Group Analysis recent issues

Sexuality and Group: Editorial Comment

Weegmann, M. — 2009-08-19

The Location of Sexuality in Group Analysis

Nitzgen, D. — 2009-08-19

This article addresses the subject of sexuality in group analysis, and tries to locate it in a group analytic context. To do so, Foulkes’ late paper on the ‘Oedipus Conflict and Regression’ (1972) is taken as a starting point. It is argued that both Foulkes, and later de Maré have convincingly shown that psycho-sexuality cannot be localized in the body, but has to be located in the group. This basic group analytic assumption has an affinity to certain Lacanian key concepts, namely the concepts of desire and of jouissance. Both are discussed and put into perspective.

On Linking Lacan and Foulkes: Commentary on Dieter Nitzgen's 'The Location of Sexuality in Group Analysis'

Burman, E. — 2009-08-19

Childhood Sexual Abuse: Trauma and Healing in Groups through the Symbolic Presence of the Mother and the Phallus

Doran, M., Punter, J. — 2009-08-19

This article examines the theory and research from psychotherapy, neuroscience and outcome studies that help to understand the impact of childhood sexual abuse and its treatment in groups. When treating trauma in groups, attention needs to be paid to containment, and as such there is an analysis of the relationship between containment and structure in group analytic groups. The concept of the cultural mother, related to the mature matrix is outlined. The journey in an analytic group from being stuck, and repeating traumatic relationships, to freedom in being ‘reborn’, is mediated through the significance of the maternal and phallic symbols as they are active and experienced within the group analytic group.

Response to Doran and Punter's 'Childhood Sexual Abuse: Trauma and Healing in Groups through the Symbolic Presence of the Mother and the Phallus'

Pennycook, W. — 2009-08-19

'Chocolates and Flowers? You Must be Joking!' Of Men and Tenderness in Group Therapy

Seager, M., Thummel, U. — 2009-08-19

Men’s therapy groups can play an important role, long neglected, in facilitating emotional development in males. Society has long turned a blind eye to male psychology and has colluded with male emotional self-neglect by failing to create gender-specific services for men. ‘Male-only’ group therapy is particularly suited to the male psyche, and can help to counteract traditional masculine defences of shame and guilt. It is argued that the absence of women in a group therapy context can play a vital role in enabling males to access hidden parts of their personalities. We describe our experience of facilitating a men’s group in the NHS and outline our approach. Case examples are used to illustrate how, through the group process, destructive relationships are gradually transformed into something more tender. In psychoanalytical terms, split off ‘softer’ emotional aspects of men in group therapy are thus re-integrated into a new masculine identity whilst over-inflated cruel aspects can be attenuated.

Response to Martin Seager and Uwe Thummel's ' "Chocolates and Flowers? You Must be Joking!" Of Men and Tenderness in Group Psychotherapy'

Bhurruth, M. — 2009-08-19

Foreword

2009-08-19

Introduction: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Patrick de Mare

Pines, M. — 2009-08-19

Clinical Work in Small Groups

Pines, M. — 2009-08-19

Introduction to Large Groups

Kreeger, L. — 2009-08-19

The Median Group

Pisani, R. A. — 2009-08-19

Group Analysis and the Concept of the Mind

Schollberger, R. — 2009-08-19

Pat's Mind

Ormay, T. — 2009-08-19

Patrick de Mare: Review and Legacy

Blackwell, D. — 2009-08-19

Some Influences of Pat de Mare's Work in the USA

Stefano, K. R. — 2009-08-19

From Personal and Familial to Societal Healing in the Median Group

Lenn, R. — 2009-08-19

Book Review: Owen, I. R., Psychotherapy and Phenomenology: On Freud, Husserl and Heidegger. New York: iUniverse Inc, 2006

Kemp, R. — 2009-08-19

Book Review: Gale, J., Pedriali, E. and Realpe, A. (eds) Therapeutic Communities for Psychosis. London: Routledge, 2008

Brownbridge, G. — 2009-08-19

Book Review: Darwish, M., Unfortunately, it was Paradise: Selected Poems. Translated by Munir Akash and Carolyn Forche. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003

Weegmann, M. — 2009-08-19

Juan Campos (1928--2009)

Mir, P. — 2009-08-19

International Calendar

2009-08-19

Farewell to a Dead Horse: Group Analytic Supervision Training in Post-War Guatemala

Rohr, E. — 2009-05-20

Group analytic therapy, supervision, and counselling are completely unknown in Guatemala, Central America. But after a long and devastating war, an internationally supported peace and reconciliation process offered the opportunity to introduce new methods into mental health services, to cope with the psycho-social effects of a traumatized society. This article describes difficulties that were connected with the establishment of group analytic supervision training in Guatemala, focusing on aspects of trauma that emerged in supervisory case work.

Patients' Views of Therapeutic Action in Psychoanalytic Group Psychotherapy

Johansson, L., Werbart, A. — 2009-05-20

Patients' views of curative and hindering factors in psychoanalytic group psychotherapy are explored, starting with semi-structured interviews with 28 young adult patients at therapy termination. Using grounded theory methodology, a theoretical model of therapeutic action is constructed, elucidating the interactions between positive and negative experiences in the group. The focal point appears to be the patient's experience of their own activity within the context of the group as whole, leading to increased self-knowledge and improved handling of emotions. The positively experienced change is also affected by people outside of therapy and real life events. The patients ascribed most frequent hindering factors to the absence of their own action to other group members and to the therapeutic frames.

In contrast to therapist-based theoretical models, positive experience in the group leads patients to minimize the therapist's role, while negative experiences lead patients to want a more active therapist.

The Solitude and Agony of Unbearable Shame

Rustomjee, S. — 2009-05-20

The focus of this article is only on the very severe intensity of unbearable shame, which remains unspoken, as opposed to shame encountered in everyday life, which does not lead to longstanding, emotionally traumatic consequences.

Theoretical, as well as clinical aspects of unbearable shame, leading to `loss of face', dehumanization, severe impairment of both physical and emotional health, repeated failures in psychotherapy, or in certain circumstances, resulting in even more serious consequences, namely soul murder, overwhelming despair, leading to violence, suicide, or murder are explored. Group analysis, as well as combined group and individual psychotherapy frameworks, as used for the management of these patients, are discussed.

A study of the complexities of unbearable shame is made with reference to the works of Paul Mollon (2002), James Gilligan (2000), Donald Nathanson (1987), Helen Block Lewis (1971), Michael Lewis (1975) and others.

Death and the Dynamics of Group Life

McDermott, F., Hill, C., Morgan, A. — 2009-05-20

This article reports qualitative analysis of data collected during psychoanalytically orientated group sessions after the death of members. This group, based in group analytic and existentialist theoretical perspectives, is for women with advanced breast cancer. We ask: how and why does the group keep going, even as its members leave it through death? Our interest in understanding the therapeutic factors generated by the co-therapists, group members, and the group as a whole is assisted by Winnicott (1956, 1960) and Bion's (1959) concepts of holding and containment. These concepts are used to examine the therapists' role—containers for creating a thinking space where unknowable and unthinkable thoughts can be transformed into something bearable and creative.

Group Helplessness and Rage

Wolf, E. — 2009-05-20

The problem of group violence is one of the most important issues facing society. Not only is this a crucial topic for our Americanized society, but we are confronted with events that are occurring all over the globe, on all continents, and in all countries. While it is obvious that the daily news pin-points the current `hot' area of conflict, such as the Middle East, the Balkans, and certain regions of Africa, there seems to be no spot on earth that is safe from unreasoned violence. Individuals as well as groups are in danger of being destroyed. How are we to understand these phenomena?

Locating Helplessness and Rage in the Matrix of Political Violence: A Commentary on Ernest Wolf's `Group Helplessness and Rage'

Blackwell, D. — 2009-05-20

Helpless, Powerful, Rageful, Humiliated: A Commentary on Ernest Wolf's `Group Helplessness and Rage'

Weegmann, M. — 2009-05-20

A Commentary on Ernest Wolf's `Group Helplessness and Rage'

Pines, M. — 2009-05-20

Response to Herzel Yogev's `Holding in Relational Theory and Group Analysis' (Group Analysis 41(4))

Nitzgen, D. — 2009-05-20

Book Review: Schwartzberg, Sharan L. and Navarro, Leyla (eds) Envy, Competition and Gender: Theory, Clinical Applications and Group Work. London: Routledge, 2007. {pound} 22.99, pp. 272. ISBN: 978-1583917497

Pennycook-Greaves, W. — 2009-05-20

Book Review: Bersani, Leo and Phillips, Adam Intimacies. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008. pp. 125. ISBN: 978-0226043517

Punter, J. — 2009-05-20

International Calendar

2009-05-20

The Matrix of Group Analysis: An Historical Perspective

Pines, M. — 2009-02-24

In 1939 a German—Jewish psychoanalyst who had left Germany in 1933 and who had, in 1938 moved to Exeter, a small city in the south west of England, began to practise group analysis. Soon caught up in military psychiatry, where he had ample opportunity to put his ideas and experience into practice, S.H. Foulkes elaborated his theoretical ideas in his first book in 1948. Thus the practice of group analysis began in England, geographically far from Frankfurt and from Vienna, where Foulkes had trained and worked, and in relative professional isolation. This is often a necessary condition for original work; compare the example of Ronald Fairbairn, contemporaneous in Edinburgh. But no man is an island and Foulkes' work has to be set in the context of the European ideas of his intellectual and social inheritance. We must situate him in history, figure against ground, as he himself insisted was a basic component of group-analytic theory.

Working with Disability in Groups

Smith, M. — 2009-02-24

I link the experience of disability to some psychoanalytic theories of early development and recent studies into the effect of early attachment experiences on the development of the brain. I will show that the group regresses to the earliest stages of development in order to work with body-mind experiences, and to find a language in which to make sense of their current experience.

I will then discuss how this can be worked with in an analytic group. I also link this to working with chronically psychologically disabled patients. The group is a space to enable members to increasingly own and tolerate their disability.

Managing Primitive Emotions in Organizations

Kapur, R. — 2009-02-24

The psychic life of organizations is often fraught with distress and unhappiness. Often, the primary task of the organization is hijacked by deeper, primitive, unconscious forces, to divert the work towards more destructive functioning. This article describes three main dynamics in the organizational life of a voluntary organization, which can lead to the acting out of deeper sexual and aggressive impulses. These dynamics focus on how erotic, idealized, and envied relationships can significantly interfere with sane, civilized, and humane behaviour in everyday organizational life. These dynamics are highlighted through three examples of organizational traumas. This article suggests ways of understanding and resolving these conflicts, and most importantly suggests that failure to recognize such powerful unconscious organizational forces will lead to unproductive and ultimately destructive functioning.

Religious Fundamentalism and Mental Illness: A Group Analytic Exploration

Abbott, R. M. — 2009-02-24

This article applies group analytic thinking to the relationship between religious fundamentalism and mental illness. Religion is explored as a means of social cohesion, and religious fundamentalism as a regressive response to globalization. Extrinsic and intrinsic religious attitudes are compared, with evidence of mental health within the latter. Clinical examples are offered to explore the potential heightening of mental distress for those presenting with culturally liminal attitudes within fundamentalist communities. Within contemporary society, it is proposed that the inclusion of psychoanalytic thinking within religious practice and the secular acceptance of the religious function could enable the emergence of a self-reflexive, and therefore more humane, spirituality.

Becoming Conscious of the Human Group

Bacha, C. S. — 2009-02-24

Groups have been shown to be effective therapeutic tools in the hands of skilled group conductors. Clients often observe that they feel better somehow, but that they do not know how this has happened. The author proposes that group analytic groups heal because they evoke the `Human Group', the species-specific group which evolved together with other facets of human biology, and which formed the hunter—gatherer tribes up to the spread of agriculture 10,000 years ago. The author states that, besides the theoretical and philosophical notions of the group, and of the social unconscious, there are also historical and pre-historical notions. Some of these notions can be found in primatology, palaeontology, archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, when writings in these disciplines are viewed with a focus on the group.

Not Group Analysis as We Know it: Response to Mohamed Taha, Refaat Mahfouz and Magdy Arafa's `Socio-Cultural Influences on Group Therapy Leadership Style' (Group Analysis 41(4))

Punter, J. — 2009-02-24

Book Review: Gordon, John and Kirtchuk, Gabriel (eds) Psychic Assaults and Frightened Clinicians: Countertransference in Forensic Settings. Forensic Psychotherapy Monograph Series. London: Karnac, 2008, pp. 152. {pound}19.99

Adshead, G. — 2009-02-24

Book Review: Compassion. Conceptualisations, Research and Use in Psychotherapy. Gilbert, Paul (ed.). London: Routledge, pp. 403. {pound}19.95

Bhurruth, M. — 2009-02-24

Juan Campos (1928--2009)

Martinez, M. — 2009-02-24

Juan Campos (1928--2009)

Blackwell, R. — 2009-02-24

Juan Campos (1928--2009)

Pines, M. — 2009-02-24

International Calendar

2009-02-24

The 32nd S.H. Foulkes Annual Lecture: President's Introduction

Winther, G. — 2008-11-18

The Group Analytic Movement Sixty Years On: Revisiting Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy by S.H. Foulkes

Nitzgen, D. — 2008-11-18

Response to Lecture by Dieter Nitzgen

Hearst, L. — 2008-11-18

Matriculating the Matrix: A Different Understanding of Psychic Structure, Resonance and Repression

Bhurruth, M. — 2008-11-18

Matriculation is referred to in the sense of entry to further education and plays with the subjunctive, `What if Foulkes had conceptualized the matrices as being structure of mind?'

This article constructs a group-analytic psychical structure of the individual mind made up of the Personal, Dynamic and Social Matrices. Resonance between the matrices is then recognized as a source of psychic energy with sufficient power to lift the repression barrier causing painful affects and memories to come into consciousness. This article develops Foulkes' concept of resonance.

The Two-Minute Check-in at the Beginning of Psychoanalytic Group Therapy Sessions

Gordon, R. M. — 2008-11-18

A check-in at the beginning of supportive and symptom-focused groups is common. However, it has not been part of psychoanalytic groups which centre on the unconscious determinates of symptoms. The purpose of the two-minute check-in in a psychoanalytic group is to gain information on each member's state of mind, help the group decide where it wants to focus its attention during the session, to balance the member's participation (so that talkative and quiet members start the group equally), and to produce a sense of mutuality and group concern. It is also the time for members to bring up attendance issues, payment issues or termination plans. The two-minute check-in is not likely to have much of a therapeutic effect in and of itself. A survey of my patients in two groups considered the two-minute check-in as functioning as a group level intervention. It sets the stage for a more efficient psychoanalytic group session at the interpersonal and intrapsychic levels.

Holding in Relational Theory and Group Analysis

Yogev, H. — 2008-11-18

The article reviews Winnicott's concept of `holding' and its place in group analysis. Winnicott viewed holding in therapy as equivalent to the maternal function of holding the baby. This stance requires a more refined model, in which holding is viewed as an illusion that both participants need to acknowledge as such and that enables them to act upon each other in the potential space. This article examines the variations that inevitably exist in the amount and kind of holding that is needed in therapy, and the intersubjective movement towards the holding position during therapy.

Socio-Cultural Influence on Group Therapy Leadership Style

Taha, M., Mahfouz, R., Arafa, M. — 2008-11-18

The main author of this article had the opportunity to witness, to observe and to be trained in two different styles of group therapy leadership over the past few years: A more directive, prescriptive and active style that was developed in Egypt and is considered as the traditional Egyptian style of conducting dynamic therapy groups (Egyptian Integrative Dynamic Model) and a less directive, more descriptive and passive style that was developed in the UK and is considered as the traditional style of leading dynamic therapy groups within the British National Health Service (British Group Analysis). The article tries to investigate the socio-cultural factors that favoured adopting the more directive, prescriptive and active format in the Egyptian model although it revolves around the same object–relations theoretical core as the British one. This might stimulate an interesting discussion on the relativity of psychotherapy concepts, processes and aims among different cultures.

Book Review: Evans, Sandra and Garner, Jane (eds) Talking Over the Years: A Handbook of Dynamic Psychotherapy with Older Adults. Hove & New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2003

Hudson, I. — 2008-11-18

International Calendar

2008-11-18

Volume 41, Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 Volume Index

2008-11-18