Sailing on an ocean of associations—response to Juan Tubert-Oklander

When I was invited to respond and perhaps to add something to Juan Tubert-Oklander’s rich lecture and Earl Hopper’s further elaborations, I felt honoured to speak to this audience and to share with you some of my thoughts.

Though, at the same time—of course—I was excited and also a bit scared about how to find my place between these two celebrities of group analysis. Whilst preparing my response, one night I had a dream: the only image I remember is the picture of two exactly similar looking, big, beautiful, light blue cars (classic Cadillacs?), standing (or slowly driving) very close to each other—and I had to find my way by passing between them. I had a feeling I managed somehow. Well, the interpretation is for the audience and the reader . . .

OK, let us start driving, or perhaps better sailing—as Juan has offered us a whole kaleidoscope of thoughts and ideas that allow for an ocean of associations.

As a point of departure, I will try to summarize what I think I understood from Juan’s lecture.

He starts with the thesis that psychoanalysis and group analysis are but two aspects of a single field and the latter represents an improvement and further development of the former—though the full potential of both approaches he sees have not yet unfolded.

He claims that Freud could not make full benefit of his own revolutionary findings, that is a) the discovery of ‘the unconscious’; and b) that this unconscious is in large part created by (also unconscious) ‘repression’ of unacceptable materials. For Juan, this does not only hold true for individual human beings—Earl would say persons (Nitzgen and Hopper, 2017: 10)—but to ‘interpersonal relations, groups, institutions, communities, nations, international relations and Humankind as a whole’.

The full unfolding of these ideas is seen to be blocked by Freud’s metapsychology, which implies an individualistic paradigm of the psyche, that all mental processes must happen within the individual, that is by identifying the mind with the brain of an individual organism. Psychic processes here by definition are intra-psychic. Though Juan knows, that Freud’s case studies and some of his writings are not strictly following this line, being much richer, he points out that other elements did not find a systematic place in Freud’s overall theoretical framework.

Overcoming these limitations in classical psychoanalysis in Juan’s understanding is the aim of Foulkes as well as that of Pichon-Rivière, who both in all their writing claim the ‘primary and essential nature of human beings’.

As far as Foulkes is concerned, the limitations—here Juan is following Dalal’s differentiation between orthodox and radical Foulkes (Dalal, 1998)—are mainly seen in Foulkes’ ambivalent theoretical attitude towards his Freudian heritage. This ambiguity then enables many group analysts to work in fact more or less within the framework of orthodox bi-personal analysis, focusing mainly on intra-psychic processes.

As the individual paradigm is seen to contain at its core the idea of a genuinely selfish human being, it is considered to be an approach that is unlikely to be able to live up to the challenges of our present world, which is in a major crisis. Therefore, Juan claims that it has to be transcended. Theory and practice of psychoanalysis and group analysis have to include/ should be based on the values of solidarity, compassion and care for other human beings—thus restoring the ‘humanness to social life’.

To contribute to this endeavour, for group analysts a deep reworking and reconsideration of our theories is likely to be required. What follows is a thoughtful interrogation of the implicit assumptions, of for example, modern science that strips gained insights from the relational context, in which they were generated. Juan insists on the impossibility of neutrality, because every act, every category is intentional, and value loaded. Moreover, the mind-body split, which since Descartes has spread widely into common sense, has to be addressed. For this he refers to the fascinating ideas of Mahmoud Sami-Ali, who includes different modes of symbolization: dreams, drawing, painting, dramatizing, dancing, singing, story-telling, playing—and considers the body as a communicational instrument.

For a new paradigm of the human being, Juan claims the body has to be included into an extended concept of Mind, integrating the body, the psyche and the social. Revisiting all these hidden philosophical assumptions that guide us in our work in one way or the other, our practice of analysis is understood as a kind of field philosophy. He suggests that a group analytic conception of human life is overdue, aiming at a holistic concept that integrates psychoanalysis, group analysis, biology, the social sciences, history, politics, the arts, myth, philosophical and ethical concerns. And, of course Juan is well aware that this is a collective endeavour with no final answers.

At this point let me tune in, trying to focus on a few points to perhaps go a bit further. First, I want to thank Juan for clearly outlining the philosophical premises that lie at the bottom of (not only) group analysis. Foulkes himself was very much aware of the dualistic philosophical heritage—the juxtaposition of feelings and thoughts, individual(s) and group(s), socialization and individuation, the private and the public, the inside and the outside, body and mind, cause and effect, sender and receiver—which in European thinking dates back to Renée Descartes in the 17th-century. Foulkes clearly considered it inadequate for a group analytic understanding of the individual:

. . . a configuration has arisen which created the idea of an individual person as if existing in isolation. He then is confronted with the community, the world, as if they were outside him. The philosophy of Descartes starts from this premise and its strict subject–object juxtaposition is still responsible for many pseudo problems of our time. (Foulkes SH and Anthony EJ, 1957 [1984]: 23)

Foulkes’ contribution to overcome this heritage was the concept of matrix, in which he puts each individual in the middle of society, being in conflictual yet inseparable unity with their environment, carrying the legacy of all the groups they were ever a member of. In an early interdisciplinary attempt, influenced by neuroscience and Gestalt psychology (Goldstein) as well as by sociology (Elias), Foulkes paralleled the neuronal network of the brain with the social networks. He used the image of knots to describe the position of individuals within these networks. Communicational acts are considered to be the threads of this web. It is in this context that Foulkes understood free-floating discussion as a group equivalent to free association in psychoanalysis, thus linking the concept of the matrix to a theory of unconscious processes, in saying ‘ . . . we accept that ideas and comments expressed by different members have the value of unconscious interpretations’ (loc. cit.: 29, italics in original). That is what he saw to be a decisive step regarding method as well as theory. Nowadays we can clearly see this achievement, when for example in relational psychoanalysis referring to attunement, the juxtaposition of sender and receiver becomes meaningless. In groups, mind becomes visible as a multi-personal co-creation and not as something locked into the brain of individuals. Instead the brains themselves can be understood as being shaped by their surroundings (Donald, 2001). Thus, the concept of matrix emphasizes ‘the in between’ (‘ . . . all that is mental is a matter of more than one individual person and brain from the beginning’, Foulkes, 2003), i.e. the idea is embracing the non-materialistic, including body, as well as culture and history.

In my view (Scholz, 2003, 2011) the concept of the matrix—implying dynamic as well as foundation matrix—considers individuals/persons and groups as one single, inseparable process in which biological, social, cultural, and economic factors meet and merge. The concept of the matrix contains all dimensions of communication—including the non-verbal, e.g. facial expressions, gestures, postures, and mimetically transferred meanings. As there is sometimes a tendency to restrict communication to verbal modalities, I want to emphasize—and hope Juan will agree with me—the body as a communicative agent. The body is never merely biological, it is socially shaped and always carries (social) meaning (Bourdieu, 1979 [1982]). For example, a man in civilian clothes who once served in the military can be recognized as an ex-soldier, because of his posture and his movements that convey some aspects of his mindset and values, which are ‘unconsciously’ understood. This leads us to understand the biology of the human body not only in terms of its basic biological make-up shared by the species, but also in terms of verbal and non-verbal communication as well as other aspects of society and culture (Foulkes, 1971). So much of what Juan wishes for, I see already included in Foulkesian theory, which sometimes might look sketchy, though offering a big potential for further elaboration. Nonetheless I think there are two main open areas, where some basic work still needs to be done.

First: As it was Foulkes’ main interest to emphasize the social embeddedness of individuals, nonetheless his shorthand description of persons as knots in the network did not go far enough. In a certain way it points out that the communicational threads are passing through the persons, that they are transpersonal processes—though it leaves out how these communications change the person and how the person contributes to the communication, i.e. so the mutually unconscious influencing processes cannot be understood. Juan’s reference to the self-actualization tendency of organisms (originally from Goldstein, 1934), that contribute to the energy of the processes, can perhaps come into fruition here, if combined with ideas of a dialogical or perhaps better polyphonic self (e.g. Hermans, 2002; Mies, 2014). What I want to say is: We need a group analytic theory of subjectivity—thinking the individual anew from a distinct group/group analytic perspective. I assume the concept of a tripartite matrix (Nitzgen and Hopper, 2017) is also aiming in that direction.

Second: Foulkes, in his endeavour of trying to conceptualize what is going on in groups, did not rely on Freud—despite his lifelong dedication to psychoanalysis (‘Since my youth and throughout my life I have always been a convinced Freudian psychoanalyst’, (Foulkes, 1975 [1990]: 287). Nonetheless, with regard to groups Foulkes simply stated:

In contrast to many of my psychoanalytical colleagues, I do not consider Freud’s direct contribution to group psychology (Freud, 1921c) very important. He spoke of a totally different type of group, of highly organized groups, largely from the description of others and from the writing desk (Foulkes, 1975 [1990]: 288, 289)

In his writing from 1921 ‘Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego’ Freud was referring to the catholic church and the military—two highly structured, hierarchical organizations of which he had not much personal experience (for the military see Ellenberger, 1970 [1996]: 588).

Foulkes was mainly interested in and developed his concepts from the processes and dynamics of small, only minimally structured groups—though his theoretical thoughts went beyond that. What is often overlooked is the void, left between the small group with its members and society. All groups, groupings and institutions in between and their different ways to be organized are left out. This gap only in part can be bridged by the concept of overlapping matrices, the bigger unit always acting as the foundation matrix of the smaller one, a foundation matrix only to be experienced through dynamic matrices. What still is missing is a theory of ‘We’—the psychic representation of a group, in which all the communicational acts over time are included in a very condensed version, creating a very special and intense emotional entity—often referred to as group identity. And because there is no ‘I’ without a ‘We’ this missing second element in our theory directly refers to the first one—the missing group analytic theory of subjectivity. Without a clear understanding of the persons in groups, theoretical ideas of ‘We’ tend to legitimate a totalitarian, enmeshed grouping—with all its problematic practical consequences. Foulkes was up to this complex relation, when he simply stated ‘A good group, however, breeds and develops, creates and cherishes that most precious product: the human individual’ (Foulkes, 1948 [1983]: 170. Italics in original).

This quote is the last sentence of Foulkes first book Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy (1948)—and I will stop here too, leaving it to the audience/the reader about what of these musings is considered to be valuable. Though please let me again thank Juan for his intriguing paper that urged me to think again and more precisely on some questions, that are dear to my heart.