A Personal History of Group Analysis in Spain

Abstract

This article deals with a minuscule and non-exhaustive portion of the history of group analysis in Spain and aims to be a reflection of the evolution of that theoretical practice in, above all, Navarra, where I live and work.  The information in this article comes either from my own first-hand experience or from a person who directly participated in the experience described.

Key words

Group analysis. History. Spain.

I began my professional career at a time when group work was booming. Everywhere there were training programs in group psychotherapy and group therapeutic experiences which were more or less carefully run. On the contrary, nowadays, although group work is taken for granted, on the one hand, the adjective “therapeutic” has disappeared, as if it were not presentable, and on the other hand, there is much less space given to group work in the clinical setting, whether public or private. Whether because of the demand for effectiveness, measured only in terms of time spent in a therapeutic space, or because of its inherent difficulty, the result is that group psychotherapy has little visibility at present, which is paradoxical given the availability of such training.

Group work in Spain was introduced by psychoanalytic institutions in the 1960s. I understand that, for the creation of these institutions, a certain evolution of the economic and political situation in Spain after the civil war had a favourable influence: some professionals who were abroad began to visit the country and impart training, others in Spain began to train abroad… But until 1976 a law restricting the right of assembly remained in force. There were also restrictions with respect to the development of infrastructures: we are talking about a time when the trip between Pamplona and Bilbao (150 Kms) by bus easily took 4 hours.

From the two most important psychoanalytic nuclei, one in Madrid and the other in Barcelona, the SEPTG (Spanish Society of Psychotherapy and Group Techniques) was created in 1972. “The SEPTG was founded as a result of a meeting that took place in Zaragoza, convened basically by A. Gállego Meré, from Madrid, and J. L. Martí Tusquets, from Barcelona. Those of us who attended that meeting and were the Founding Members, considered ourselves more or less trained (most of us rather less than more…) to work with groups. This was our common denominator: working with groups, but our field of practice varied, including psychoanalysis, psychodrama, Gestalt, Bioenergetics, and others. A previous meeting had failed because some advocated for a more defined, less widely encompassing society, but in this second meeting a more flexible criterion was agreed upon with the basic purpose of “encouraging and favoring the exchange of ideas and experiences” (J. Palet 1991).

At the symposium of the aforementioned SEPTG at the Miraflores Hospital in Seville in 1976, Fernando Arroyave, training liaison of the Institute of Group Analysis in London, conducted a group.

I have not managed to find out how or who contacted him. It seems that it was not Juan Campos, who had a relationship with that Institute because he had been trained there, and it seems that Pedro Enrique Muñoz, a psychiatrist who was then working in Pamplona and was on the board of the society, may have been involved, but I have not been able to confirm this. (P. Mir; C. Oneca; MJ. García; J.L. Lledó personal communications, March 2021).

As a result of his presence in Seville, Fernando Arroyave was employed to give a demonstration of different group psychotherapeutic techniques in Santander. This contact was established by a psychiatrist who had previously been in London, José Arango, and those who participated were members of all levels of psychiatric care in the region (R. De Inocencio, personal communication, March 2021). Roberto De Inocencio, who has been so important in the training of professionals in my city, was part of this training group.

In 1980, at the SEPTG symposium in Palma de Mallorca, Cristina Catalá and Francisco Rodríguez, two of the members of the Psychosocial Center, a psychology and psychiatry center located in Pamplona, contacted Roberto De Inocencio, and asked him to come to Pamplona to train the professionals of the institution. At that time, I was doing my internship in that institution during the last two years of my degree.

We formed a training group that was closed, composed of some of the members of the institution, but not all of them. The contract was for one year with four monthly sessions, three experiential, and one theoretical and/or supervisory. I do not want to dwell now on the experiences of that group. I will only mention that, as a result of it, the team changed its economic structure, and, at the end, some members left the team, others left the group, and some of us left both.

Following the initial group, in February 1982, another group began, which no longer had an institutional character. It was composed of some members coming from the initial group, and others coming from other training experiences carried out by Roberto: a workshop with professionals from the recently created school guidance service of the government of Navarra (December 1981), and another one with professionals from an autism center around the same time. This group met weekly instead of once a month. There were also workshops to introduce the technique from which some members emerged.

Different groups followed, one after another for 10 years, made up of professionals from the clinical, public and private, educational, and organizational fields, of different professional categories, ages, and experience. The groups were characterized by being year-long, weekly sessions, with the structure of three experiential sessions and one theoretical one; there were several venues, at least three, and different people in charge of their management. I participated in the last one that was created, which was also defined as such, as the last one, aimed at people who had had some experience in one of the groups over the years, no matter how much, and wanted closure. It lasted four years. I left that group to begin individual psychotherapy, an experience that I believe was shared by many other participants in those groups.

Around the same time, at the Pamplona Psychiatric Hospital, a training program was created in which professionals from the center collaborated. I mention this because some of these professionals had group-analytic training. (R. De Luis, personal communication, March 2021).

Returning to the national scene, the greatest activity was in Barcelona with Juan and Hanne Campos. Both had been trained in London at different places and at different times- Hanne at the Institute of Group Analysis and Juan at Maudsley Hospital under the supervision of S. H. Foulkes. Later, in 1989, with Mercè Martínez, Susana Jové and Pere Mir (J. M. Ayerra was there at the beginning, but soon left) they created the Grup d’Anàlisi Barcelona (H. Campos 2008). In 1980, in Castelldefels the first “Workshop of Group Analysis in Spain” was held, with the participation of Juan and Hanne Campos, Fernando Arroyave and other educators from the Institute of Group Analysis in London, under whose auspices the meeting was organized. The following year, the second of these meetings was held in Cestona, organized by the same institution and the Department of Psychiatry of the University of the Basque Country, and in 1982 the group training program was created, directed first by the Omie Foundation and the University of the Basque Country, and then by the University of Deusto (http://www.fundacionomie.org/fundacion-omie/), and which continues directing it today. Fernando Arroyave was part of this program only in its beginnings since he passed away in Oxford in April 1987. Several professionals in my region have been trained this way.

Several of the members of those mentioned training groups were, and some still are, members of the SEPTG. Several different associations, offshoots of this society, have been created referring to specific techniques: psychodrama, bioenergetics, etc. But this has not happened with group analysis; there is no association of group analysis in Spain, at least as far as I know. Therefore, the SEPTG has hosted much activity related to this discipline. Through this forum different group analysts have been invited: in 1988, Pat De Maré, member of theInstitute of Group Analysis in  London, came to Pamplona during the SEPTG Symposium, conducted groups and introduced the concepts of Medium Group and “Koinonia”. Stuart Whitely gave a lecture at the Symposium on therapeutic communities, and in 1994, in Merida, Estela V. Welldon participated and presented a paper on the treatment of sex offender patients.

On a local, personal level, in 1998, on returning from the IAGP congress in London, a colleague, Concepción Oneca, convened a medium-sized group in which professionals from the city met, most, but not all, of them previously trained in group analysis.  We met in one of the lounges of a hotel, whose payment was the only formal commitment we assumed as members.

From 2002 onwards, I have been working in a different field of training and, except for the workshops held at the SEPTG and the IAGP, I have not participated in groups with a group analytic orientation.

Through writing the article, I have realized that neither my final statement nor the impression referred to at the beginning about the scarce permanence of the group-analytic orientation is exactly true: I am a member of a supervision group that organizes the sessions as a group, not with individual payment of each of the members to the supervisor-conductor. In the same line, I have worked, recently and temporarily, in a Day Hospital of the public mental health network where a therapeutic group of two weekly sessions is carried out. This group is highly valued as a therapeutic resource by patients and professionals. I must mention that some of the professionals who began and developed this centre have taken part in some of the groups described. This has not always been the case, but nowadays it is. And, thirdly, a colleague made me reflect a few days ago on how different the way of handling groups, of any technique, is when the conductor has had group-analytic training compared to a person who has not. So, this writing has helped me to change my point of view: much more group-analytic culture survives, even in my daily practice, than I was assuming.

Acknowledgements

I have appealed to many people, many of them colleagues of the experiences reported, to sort out facts and dates, and all of them have responded with effort and interest. In addition to those already mentioned in the text, Roberto De Inocencio, Charo De Luís, Pepa García Callado, José Luís Lledó, Pere Mir and Concepción Oneca, the following have collaborated: Julian Alberdi, Paquita Alonso, Gregorio Armañanzas, Elena Caballero, Francisco Del Amo, Maite Ezkurra, José Jiménez, Mercedes Lezaun and Nekane Navarro.

References

Campos, H (compiler) 1998: Historia abierta…. 25 years of the Spanish Society of Psychotherapy and Group Techniques. Extraordinary Bulletin of the Spanish Society of Psychotherapy and Group Techniques.

Campos, H. (2008): Singladura en Grup D’Anàlisi Barcelona. Retrieved from: http://arxius.grupdanalisi.org/GDAP/Singladura_HC_Julio2008.pdf

Campos, J. (1996): Was the SEPTG born with the vocation of a large group? Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Psicoterapia y Técnicas de Grupo Época IV Year 1996 pp 119-133.

Palet i Martí, J. (1991): Asignatura Pendiente: Training and Continuing Education: “Past and Future of the SEPTG as a Training Institution”. Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Psicoterapia y Técnicas de Grupo Época IV Nº4 pp. 35

Welldon, E. V. (1994): “Group analytic treatment with criminal perverse patients in outpatient clinics: 23 years beginning pioneering group therapy work with this type of patients”. Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Psicoterapia y Técnicas de Grupo Época IV Nº8 pp. 102-115

Camino Urrutia Imirizaldu
Clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. Member of the AEP (Spanish Psychodrama Association) and the IAGP (International Association of Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes). Member of the Board of directors of the IAGP and of its editorial board.
pauca@cop.es