Letter: Response to Autumn Workshop

Dear GASi MC,

I wanted to write after yesterday’s workshop with some thoughts.

I wondered whether the Organisation is caught up with an unconscious Task that is getting in the way with the conscious Task.

The unconscious task that the Membership and the Management appeared to be colluding in a sado-masochistic relationship that is sustaining an idealistic fantasy of care. This is then obstructing the engagement together in the Primary Task of the Organisation which is…. ‘ To promote group analysis and its multiple applications in the fields of mental health and other areas of culture and society’.

This was being called in the large group ‘failed dependency’. i.e. that an idealised care is wanted by the Membership from the Management and then the Management is attacked when they only provide ‘good enough’ care.

There was evidence for this from Membership responses when asked about the Primary Task in the Large group including:
–       That the AGM was to hold the management to account (this is a dyadic sado-masochistic task- and not an idea that the AGM is to get together as a Society to think together and to assess engagement with the Primary Task in the previous year and ideas about how to do so in the year and years ahead.
–       That GASI was a psychic retreat from reality
–       That the membership role was to persecute the management

Management responses in the AGM;
–       There was a masochistic apologetic presentation (expecting attack from the membership) which insighted sadism in the Membership which then could not be contained by dynamic administration within the time boundary resulting in a further attack on the conscious task.
–       The membership was not asked to contribute in an adult way to the Primary Task and given no opportunity to offer to do this.

I have to also comment on the Primary Task statement. Because there is no comment as to why it is important to ‘To promote group analysis and its multiple applications in the fields of mental health and other areas of culture and society’.

I hope this is helpful

Best wishes
Dr Rachel Gibbons
rachelgibbons@sky.com