A personal view of the history of the beginning of Group Analysis in Spain: a brief account of my experience with group analysis

In June 1971, having completed my diploma in Social Work at the University of Navarra, I was admitted to a specialization course in psychiatry for social workers at Littlemore Mental Health Centre in Oxford , where I had the opportunity to start my group analytic training . Although I had some training in group work during my rotation as a student at SMEDA Medical and Anthropological Studies Society in Pamplona, I knew I wanted to continue down this path.

Littlemore Hospital was in full expansion and favoured group training provided by the Institute of Group Analysis (IGA) in London, founded by Foulkes. I was fortunate that the hospital accepted my application, supported me, and allowed me to reduce my working hours to accommodate my schedule so I could attend the Introductory course (both theoretical and practical training). The person who conducted the small group for the first year was Vivienne Cohen, who recently passed away.

At the same time, at the Institute, I started individual analysis with Harold Kaye until his sudden death. Patrick De Marè was the conductor of my second year group. It was an extremely creative, innovative and inspiring experience that reaffirmed me in my desire to deepen my knowledge of group analysis.

This formative journey, together with the professional experience as a social worker at the Therapeutic Community of Littlemore Hospital and specifically with Spanish-speaking immigrant mental health patients, was a great discovery and filled me with enthusiasm and desire to continue my training.

When I returned to Spain (1975), group work began to develop in the field of Mental Health. I started my professional path at the same institution where I did my internship at SMEDA, Medical Society for Anthropological Studies. It was founded by professionals, mostly psychiatrists trained in other countries, England, France and Germany. With great growth and expansion, it was renamed Fundación Argibide. It was developed in different areas: outpatient clinic, inpatient unit, and day hospital and research department. Those were times of expansion for health services in general and especially in the psychiatric field in Spain and much remained to be done. Professional training was of crucial importance and group, couples and family therapies were highly valued. I worked for years since it was created, in Day Hospital, leading therapy and family groups, with group analytical guidance. Likewise, I conducted therapy groups at the outpatient setting.

Professor Guimón in Bilbao founded OMIE Basque Foundation for Mental Health and Research, which organized training courses in Group Analysis at Deusto University initially conducted in collaboration with the Institute of Group Analysis in London. I participated in several workshops with Malcolm Pines, Fernando Arroyave and Juan and Hanne Campos among others. Juan and Hanne Campos both IGA members, created the Barcelona Group Analytic Society and we also worked in collaboration.

In 1977, I joined the Spanish Society of Group Psychotherapy and Techniques (SEPTG), established five years earlier (1972), founded by a group of psychiatrists trained abroad.

At the same time, together with a group of colleagues interested in training in Group Analysis, we created a supervision group coordinated by Fernando Arroyave, an accredited member of the Institute of Group Analysis in London, who also provided training at OMIE. We worked in monthly weekend blocks for seven years.

Although in the supervision group the objective is to focus on the task of analysing the therapist’s work, it is necessary to create a group matrix, through a continuous relationship given in time and space, which contributes to the containment and security needed for its process and development. This was the supervision work with Fernando Arroyave. It was a group that self-observed its own changes and processes. The analysis of the countertransference was a main task and so was the analysis of the dynamics that was established in the group itself.

Speaking about history, it was at the University of Deusto Bilbao, where SEPTG held the XIV Symposium on May 30, 1986 entitled ‘Group-Therapist’s Training’. The supervision group joined by eight members including the conductor decided to share their reflections and presented a paper at the same Symposium entitled “The Function of Supervision in on-going Group Analytical Training”. Without going into the methodology, I can say that, as a group, we contributed with two communications, one from the conductor’s view, and the other, from the group as a whole.

Fernando Arroyave named in his presentation the three fundamental pillars of group analytical training: therapeutic group, theoretical training and supervision of clinical work with patients. In our presentation, “Function of Supervision in the on-going training in Group Analysis”, we worked under the premises of the group as a whole “by the group, of the group and for the group, including the conductor” that Master Foulkes so wisely coined. A novel experience in which supervisor and supervisees are part of the same presentation.

The members of the group, all with previous training, agreed that supervision, and specifically group analytical supervision, was the best way to guarantee quality work.

All this process was of inestimable value to all of us on a professional and personal level. There was a lot of written production by each one of us, until we reached a unique document where we felt represented and that Francisco Del Amo presented on behalf of the entire group.

We solved crises and grew individually and as a group. Two years later Fernando Arroyave passed away. The group needed to continue for another year, working through the loss, solving the crisis and growing with it. One of us wrote,

“The proposed supervision group is facilitating an integrative work, so that our professional work is always viewed from the increasingly broader knowledge that the group has of our true way of being. Thus, this form of supervision does not refer to objective know- how, but to well-integrated know-how.”

For me, sharing the loneliness, insecurities, and implicit concerns in our work, also achievements and successes, was a great encouragement to deepen, learn and go beyond. I learned how to trust the spontaneity of my own associative processes and in the group process itself.

This training in group analysis has been a guide in my work up to the present day.

Concha Oneca Eransus
Psychiatric Social Worker. Individual and group psychotherapist. Former president of SEPTG and former president of the Official College of Social Workers of Navarra.
conchaoneca@gmail.com