Report: Personal Report of the 5th GASi Summer School, Rijeka, July 2019

Evgen Kajin

Arriving

It was a hot summer Wednesday when I was driving on the highway down towards the Croatian Littoral. The view of the Carsic territory was limited to some white and grey rocky hills covered with greenery of trees, mostly pines, and bushes. There was one point where the terrain suddenly bent downward and the road turned somewhat left, opening the sight toward the south to meet the blue green of Mediterranean Sea as if almost in a frame of few long islands, rising only low over the sea level. On the lower left I saw a city, with many apartment blocks piercing up between houses, and where the city touched the sea, there was a long line of port structures. It was as if the city would be climbing upwards to the hill while I was rolling downwards to it. In almost no time I arrived at the First of May Street, where I had booked an apartment. There, I prepared to venture the hot summer air, the city of Rijeka, its history with dilemmas of tolerance and it’s GASi Summer School of this year.

Rijeka and 1st Lecture of the Summer School

On the website of the Council of Europe, Rijeka is presented as a future European Capital of Culture (2020), and in the introduction it stands: “Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia (after Zagreb and Split). It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,624 inhabitants (2011)… Historically, because of its strategic position and deep-water port, the city was fiercely contested, especially amongst Italy, Hungary and Croatia, changing hands and demographics many times over centuries. This is reflected in Rijeka’s alternative names (Fiume, Reka, Sankt Veit am Flaum)… Members of all 22 of Croatia’s official National Minorities are resident in the city.“

Just over the centre of the city, rising rather steeply from the sea level, there stands the building where the lectures and large groups of Summer School were held. It is a mansion were Museum of the Croatian Littoral has been operating since 1948, the ex-Governor’s Palace. It is a historic building, a protected monument and has the attribute of being a cultural asset. The palace was built using a model from the Italian Renaissance, as a neat two-storey structure with all four sides surrounded by free space. It was inside this edifice that the first gathering of this Summer School took place.

Sanja Janović officially opened the GASi Summer School in Rijeka as the chair of the event and introduced the first lecture, with the presenter being Tea Perinčić, historian, curator at the same Museum. Her paper was entitled “Tolerance in Rijeka from a Historical Prospective”. I will try to summarise what she presented.

Rijeka is a city on the seashores of the Carsic territory which rises steeply upwards. There is not much land to be used for agriculture, so people were more oriented to the sea on one side and to the hinterland on the other. The connection between sea and land brought an opportunity to communicate with other communities, both over the sea and through the mountains to Alps and Pannonia, a shortest way to the sea from the central Europe.

Being the port and with that the point of exchange of goods, the city needed to be open to merchants. They bring their way of living, they stay as long as the business goes well and while they behave in accordance to the local politics, they are tolerated.

Human communities were present on this territory from prehistory, but the first evidence of a larger settlement are present from the late antiquity when Romans had established a rather large military camp here – Tarsatica – that was a part of extended defence system. The aim of that past military settlements on the Roman Empire frontier is pretty much present also in nowadays politics of EU – control of immigration. A bit different circumstances but the same concept in 2000 years – strict control of people’s movement and Rijeka as the city on the border.

During its history, the city of Rijeka was indeed most of the time on the various borders. All those who were willing to move to the city with good idea for a business – trade or manufacture – and they proved successful by their income, could have applied for Rijeka’s citizenship and be the full members of Rijeka’s political elite. So, the tool for tolerate someone was the money. Despite religious or ethnic exclusions or intolerance in the whole Monarchy of Habsburgs, in Rijeka would accept different communities. During the Italian occupation until 1945 and later in the first years of Yugoslavia, Rijeka became a very intolerant city to those who had not its (certain) citizenship. Later, the economic well-being was one more time an instrument for tolerance amongst different society groups. With the collapse of Yugoslavia, Rijeka at first did not become a less tolerant society. Unfortunately, within last 10 years there is certain intolerance in this city.

The City Council adopted the Development Strategy of the City of Rijeka until 2020 with the following mission: “Rijeka is focused on the wellbeing of all citizens, of which common values reflect in fostering openness, tolerance and responsibility.“

There are, however, also other opinions and ratings of Croatia which warns about the corruption in the country (https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018).

Words of Introduction

David Glyn, the president of GASi, bid welcome to participants to the 5^th Summer School, describing its beginnings and four instalments prior to this one. The first one was organised in Belgrade 6 years ago, 4 years in the past was held in Check Republic, 3 years ago in Athens and last year in Ljubljana.

Further, he said that the language is essential way for us to communicate. It is difficult to tolerate to listen only; and yet, listening is a part of school process. It is, however, also difficult to be only speaking. Humans are made to exchange information. Through meeting others and recognising how they differ from us is how we learn. One of the most difficult things to meet in other people is fear because it remembers us of our own unease. And yet, it is through this exchange that we grow in complexity.

Diversity is a precondition of learning, he said. It starts already from the birth. In that early phase of our life there has to be another one to bring us into the group. And to understand what is going on in the group, we need to understand the individual first.

He presented the theme this year to be about tolerance, of which inevitable part is intolerance, and we have to deal with the latter to come later to the first.

Ljiljana Moro, president of the Institute of Group Analysis Croatia, told a story about the difference it makes when something you know changes into an unknown thing, that feels as if not being the same for you anymore. How to tolerate the change, how to tolerate the people who brought that change? How to establish tolerance with diversity? Diversity leads to confrontation and unease. On a personal level, everyone was raised into his or her culture with the mother or other important person. There are culture diversities which shape us profoundly: Language, stories, legends that accompany us through maturation. During that process, a group has an intermediate position between culture and individual.

She presented the importance of theoretical concepts of group analysis and its founding figures, especially Foulkes and Bion.

Then she shared a vignette about the experience of change in Rijeka following the arrival of immigrants (some of them continued their path across various borders while others remained in the city). In a very concrete level, their presence in the park transformed it from something the residents knew well to something new (a part being occupied by the immigrants). This diversity brought tension, unease and with it, the question of (un)tolerance. From here, a question arise: How can un-tolerance shape a life of a person and how can group analysis give holding to a member in such a way that he or she could focus on that stance and to start a process of changing it into tolerance.

She wished the participants to take into account many dialects, levels, from individual and group, social and family, infinity, even to the cosmos.

And with those words, concluding the introductory part of the meeting, off we went to a hot downhill ride. That is, from the palace on the hill down a rather steep street, baked in the afternoon summer sun.

A variety of smaller groups were taking place some five-minute walk downward from the Museum, in a secondary school/gymnasium Andrija Ljudevit Adamić. Coffee breaks were there also on the first day, which were moved by organisers, after a plea for some air and space, to the square just beneath the school. Lunches were served within the school and remained there; I found them to be delicious, especially the third one with cooked octopus.

Discussion group

There were issues about tolerance from various aspects. A member told her personal experience of feelings of not being tolerated coming from a less developed country to one of the west European countries, receiving constant reminders that she should be grateful for permission to live there.

There were discussions on experiencing to be different; for some, it was possible to feel proud, while for others it was more like shame. What were mechanisms of difference in experiencing the difference? One member considered a process of projection to be the engine of such an attitude towards those different of ourselves, especially if they are on some areas viewed as less fortunate; this defence mechanism compels „the more fortunate one“ to place the feeling of less worth on an individual who is identified as „less fortunate“. He continued with explaining his point of view regarding the tolerance as being an issue of the individuals who are identified as (and identify themselves as such) being the more fortunate ones.

The question followed whether the explanation of mechanisms that drives such processes in relationships helps the person who feels excluded.

One member stressed that shame, intolerance, even hatred is the key to development of tolerance. We have to go through those feelings to come to acceptance of oneself and of the situation.

Another member said that maybe tolerance is to accept that we may never really understand each other.

Some other said that if we can be open to ourselves and to others with the various differences recognised, then our group can support us to love each other.

What I thought later was that in the first session, a culture of the group developed in the discussion group that continued throughout our four meetings.

2nd Lecture: Andrew Mallet, “Mad as hell and not going to take this anymore!”

Andrew began with explaining his goal to be modifying the usual expectations of listeners of a lecture, to move from just talk to the exchange ideas with listeners, and to that through use of the technical media. First was a video clip, the second was a music piece.

Howard Beale Rant is a movie clip of a movie Network made in 1976 that holds relevance even today. The aforementioned is a fictional character, a cable news reader in a media network, who one day receives a two weeks’ notice of being fired. During that day’s news, he says live he want to commit suicide during his next appearance. The producers, sensing the rise of interest and ratings, took his tantrum and offered him a show where he would say whatever he wanted to. Ratings started to rise as he was ranting live, while his mental health deteriorates. The network exploited his illness as long as they were not affected by what he spoke of. The quote is rather famous.

Mallet asked the audience for associations after the video clip. Some of the words were: actuality, normal speak of far-right populist party, totalitarian, social reference, powerful figures… The presenter then asked when can a group leader let his or her own intolerance to transpire in the group? And when it is a virtue? What, on the other side, are the positive sides of tolerance?

I was perplexed by these questions, and while still pondering about them, we moved to the other media.

There were two pieces of instrumental music, of which Mallet told a story. There were more stories in fact, one was his, about how he found those pieces, and it had to do with his way of searching inspiration listening to unknown music. The other he told us at the end, about how the artist made the composition, and it has somehow to do with a similar way of letting the context, without, to influence the inner processes, within. He played the pieces and after each one, he asked for our associations, time limited to two minutes. What I remembered were the following:

1st: coherent, connected, felt even gloomy, my mind had to wander, sea approaching, swimming but sharks are there

2nd: unease, irritating, but could think, dialogue, sharp

There were similarities in the associations of the listeners, and it was astonishing to follow the similarities of the expressions or their metaphorical meanings. But was there any closeness also with what the author had in mind?

The story about creation of the composition follows the composer, Judith Weir, who wrote about the song as follows (http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/2737): “My debt to the traditional music of the Balkan region has been very great, and I began the piece as a sort of homage to this strand in my musical technique. During the period of composition, war broke out in the region I was thinking about, and my musical reflections grew more and more sombre.” The inspiration came from the Croatian folk song “Zaspo Janko pod Jablanom” where the story goes about a certain Janko who just died and is speaking to his dear one.

Discussion group

In a way I felt, and others said it too, a part of that lecture, as I was invited to contribute a piece to it.

There were other associations that the presenter had spoken of, and it is impossible for me to follow them all; for example thoughts about the foundation matrix of our group, the musical understanding of a group that was presented in the 2016 Summer School in Athens (Baisini, 2016), where the author refers to comparisons between human relationships, starting with the mother-infant bond, and music properties; further, it describes different experiences with dissonance in groups; in the first vignette, with resolution, and in the second, without resolution.

3rd Lecture: Vid Vodušek, “Tolerating the horror of unheimlichkeit: I don’t really believe… yet I am certain?”

In the lecture, Vid presented many viewpoints and experiences of the issue. It was not exactly an explanation, but more like uncanny amalgam of theoretical lecture and performance.

The presenter aksed himelf and us, the listeners, about the difficulty in tolerating the horror of unheimlichkeit: “I didn’t really believe and yet I am quite certain“, and he presented some of his personal experiences to confront us all (himself included), without pieta’, with unheimlichkeit atmosphere in the large room and maybe also in our individual responses.

He described the process of preparation for the lecture where the dilemma was present about a theme because of different meanings in the German and English languages.

He asked some questions about vagueness of being related to various meanings and on practical areas:

How do we tolerate “The other”? Maybe as we tolerate “bad food?“ We somehow dissolve it and try to incorporate what is possible to use? What if the meeting the other brings us out of comfort zone? What we gain comes to us anyway?

If someone come to your home and his visit in some way disturbs you, how do you react? The matrix of homeliness has been threatened. Maybe you tolerate the guest for the time he or she is there.

However, if the home in itself is in some way disturbing, what then? How do you tolerate such a home? Which brought him to the question of home. What is home indeed? He proposed the concept of home:

something that is fixed and you always know exactly how it is, to what you are coming;
creative, changing the way you choose, imaginative, never really the same;
absolute in terms of safety:
hiding something, keeping something (being at home without excluding painful issues).

The presenter ventured also into performance, reading some haiku poems of his own making about the said theme. It was uncanny; at least I could not discern haiku readings on one hand from his slow, punctuate, focused lecture on the other. Both were evidently thoughtful and well prepared, yet in a strange sense seemed to flow out of him in a steady pace, as if made there and then, as if concocted in front of us.

What followed was a reflection about the uncanniness of a human body when thought about it as a kind of home. The lecturer asked and answered all of his questions, one of them was, at least as I remembered: “What are the particulars of the human and his body?”

cannot remember early childhood;
when ill or in pain there is fear of not being, of ceasing to exist;
do we really have the ability to control it?;
has a need for constancy, to be steady, to control; but do we really have the ability to control?;
body moves all the time;
it always needs to be fed, in constant exchange with environment;
at the same time, it is essential to defend its own limits, to regulate them;
learns about its borders through caress;
need to be open, which brings danger;
needs different kind of contact;
the world we look at can be seen as a type of fantasy.

Some thoughts remained from the lecture, as if gathered randomly, and in my mind they made a kind of haiku verses:

We have language as a concrete tool;
using it in dialogue even when alone;
capable of exploring or fooling ourselves.

There was a pause of the presenter’s punctuating flow of ideas towards the end, and without his talk, the void seemed to flood the big hall. After about half a minute, a voice was heard from the middle of the space, as if trying to make something of the waiting, impeded density: “Have you finished?” The answer was uncanny: “I am not sure.” For a few dozen seconds, we were left again with viscous silence. Suddenly the presenter’s voice was heard again, saying more about the theme, something important and even essential might have been, some great phrases and sentences, their meaning lost for me, being left with a sense of being left alone.

Later, I thought of the lecture as a performance of unheimlichkeit (and I would leave alone the personal style of the presenter). I read Freud’s article and found some authors that took the effort of commenting on the text that Freud wrote in 1919. In the latter, he refers to one kind of uncanniness: “…doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate…“, while later in the text there is a part where he tries to explain the title issue: “In the first place, if psycho-analytic theory is correct in maintaining that every affect belonging to an emotional impulse, whatever its kind, is transformed, if it is repressed, into anxiety, then among instances of frightening things there must be one class in which the frightening element can be shown to be something repressed which recurs. This class of frightening things would then constitute the uncanny… In the second place, … this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression. This reference to the factor of repression enables us, furthermore, to understand … the uncanny as something which ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.” I found two articles that seemed for me almost as an explanation of what Vid did for us. Svenaeus (Svenaeus, 1999) wrote: “The origin of our general sensitivity to the uncanny is thus, according to Freud, the loss of the mother suffered by the child as a kind of a priori traumatic experience, which is also the very event that makes the child into an ego. The understanding of traumatic neurosis and other forms of mental illness is consequently linked to an analysis of this primal uncanniness of life.”

Moreover, he explains (Svenaeus, 1999):

“’Unheimlich’ in German has the double meaning of uncanny and unhome-like, and what is not at home in itself in an uncanny sense, according to Freud, is precisely the human ego.”

Another author commented on the Freud’s article (Cixous, 2012): »…text of Freud employs a peculiarly disquieting method to track down the concept das Unheimliche, the Disquieting Strangeness, the Uncanny.”

Discussion group

First part of the group dealt with various reactions to the lecture. It had to do with frustration of various internal provenience. Some members insisted on importance of theory, others about differentiation between poetic and science pieces of the lecture, yet somebody else about feelings of something missing. There were an opinion that it was just the presentation of the feeling of unheimlichkeit.

There was a clear and loud stance about the lectures within Summer School. The explanation was that this is Summer School way of doing it. Everybody that is invited to do a lecture chooses his or her stile of conducting. What is gained through this is a possibility, almost an offer, to explore not only, on one hand, fort he lecturer to choose how to present the theme selected on his or her way, but also, on the other, for the listeners to explore how various modes of presentation was felt, how this influenced the content and how they reacted on such an approach.

4th Lecture: Mirjana Pernar, “Ethics: mine, ours, theirs”

The lecturer invited us to the supervision process of a group of supervisees in which there was one of them, a group conductor who struggled with limitations of the work environment and was searching for solutions. The question was whether actions undertaken by this therapist were more a case of acting out, that is a premature, forced, bold but blinded step (where there should be instead an approach of containment), or indeed a case of needed decision that was not understood by important persons (group members, supervisor).

Through the vignettes, where I was touched by the stories that group members would bring after the change of context and with it, in a way, of setting, lecturer presented few possible suggestions and tools to use when confronted with ethical dilemmas. She described the importance of identifying three areas that hampers individual on certain fields of work, life and relationships and are out of reach of his or her awareness: blind, deaf and dumb spots. Of importance is also the attitude towards authority. There are some approaches that can be used as a model for working with ethical problems, one of them is of the author Carrol (Carroll, 1996).

The dilemma about supervision aims and goals have been thoroughly studied by Dartnall (2013), who also cites Liz Omand: “An issue that contributes to the gap in the supervision research literature is indecision as to whom or what supervision is there to serve… The supervision outcome literature questions whether the primary focus of supervision should be supervisee development or client welfare. …(U)ltimate effect of supervision is intended to influence client outcome. Omand (2010) notes that the twin aims of protecting the client and promoting the learning of the supervisee may sometimes seem to be in conflict… Supervisors appeared not to hesitate to ‘take the lead’ where they had concerns about client safety or ‘ethical’ issues, and this is supported by the literature identifying addressing risk issues or potential breaches in ethical practice being primary tasks for the supervisor.“

The lecturer cited Goethe who said: “To tolerate is to insult”. However, even with that stance, supervisor does not need to know the answers, said the lecturer, but rather to have capacity to tolerate, to stand with ambiguity, being prudently balanced between intervening and supporting, taking the lead and containing.

Discussion group

The group was on schedule after the lecture about dilemmas of supervision, and continued with the issues in a more personal way. That is, the decisions of supervisors (and therapists) influence the life of supervisee (and a patient). It might not happen with all supervisees or patients; but when it does, and for various reasons in a negative way, it can be an abuse of power that brings frustration and pain to the person in the inferior position.

The discussion group transformed into a small group offering support for some members who exposed their unease, at times even distrust and feeling the senselessness of psychotherapy training. Towards the end, a therapist from Bosnia said that when she feels like everything is falling apart, everyone is against what she is striving to do, she tries to see, to follow, to sense, not to react, and waits that things slowly come together in an image, message, impression that suddenly makes some sense.

Large groups

1st large group: There were many chairs put in two rows (and additional chairs in the third row now and there). Air condition was on, producing disturbing sounds, a kind of constant humming up there, just beneath the high, white, stucco-enriched ceiling. At first we were not attentive to that sound. The group started with the presentation of the two leaders, one coming from Croatia and the other from Serbia. Some people said something; if they were across on the other side of the circle, we could barely recognise the words and their meaning.

We started to complain. I remember saying that if the air conditioning would be switched off than we could hear one another and suggested to do that. The conductor said that it has nothing to do with the noise; the unease is due to the anxiety of the group. The group seemed to take that intervention and tried to explore it. Maybe noise has a meaning that something is in the way, interfering with communication, which would lead in misunderstanding each other. I usually want to prevent that, I want that we could clearly understand each other.

One voice said that we were there from different countries that were in war. Maybe there could be a tension between them, even if not personally, but as representative of their nations on some level. Someone asked how people from Serbia were here in Croatia. There came an answer that it is difficult when you meet a person that says “all people from your country are the same”; it really is not so at all. The young generation is trying to live differently to the older one.

Someone else said it is difficult when a person says you are not welcome because you are from a certain country or belonging to a certain nationality.

Towards the end, someone said: I don’t feel safe here.

The humming, it seems, was forgotten at that time.

2nd large group: The group started with shouting: I proposed to vote to switch off the air conditioning! Someone agreed to vote. Some hands went up. Someone else said it is hardly bearable to hear the noise and it would be unbearable to stand the heat. The proposition was left there, as in the air, as lost in the humming.

There were voices of surprise, coming suddenly from various directions, about something existing in the middle of the circle, on the floor, It was a little lizard. One member said she has a name for it: Lizzy. We tried to see it, to follow it with our gazes, giving it our attention willingly, intensively, somewhat hysterically noting and describing how Lizzy is wiggling around, as if searching for an escape, approaching our bodies and and backing up, time and time again, now to one of those participants in the inner circle, now to other, as if our bodies would be an unbreachable, round cliff, an insurmountable wall all around it. Now and than, Lizzy would stop, as if resting, as if testing the direction that would be of use, that could bring to it a route of escape, an exit course, a way out of that circle. But none was there. Maybe Lizzy understood that in her lizard way. But than off it went again.

So we returned also to our fish bowl and off we went again with the exploring of unease. Someone even said it: We give to Lizzy what should be given to how we feel.

What about conflicts? What about experiences in previous Summer Schools, where participants were confronted with the deaths or grief of the important members of the local community? Someone remembered a loss of a member who was an important voice in former events, her voice missing at Rijeka.

Few members brought up the issue of war, of repetitive conflicts and tensions among countries of the region.

Than, as if to rest a little, we say Lizzy finding a shelter among one member’s sandals, and I remember feeling envy at him.

And than back to conflicts again, arguing that some of them can not be resolved. Someone said how it helped when the mentor said about the importance of time, as with the distance you can reconceptualise issues about the conflict with a certain person, which resolves the feeling of tension.

Someone else said that some conflicts can never be resolved. You have to live with that.

3rd large group: The discussion of conflicts and war continued. Someone said that if one is in a position to defend him or herself, than one takes the weapon.

When someone else said about doing the same, the first one responded, loudly, that it is not the same. There was a dispute about that.

Someone described the urge to make people from opposed groups to talk to each other and that remembered how long it took for victims and executors of holocaust to do that.

I said it is hard for me to talk about war trauma because it hurts me so much I wish to avoid it. To avoid being witness to the pain. And, maybe, to avoid feeling guilty of participating, in some way, to the tragedy, being from Slovenia.

Someone asked why we cannot be kind or polite to one another and take care of our responses at least in the group?

The conductor said: “I think this large group has a high level of communication. Nobody is leaving, nobody is running away, there is no shouting or insulting between members”.

Did that statement of factual behaviour bring any resolution to the tension we felt?

4th large group: A member said he doesn’t like when people are interrupted and remembered feeling that in the Athens Summer School, describing how leaving the room or omitting the discussion is a kind of interruption, discontinuation; you can’t resolve any issue, feeling or tension in this way. The member wished that we could communicate about things that are difficult for us.

Someone else said that there, in the group, a live conversation is going on and it happens that people get interrupted, because the other really has an urge to say something about it.

Another member asked how nothing is said about the leaders who were not active. Yet someone else noticed both conductors sitting together, maybe as if they wanted to support one another. The associations went suddenly loose: One is from Serbia and the other from Croatia. If they are together, maybe we can be together as well. Maybe they will marry. And it went on.

One member shouted to stop. Another told about not feeling well. Some other members said to feel unwell also. Someone remembered how this might be connected with what happened the day before in the large group as a member not feeling well tried to say something but was blocked in the middle of the sentence because the time was up.

I remember to be saying: I wish we could all collaborate with the aim that group would do better. Someone was remembered, by that word, of collaborators in the Second world war.

The issue of uniforms started to spring associations, and through that, the question of choice to wear a uniform or not; or else, about circumstances when one has no choice; and also, uniform or not, what are we to do when in a position to defend ourselves and those close to us.

One member said that uniforms in the school lead to diminishing of the bullying of those who were different that average, especially those from the families with lower income.

5th large group: A member spoke about the importance to exchange in a relationship and on the other hand, how devastating for the person and for the meaning that he or she tries to convey to the other is when the other withdraws or in other ways cuts the communication. Some other members started to speak during his talk, and the dispute started between them who is the one cutting the communication.

Another member told of a legend in 18th century in the Piemonte region of Italy about men from mountain villages called “cenciosi”. Other people and history tell that they are lazy and with worn clothes, but the meaning of them is that they offered themselves so that their villages, families, women and children would be saved. Maybe in the large groups the people who entered in conflict among themselves made an enactment similar to those of cencosi, that is to offer themselves so that others would be spared. That is very generous.

I spoke about the unease yesterday when one member spoke of his aggression and denied the dilemma of using it in necessity; during the night it downed on me that I was afraid of his clear and sharp insight to his own aggression, fear and other things that he carry within. And further, I understand that I want to have just the same, it is me who want a clear and sharp insight into my own violence and fear to care and nurture it in such a way it will do no harm to me and others.

Someone thought if aggression in this large group is a consequence of lacking a father. There is a father missing, a conductor which we could sense and who could make the space of large group safe.

Maybe we should tell our conductors what kind of conducting we need so that they could learn. Someone said she wish they would already know how to do it right, not needing us to teach them. The other member argued that the leaders would know how to conduct only on their way; if we took for granted they just know, it would be then an authoritarian conductor, or authoritarian father.

Associations followed in the group: What about mother of the group? Mothers know how to do things. It is only a myth that mothers know how to do with children. Someone told about own experience of the importance that father had time with the daughters, which made it possible for the bond within them to form. What is the word for fathers caring for the baby? It could be said it is mothering also.

Someone remembered of a leader of ex Yugoslavia as being a kind of father of the country and was very renown for taking care of the country, but in the end in turn out to be devastating for he country. What was good were Non-Aligned movement.

Somebody else remembered Tito as a leader that did not let spoke voices different from his. He suppressed voices of others, sent such people on Goli otok, a kind of prison on an island.

One member tried to see a process in the group, asking himself aloud what happened here and observing that from the talking about fathers, as if we would run out of the group. Maybe there was a need for such a figure with which we can represent an urge to suppress an issue. Was the latter an issue of father taking care of a baby? Can we return to it?

Small group

First session: We were ten, that is, nine members and the conductor. The latter started the group with calm and kind presentation of the analytic group process, its basic rules; among others, she said that “this group will be our space, only for ourselves, limited towards other events, not for others to hear” and that she “hopes it will be a safe place”. She invited us to begin.

One member started to present herself and continued with her profession, where she is coming from, how many children she has, and added something about anxiety. Others were following suit and it seemed that the culture of our group started right there and then.

We tried to find connections, and while doing so, some members emerged to be more connected in some respect than others. We searched for something that would be in common to all of us. We expressed our interest in groups as we came here because we want to learn something.

What came out of it was also the difference in pronunciation of a city that is close to the border with Slovenia and that has intense history also with Croatia. The way we say Trieste is close to Italian word “triste”, which means “sad”.

Other members started to speak about sadness related to places they feel connected to but can not be there for various reasons, or how they feel living in the town they live in, or about cities they long to be living in; about sadness we doesn’t know where it came from; about feeling as a foreigner in own native city because the way she thinks and feels is different compared to the majority of people around her.

The conductor said that it is hard to stay with feelings within the group, so the group members went to other things, objects and cities outside of the group. One member described the effort needed to make a place to feel as a home.

Second session: There were stories about where we are at home and how we feel there in the present time. One member remembered his room from the childhood, how he tried to make it his own.

After some silence the conductor asked others for their responses.

Members started to describe their experiences in childhood houses, apartments, rooms with parents and relatives. There were dilemmas about going to childhood places; for some, it was or would be important while others had distinct memory and need not to go there in reality. Some described obstacles that prevent them for visiting the place that once was their home; one of the obstacles was war in Balkan region.

Members shared stories, experiences and traumas from the time of different wars.

What struck me was the difference in my bodily reaction to two descriptions. There was a memory from the second world war, told vividly by a member who heard it many times from her grandmother. Than, another member from one of the countries of ex Yugoslavia shared a personal experience of a bombing as a child, while later moved to a neighbouring country.

When a memory from WWII was told, I trembled and felt as if I would be there, on the site, more than 74 years ago, in another country. When a personal experience was shared from the region close to where I live, 15 years ago, and what I felt was tension in the trunk, as if I wouldn’t dare to move, let alone speak. When I verbalised how it felt, the member who shared the experience confirmed to have such a reaction, and it has to do with a real threat in the community; if neighbours of the present living environment, such lovely people, would learn of the member’s past whereabouts, they could turn instantly to foes.

A member from a central European country asked warmheartedly about the possibility of discussion between people from different countries that a decade and a half ago were at war. The answer from the members from the region was “not possible; too painful; need for protection”; and even the conductor said: “Can you speak louder?”

Members started to share experiences from war in the region. One said she was in many roles at that time, as her profession is in medical field; what she was forgetting than, over and over again, was that she was also a victim and did not took care for herself. Only much later could she recognise that and found appropriate support.

Another member shared how her house became a shelter for refugees of all nationalities from different war zones in the region (Muslims, Serbs, Croatians, Albanians from Kosovo) and they lived together for several weeks or months, supporting each other; in that time of chaos, fear and cruelty, it was the community in that house to raise her hope in humanity and gave her the will to go on.

The group finished with a member saying that what we can do is not in the world, it is in our family, in ourselves and that is what counts, what will remain for us and for those to come.

Third session: It started with unease related to limits of various kinds; losing them which results in people coming close, or even too close to the point of merging limitlessly; building them too high so that any deeper exchange is prevented; alternating from one kind to another, or making them in a functional way.

Through that, we came to talk about limits between members of our group and were able to say where for some members limits were crossed. At times it was painful to hear. But that sincere exchange, even if through anger and tears, brought the sense of being allowed to be authentic, to show oneself to others, and in turn, of safety. Some members said that here, they experience to be accepted.

There was a distance that was felt by two members who felt they are not so familiar with the history and experiences in the region. Other members started to search for issues with which to connect with the two.

Fourth session: We started with experiences from the large group, talking about anger toward the conductor of the large group, members supporting each other in that attitude.

The conductor said: “I hear it was difficult in the large group. However we are here, in a small group and it is the last one.”

Than we started to connect, searching for issues that we can share, that are in common, exchanging some reflections, giving and accepting in metaphors and real, felt emotions what it meant for us to be in this group, how we touched one another, and at the same time how it is for us to let this dissolve in reality, to remain however in our memory and emotional experience.

Supervision Group

Two conductors of our supervision group presented their modality, each in one of two group meetings.

First supervision group: The conductor followed the suggestions of Avi Berman and Miriam Berger, which were explained in basic premises to the members of the supervision group. Each member was then asked to present her/himself with information about work context, adding explicitly if one has in mind a case for the supervision process, not necessarily from the field of group therapy. Several members said they had a case, the first of them was selected.

The context was an organisation offering support to certain clients. The case was of a client whose involvement with the organisation changed from being a receiver of help to a volunteer. However, when ceasing to be a recipient of help, his personality traits and consequences of traumatic family upbringing became more evident and hard, or impossible, to tolerate.

After the presentation of the case, members of supervision group were asked to restrain from putting additional questions or suggesting step by step solutions, but were encouraged instead to pay attention to his or her own thoughts and feelings, to follow free associations, as in a kind of day dream or reverie, related to the presented case.

In the beginning, there were questions. Mostly were clarification ones, bearing with them unease of the presenter’s situation. Some participants than started to express own emotions, or experiences in similar situations, or similar emotions in different situations. Now and then some solutions were suggested. What I was sensing was an atmosphere of uncertainty, unease, tension.

The conductor asked the presenter what she has got from the group. She described the feeling of being left apart, as if not really cared for, as if members would tend to avoid the problem, or as if others wouldn’t know what to say or suggest. The conductor asked her if there is anything that she can take from such feelings, impressions, thoughts.

The presenter slowly said that maybe she is experiencing something close to what the client does; feeling of unease, lack of understanding what is going on and what should be done, how to react. She said she would like to think more about it.

Second supervision group: At the end of the first supervision group the second conductor presented the plan for next day’s supervision to be of ongoing group analytic process. He asked if one of the members could prepare for the presentation. Several members explained why they don’t have the case. I said to have something from the group in the past that was concluded, but it is not an ongoing group process and if tomorrow anyone would come to present an ongoing group, I would be pleased to listen.

On the second day a new member joined the group and opted to present an ongoing group analytic process. It turned out to be a case of dramatic drop out. There was a lot of unease around the therapist’s uncertainty regarding the analytic group, the patient, their state and possible interventions.

After the presentation, the conductor asked members to share their thoughts about the group process of the presented group and patient.

Some group members said that it seems as if the process of separation and individuation was slowly developing through several years of group analytic therapy, and just at the point when it could be done, something happened in the circumstances of the family and it reversed what has been done; the patient is now again in good care of others, and at the same time far from independence.

The conductor asked about reasoning how the group or its mechanisms would be described from the viewpoint of the group process. Few members continued with similar thoughts about individuation being stopped. The conductor afterwards said that the group was not able to provide suitable holding.

That statement should offer a starting point for a discussion about causes and remedies. What happened however was that several group members protested, some even fiercely, expressing anger toward the conductor of the supervision group.

Other issues followed that had a message of unease, of being out of control, being lost, uncapable, impotent. With them, the feelings of anger, disappointment, loss, shame and guilt were looming through the group, as if searching for someone to burden with pain or to put the blame on; at least four members in a row were under siege of them, some crying, others defending themselves.

At one moment, I felt to be a target of these feelings. The attention of group members was on me, and I found myself pressed to reveal intense emotional dis-ease. The issue was that of case presentation, as if the group would deny me one. I started to identify myself as a victim. Suddenly I comprehended that I am not a victim. It was me who decided not to present a case because of my circumstances; I thought: “I was just not ready yet for that step and I accept that to be my reality right now“. At the same time, I felt the group indeed doesn’t have the capacity for holding. I took a pause for a few seconds.

Then I said aloud that however surreal it might seem, there are two conductors who are left alone, as if forgotten, detached; I pleaded group members to connect with them in a supportive way.

Slowly, group members started to connect with the presenter, some posed questions, some were thinking about how they would feel in the shoes of group therapist in such a situation, how would they proceed with group work, some offering technical suggestions.

Thoughts, reflections and references about holding

To be sure what “holding“ means, I was wandering what Winnicott and some other authors wrote about it. One of them warns us of simplifications (Yogev, 2008): “Winnicott creates the mistaken illusion that he is readily understood, his own style being simple, compressed, intuitive, and evocative.” However, he continues, if it is taken too lightly, as if we take it simply by the image of mother holding the baby, (Yogev, 2008), “the arbitrary use of Winnicott’s metaphors contrasts with the complex substance of his ideas, which will subsequently be lost.”

Winnicott’s own definition of the holding term viewed it as (Yogev, 2008) »an intrinsic element in adequate parental care given to the child. Such satisfactory parental care can be classified roughly into three overlapping stages:

Holding.
Mother and infant living together. Here the father’s function of co-creating the environment with the mother is not known to the infant.
Father, mother, and infant, all three living together.

In a degree paper, Parry wrote the following, quoting Winnicott (Parry, 2010): “For Winnicott, the word ‘holding’ didn’t merely denote the mother’s ‘actual physical holding of the infant, but also the total environmental provision’ (Winnicott, 1960: 43 in Parry, 2010) and what the good-enough mother essentially does in the holding process is provide an as near-perfect adaptation to the infant’s needs as is possible…”

The importance of holding is in the influence it has for the child, as within it there are the child’s own life experiences and instincts, including the mother’s management of the holding situation. “To the outside observer this management may be viewed as strictly physical, but within the child’s psyche the mother’s proceedings shape and evolve his psychological space. The mother’s holding ability is mainly influenced by her competence in being aware and empathetic to her baby’s needs.” (Yogev, 2008)

Within such an environment, developmental processes start in infant; their description is not the aim of this paper.

And what is that a therapist should do to re-create such a holding? Regarding a therapist’s capacity to help, D.W. Winnicott “passionately believed in the analyst’s reparative potential – a potential lodged in his or her capacity to hold the patient through a regression to dependence. This therapeutic holding environment, characterized by the analyst’s resonant, empathic responsivity, would allow the patient to relive and repair early trauma in the presence of a symbolic maternal figure.” And even more precisely written, the author continues (Slochower, 2018): “When we hold, we bear witness to our patient’s experience without challenging it, and in so doing we help create a particularly effective buffer against shame states.” Then she explains what is the influence that the holding has over shame: “Holding buffers shame because it softens the impact of the analyst’s otherness and creates an illusion of emotional attunement between analyst and patient.”

However, that is not all, argues Slochower (2018). While it is true that “(e)ven when the analyst plays, he or she remains empathic and resonant with the patient’s needs”, there is also another part: “The analyst, like the mother, contains his or her countertransference and bears its strain without letting the patient know about it”. Winnicott added something more (Winnicott, 1965; str. 258): “… the corrective provision is never enough. What is it that may be enough for some of our patients to get well? In the end the patient uses the analyst’s failures, often quite small ones, … and we have to put up with being in a limited context misunderstood. The operative factor is that the patient now hates the analyst for the failure that originally came as an environmental factor, outside the infant’s area of omnipotent control, but that is now staged in the transference. So in the end we succeed by failing—failing the patient’s way.” This seems important in later stages of treatment process when the client moves from the phase of dependence into relative dependence and then towards independence, which is similar as in development processes in early childhood (Winnicott, 1965; pp. 84).

Thoughts, reflections and references regarding supervision

The dynamic in both supervision groups reminded me of two other kind of supervision processes; the Greek method of group supervision and of Balint group work. I will try to summarise, at least to the point I am able to with present knowledge and experiences, all three methods.

Avi Berman and Miriam Berger, which were explained in basic premises to the members of the supervision group. In the article (Berman, Berger, 2007), authors warned about asymmetrical relations between the supervisee and the supervisor that tend to trigger and accumulate unconscious meanings of power, hierarchies, control and dependency, all of which increase the supervisee’s vulnerabilities. Levenson is cited noting that a too-active or a too-therapeutic approach of the supervisor may be infantilizing and create an inappropriate dependence on the supervisor, and a summary of Epstein’s own experiences as a supervisor were presented, where he noticed that the more he stuck to the practice of explaining and formulating whatever it was that he might have felt to explain and formulate, the more he was admired by the group members yet the worse they would feel about themselves.

Berman and Berger suggest that Bion’s notion of reverie, and Foulkes’s concept of the matrix, when bound together, provide such an integrative base that they can enhance the productivity of group supervision.

Technically, the process of supervision starts with one of the group members presenting the case, with other members focusing on their own (internal) response (somewhat like reverie; extensive questions or direct suggestions to supervisee are discouraged); the combined, accumulated responses of the group members slowly forms a complex representation of group impression of the presented case (matrix), for supervisee to experience (and decide, within his or hers capacities) what to take from it.

Regarding the Greek method, it uses a structured protocol; it is described in detail elsewhere (Karagianni, 2016). The participants are invited to associates in certain way, within certain contents, which are collected and written down. These associations are then presented to the supervisee and to the whole group, after which the discussion starts what can be learned, and what can be taken from them by the supervisee. Presentation of this method was done during the previous Summer School, to which I attended and later described the experience of it (Kajin, 2018): “…the model enabled the participants to open creatively with associations regarding the presented group, psychotherapist, the member in question and their relationship (transference and countertransference), through which the dilemma of the therapist became clearer and viewed from various standpoints. At the same time, the person presenting the case was not directly exposed or addressed, and felt safe, not challenged but on the contrary, supported, in the process.”

Balint group work was established as a form of supervision for general practitioners. It was later transferred to other professions within the field of work with people even without. The technicalities and the theory behind the method is described, among other references, in the book “The Theory and Practice of Balint Group Work” (Heide, 2018; pages 30-31)

In the groups, doctor presenting the case reports his or her difficulties with the patient from memory, without using the medical record. Balint encouraged the group members to use free association in their response to the case study, to give voice to emotions, fantasies and any thoughts coming to mind without any censorship. He wanted group members to “think fresh”, and to have “the courage of their own stupidity”. Moreover, Balint emphasized the importance of not just the matters mentioned, but just as much the ones forgotten or omitted. To enable spontaneous reactions and comments, the group atmosphere needs to be open and trusting. With this approach, the listening group members get an impression of the affective resonance of the presenter towards his patient. With feedback from the group the presenter thus receives a complex and colourful picture of his interaction with the patient and gains insight about his own part of the underlying dynamics.

It is interesting what Moro (2007) writes about supervision within learning processes: “Supervision in the course of training can be broken down into three phases of development:

‘I don’t understand anything.’

‘I comprehend and compare.’

‘I perceive psychodynamic events and become their conductor.'”

Than, she writes also: “…group analytic training consists of three factors: personal therapy, supervision and theory. All three occupy the same space in the minds of trainees and influence each other. When changes occur in the thought capacity of one system, they influence others systems.” Moreover, she adds: “It is essential for the supervisor to identify dynamic events in the supervisory group and to assist supervisees in aknowledging their own contribution to the creation of this dynamic relationship within the psychotherapeutic process.”

References

Baisini, Tiziana. (2016). Harmony, Counterpoint and the Well (enough) Tempered Group. Group-Analytic Contexts 74:39-55

Berman, Avi; Berger, Miriam. (2007). Special Section: Matrix and Reverie in Supervision Groups. Group Analysis. Vol 40(2):236-250.

Carroll, Michael. (1996). Counselling Supervision: Theory, Skills and Practice. London: Cassell

Cixous, Helene. 2012. Fiction and Its Phantoms: A Reading of Freud’s Das Unheimliche (The “Uncanny”). In: Volleys of Humanity (Ed: Eric Prenowitz). UK: Edinburgh University Press

Dartnall, Elizabeth (2013). Supervision in the Psychological Therapies. (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, City University London)

Freud, Sigmund. (1919). Das Unheimliche. Imago. Zeitschrift für Anwendung der Psychoanalyse auf die Geisteswissenschaften V:297–324. (Internet access on: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34222/34222-h/34222-h.htm)

Kajin, Evgen. (2018). Report: GASI International Summer School Ljubljana, July 2018. Group-Analytic Society International – Contexts (82): chapter: Ljubljana Summer School

Karagianni, Bessy (2016). Using Polyphony in Supervision: a Group Analytic Approach. Group-Analytic Society International – Contexts (74):24-38

Moro, Ljiljana. (2007). Special Section: The Role of Supervision in Training Psychotherapists. Group Analysis 40(2):178-188

Omand, Liz. (2009). Supervision in Counselling and Psychotherapy. UK: Red Globe Press

Otten, Heide. (2018). The Theory and Practice of Balint Group Work. Taylor and Francis Group, Kindle Edition (Routledge, Abingdon, UK)

Omand, E. (2010). What makes for good supervision and whose responsibility is it anyway? Psychodynamic Practice: Individuals, Groups and Organisations, 16(4), 377-392.

Perinčić, Tea (2019). Tolerance in Rijeka in Historical perspective. Paper presented on GASI Summer School 2019.

Richard, Parry (2010). A critical examination of Bion’s concept of containment and Winnicott’s concept of holding, and their psychotherapeutic implications. Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa: A degree paper. Link: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e755/3b11232d5cf6a254b31cd3ded9cf59f8c1bd.pdf

Slochower, Joyce. (2018). D.W. Winnicott: Holding, Playing and Moving Toward Mutuality. In: Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Editors: Charles, Marilyn. Oxon, UK: Routledge

Svenaeus, Fredrik (1999). Freud’s philosophy of the uncanny. Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 22(2):239-254 (Internet access on: https://commapress.co.uk/resources/online-short-stories/the-uncanny-sigmund-freud/)

Winnicott, D.W. (1960). The maturational process and the facilitating environment. London & New York: Karnac

Winnicott, D.W. (1965). Dependence in infant-care, child-care, and in the psycho-analytic setting. In: The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis (str: 258)

Winnicott, D.W. (1965). From Dependence towards Independence in the Development of the Individual. In: The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis (str: 84)

Yogev, Herzel. (2008) Holding in Relational Theory and Group Analysis. Group Analysis, Vol 41(4):373–390.

https://www.coe.int/en/web/interculturalcities/rijeka

https://www.rijeka.hr/en/city-government/development-strategy-of-the-city-of-rijeka-2014-2020/

Evgen Kajin
evgen.kajin@amis.net