Guest Editors

Group analysis in Spanish: Group psychotherapy and other applications.

Part 1 of Contexts special issue (Contexts 92a) on group analytic history and training in Spain and Latin America described the history of group analysis in Spanish in some personal and academic articles. Pioneers and new trainings in Group analysis were also part of the issue.

In this, part 2 of the special issue, we present examples of the work done in Spanish which shows the versatility of the application of group analysis.

Even though in the beginning group analysis was mainly part of the clinical work with mental health patients, with time, the discipline has been applied to other professions associated with human relations and group dynamics. Amongst them are education, social work, sociology and organisational analysis.

Goyo Armañanzas’ and Nelson Gottlieb’s articles look at different ways of using group analysis, comparing their work as group analysts, psychodramatists and supervisors respectively. Amparo Jiménez writes about her experience as part of a Colombian community choir in Montreal (Canada) and the work done with Colombians in exile and through the Truth Commission. Elisabeth Rohr describes her supervision work with psychologists involved in the mass graves exhumations in indigenous villages in Guatemala after the so called ‘armed conflict’ which had lasted 36 years. Finally, Arturo Ezquerro gives us a sociological reading of his experiences during two important moments in his life as a Spanish emigré in the United Kingdom.

We have also included reviews of books either published in Spanish or with a Spanish connection: Enrique Ger, Elena Trullen and Emma Clarós write a synopsis of their co-edited book Psicoterapia en grupo de madres y padres [Group psychotherapy with mothers and fathers] (Editorial Psicolibro. Buenos Aires 2021); Marcela López-Levy reviews two books that are fundamental in her group analytic thinking, Jeremy Holmes, The Brain has a Mind of its Own. Attachment, Neurobiology, and the New Science of Psychotherapy (London, Confer Books 2020) and Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, The tree of knowledge: the biological roots of human understanding (Shambhala, Boston 1987); and finally Leonard Fagin reviews Urlić and González de Chávez’s Group Therapy for Psychoses (London, Routledge 2019).

One of the regular fixtures of Contexts is the Group analytic dictionary. This time also published in translation, Carmen O’Leary presents the project and reviews Rachel Chejanovski’s article on the term Mind, which can also be found here.

Maria-José Blanco and Luis Palacios
mariajoseblanco.dr@gmail.com
lpalacios@rivendelsl.com