself to speak openly about what happened, to get us all explore the dynamics of our group.” Dual relationships can blurr the boundary between reality and phantasy and distort reality.

Is there anything we can do to prevent such experiences that can be damaging both to teachers, supervisors as well as trainees? In a small professional community like the one we have in Slovenia, it is difficult if not impossible not to find ourselves in multiple roles and relationships. Implementing the ideas and practices inspired by social constructionism into our working and teaching groups can help us cultivate the sensitivity to issues of power that need to be openly discussed. How we as leaders, teachers, supervisors use or misuse the power delegated to us by colleagues, tarinees and supervisees? In what way do issues of power influnece the relational context of the training institute and the training context? How to give feedback to our trainees and supervisees that will be respectful of their prior and present knowledge, of their past and present personal and profesional experiences and at the same time provide them with a new learning experience? What kind of feedback is each of our trainees capable of hearing in such a way that will enhance his/her therapeutic abilities and personal and professional development? How do we as teachers and supervisors sensitize our trainees and supervisees to issues of gender and power both in their work with clients and patients as well as in the context of their training and supervision? How to encourage our trainees and supervisees to participate actively by observing and reflecting on their developing competencies using their teaching and supervision context as a safe enough place to practice those skills and practicies they feel they need to develope further.

The Oxford English dictionary defines matrix as a place or medium in which something is bred, produced or developed. In the group matrix, Foulkes thought, it is the evolving personality that is being reproduced, bred and developed. Winicott thought that the capacity of the infant to use the mother in order to develope depended on the mothers ability to hold or in Bion’s words to contain and survive the infants attacks, his rage and hate. In a similar way the personal development of group mebers will depend on their capacity to use the group to enhance their development and the groups and therapists ability to contain their intense feelings. It is the therapists role to help the group contain and metabolize intense feelings and in particular the therapist has to cultivate his ability to recognize, contain and explore his own intense feelings in order not to project his own bad objects on the group or a group member. The ability of the trainee to use the supervision group in order to enhance his/hers capacity for reflection and containment is of outmost importance. Supervision encourages the supervisee to reflect on the ways his subjectivity affects the group she/he convenes. To use the analogy further, the capacity of the trainee to use the training matrix for his personal and profesional development depends on the ability of the training matrix to contain and survive the trainees intense feelings.

In line with social constructionism the therapist cultivates the awareness that his/hers reflections are not privileged and his/hers perceptions of the group process and group members are just one of the possible views or narratives influenced by his/hers personal development, past and present learning experiences, his/hers foundation and dynamic matrices. By offering his/hers reflections in the group matrix the therapist responds to preceding utterances and invites new responses from the group. The therapist strives to draw out the voices of all group members and encourages the multiplicity of voices, those that have been internalised as well as those relating to others in the here and now and in the there and then. The supervision process helps the training therapist cultivate his/hers ability to bring forth different voices, to listen and respond in a respectful and reflective way. It encourages and helps the training therapist to be open to new pereceptions and meanings that change his/her views and enable different responses. Just as the training therapist so too is the supervisor aware that his/hers narrative is not privileged. The supervisor encourages other voices to be heard and in the process of responding to responses and reflecting on reflections, new meanings and learning experiences are enabled. It is the supervisors role to discourage conversations in a primarily monologic domain with single minded views and to encourge dialogue with true listening and responding. To use the words of Mihael Bakhtin, the russian philosopher, the more voices incorporated into a polyphonic dialogue the richer are the possibilities of emergent understanding with the group analyst, becoming a participant in this mutual process of generating meanings in the unpredictable process of responding to utterances leading to the never ending process of responding to responses. In order to be able to respond the group analyst has to cultivate the ability to listen and to hear.

These are some of the expectations of trainers and supervisors of themselves and their trainees. Now we will turn to the expectations of the trainees and their experiences of the training process.

References

Bakhtin, M. (1984) Problems of Dostojevskij’s poetics: Theory and history of literature(vol.8).

Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.

Behr, H. L. & Hearst, L. E. (1982) Group Analysis: A Group psychotherapeutic model developed by S. H. Foulkes. Midland Journal of psychotherapy, 1:1-13.

James, D. C. (1984) Bion’s “containing” and Winicott’s “holding” in the context of the group matrix. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 34:201-13.

O’Leary, J. V. (2001) The postmodern turn in group therapy. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 51: 473-487.

Ormont, L. (1974) The treatment of pre–Oedipal resistance in group psychotherapy. The Psychoanalytic Review,61, 429–441.

Pepper, R. (2004). Confidentiality and dual relationships in group psychotherapy. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 54: 103–114.

Richarz, B. (2008) Group process and the therapists subjectivity: interactive transference in analytical group psychotherapy. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 58: 141-161.

Roberts, J. P. (1982) Foulkes concept of the matrix, Group Analysis, 15: 111-26.

Dubravka Trampuž
dubravka.tramp@siol.net