Observers in analytic groups: A content analysis study from the participant perspective

Being observed and transference: catalytic function of observers for the group (Capiello et al.)

Capiello et al. (1988) refer to (a simplified version of) Bion’s theory that groups develop from stages of dependence and fight-flight behaviour towards stages of pairing and, further on, a mature working group. They see the observer assume his or her special role as a catalyst at the transition from the two first to the two last-named stages. In their view, the observer cannot be integrated into the group because he or she does not speak the group’s language and so remains an obscure, disturbing element that serves the group as a mirror (Capiello et al., 1988: 228). As the silent observer has no means of responding, he or she can be met with aggression and be attributed those elements that the group do not want to see in themselves. From the group’s viewpoint the observer represents an external agency that draws onto itself all of the group’s fears, such as an authoritarian father who judges and checks (Capiello et al., 1988: 227).

‘The presence of the observer stimulates and fosters the first moment of cohesion in the group as it unites against a common outside enemy’ (Capiello et al., 1988: 229). According to Capiello et al., the observer stands for the ‘shadow’, the evil, as well as for personally or collectively unconscious material. ‘Aggressivity predominates toward the observer, whereas positive values are attributed to the therapist’ (Capiello et al., 1988: 230). Capiello illustrates this with a case example: [The observer] ‘is detached and doesn’t take part emotionally . . . she upsets me, just like when I was a child and someone was indifferent towards me’ (Capiello et al., 1988: 230). The participant’s relationship with the institution (in Capiello’s case a psychiatric centre) is reflected in his or her view on the observer: ‘It is not the therapist who is identified with institutions, but the observer, who does not know how to love, does not answer or react, is indifferent’ (Capiello et al., 1988: 231).

Capiello summarizes: ‘In spite of the absence of verbal communication between group and observer, the interactions which develop are extremely noteworthy, on both the real and fantasy level . . . The observer’s presence shifts the group’s aggressivity and dependence from the therapist, thus allowing for interpersonal relationships to take place’ (Capiello et al., 1988: 231).

Capiello and Altaussee; observers in Bion groups and Foulkes groups

The group as described by Capiello et al. (1988) and the groups of the Internationalen Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Gruppenanalyse (IAG) (Shaked, 1997; Roth et al., 2015) differ markedly in a number of ways: the environment of a psychiatric hospital versus that of a training institution; the appearance of observers after the group has already been running for a year versus their presence from the outset; the (presumed) practice of not informing the participants versus transparency, i.e. providing the information that the observers are former group participants.

Furthermore, although they also briefly quote Foulkes in their article, it appears that Capiello et al. largely base their work on the group concept of Bion (referring to Kleinian ideas, also cf. Sandner, 2018). For example, they refer to ‘the group’ or ‘the group network’, but hardly ever to ‘group participants’; they operate with Bion’s functional modes of a group. The group she describes was most likely facilitated in the distanced style of Klein-Bion groups (cf. Lear, 1988). This would make the described role of the observer as a scapegoat or ‘pressure relief valve’ all the more important.

Lear (1988) has addressed the risks associated with assigning the observer this kind of function, while Böttger (1994) has pointed out the resulting danger of a split.

‘Stabilizing’ handout for observers (Böttger, Shaked)

Böttger (1994) and Shaked (1997) have prepared guidelines that can serve observers well in preparing themselves for what is expected from them in their role:

Group observation means the presence during group analysis sessions of one or several observers whose task it is to follow and understand the group process in its both conscious and unconscious manifestations and later share their experiences with the group leader or a supervisor. (Böttger, 1994: 129)

And:

. . . observers sit with the group in the same room but outside the actual group circle. They are withdrawn yet tactful in their behaviour, remain silent during sessions and do not socialize with group participants outside of sessions. At the same time they don’t avoid being friendly as is appropriate when in company—an inner attitude that takes time to develop (Böttger, 1994: 129) . . . Observers reflect by countertransference the issues that have remained unaddressed in the group. (Böttger, 1994: 133)

The situation in Altaussee provides a good setting for carrying out surveys on transference phenomena.

The present study was aimed at exploring the feelings of self-experience group participants towards observers. One point of special interest was whether there was a tendency towards positive or rather towards negative transference phenomena.

Preliminary remark

The IAG has held group analytic workshops at its site in Altaussee in Austria for more than four decades. Many of the participants complete a series of, e.g. four consecutive nine-day workshops as ‘self-experience group participants’. Following this and an admission interview, they may join the ‘middle staff’ as either observers (during three consecutive workshops) or co-leaders (during three more workshops) in order to undergo the full qualification programme offered by the IAG. During the course they receive supervision from and engage in theory reflection with the staff of the actual group leaders, all of whom are certified teaching therapists.

Group work takes place in the following setting: Some 12 participants plus a leader team, usually consisting of one person of either sex, plus, as a rule, one observer are present. The observer sits somewhat outside the circle. He or she may take notes but does not participate in the communication, whether verbally or by facial expression or gesture.

Survey scope

Members of the middle staff were asked to think back (usually several years) to the time when they themselves had been a member of a self-experience group and re-experience the impressions they had had of the observers of their own group at the time. They were instructed as follows: ‘In your mind’s eye, go back to your time as a group participant in Altaussee. When you think of the observers at the time you will probably spontaneously remember scenes along with certain associations, feelings, bodily sensations, phantasies, dreams etc. Write down spontaneously and without censure whatever associations cross your mind. Everything is allowed! You might want to read the attached “Freewriting” guide to help you. Please anonymize and defamiliarize your notes such that those involved, including yourself, cannot be identified by anyone reading them’.

Attached to these instructions was a short guide to ‘Freewriting’ (Goldberg, 1986; Elbow, 1998; Klein, 2014) (see www.ResProceedingsIUC.net/Freewriting). No social variables were recorded in order to avoid generating artefacts and to preserve the anonymity of those involved.

Survey procedure

The survey instructions were sent out by email to the members of the middle staff (21 persons). The survey ran from November 2018 through January 2019. C.E. did not participate himself, being the project coordinator. Participants posted their responses to the openly worded questions via an online link (Lime Survey). A total of 12 persons participated in the survey.

Evaluation

Evaluation by qualitative content analysis

Aspects specifically relevant to Capiello et al.

There are a number of items (marked with a ‘-’ , see below) in support of the assumption made by Capiello et al. (1988) that group observers represent ‘the evil’, ‘the shadow’, ‘the external enemy’ or the ‘institution’, ‘things that participants don’t want to see in themselves’, ‘the figure of the authoritarian father who judges and checks’ (Capiello et al., 1988), but this finding is relativized by the occurrence of other items (‘+’). Altogether, observers are perceived as threatening or constraining or as familiar and supportive in a roughly equal number of items.

Methodology

As described in the Methods section, members of the middle staff, now acting as observers or co-leaders, were instructed to go back in their memory to the time (in most cases several years back) when they themselves had been participants of self-experience groups and to re-experience from that perspective their impressions of the observers in those groups. It was assumed that due to their experience with self-experience groups and group work in general, and despite their ‘advanced status’, the survey participants would be able to relive their experiences as participants at the time.

Obviously, the fact that they were recruited from the middle staff could be seen as introducing a bias towards survey participants who had had particularly positive experiences with observers or had particular psychodynamic traits already during their time as group participants, and this may be regarded as a possible confounder in this study. Another potential confounding effect could result from unconscious processing and reinterpretation of memories, especially due to survey participants identifying themselves with the role of their former observer in the course of their own training.

Associations, feelings, bodily sensations, fantasies, dreams etc

It deserves mentioning that while survey participants had been asked to write down freely whatever scenes, associations, feelings, bodily sensations, fantasies, dreams etc. came to mind, the response material in fact predominantly referred to remembered scenes.

Results

Most survey participants reported positive, and two thirds also negative impressions. Most also wrote that they sometimes had not had any impression at all. On the whole, positive impressions and feelings outweighed the negative ones and tended to be reported more towards the end of statements. Impressions of observers being familiar or supportive were about any many as those of observers being threatening or constraining.

According to Capiello et al., observers are initially seen as being closer to the group members and only at a later stage as being closer to the therapist, resulting in projections and aggressiveness. In the present setting, by contrast, participants mostly appear to have initially put the observers close to the group leaders and only later to have increasingly felt familiar and neutral towards and to have identified with them (as ‘older siblings’): ‘Later . . . envied the observers’; ‘don’t belong to us . . . Later they did become part of the group’.

From the psychoanalytic viewpoint the constellation of ‘participant – leader – observer’ can be considered in terms of the model of oedipal triangulation. In his theory of the Oedipus complex, which he introduced by that name in 1910, Freud emphasized the significance of the separating third party that dissolves and precipitates development beyond the mother–child dyad (Freud, 1910 [1943]: 73). In contemporary thinking, triangulation is conceived of as a basic psychic principle that persists through all phases of life in changing forms: that the relationship between two persons is regulated through the presence of a third. Triangulation promotes opening and further development while at the same time conferring stability and security (cf. Grieser, 2015: 10f.). Another influential view on triangulation was established by Winnicott with his concept of ‘potential space’. In his developmental psychological model Winnicott distinguishes between the parent, the child and the space between them, i.e. the tension field between parent and infant that enables the infant to dissociate itself from its fusion with the object that is its mother. This intermediary space is essential for the child’s ability to play, to be creative and, at a later stage, to behave reflectively (Winnicott, 1971). The contemporary concept of the ‘intersubjective field’, introduced, in particular, by the work of Stolorow and Atwood (1992), emphasizes the dialogical aspect of the psychoanalytic process, which arises as a co-construction in the therapeutic or self-experience group situation. There is an analogy between the concepts of psychoanalytic development theory, psychoanalytic treatment and group analyst training programmes in that they are all committed to the need of the individual to be able to experience himself as being independent of the authority figure. Winnicott argues that it is only possible to become independent of the analyst if the analyst is willing to let the client go (Winnicott, 1971). In this sense the group observers, whose role as therapists still in their training is obvious to the participants, may be felt by the group as standing for the ‘potential space’.

The triad of participant – group leader – observer can also be seen as embodying the concept of the ‘therapeutic tertium’ (introduced by Erikson, see Peter, 2009, 2015). The ‘therapeutic tertium’ is a construct which therapist and patient jointly agree to make use of, to which they attribute the power to heal and which they give a specific shape for the purposes of the therapeutic process (Peter, 2009, 2015). In a religious ritual, for example, the tertium might be ‘the absolute’, in the healing arts it might be ‘nature’ or ‘the life force’, in psychoanalysis it might be ‘the unconscious’ (in the sense of a wise and benevolent agency within the individual). In group analysis it might be ‘the matrix’ or, as in our case, a therapeutically effective mutual attribution related to the observer.

Neutralizing the superego

While studying the respondents’ statements the authors had the association that, to use Freudian terminology, the observer may also act as a representative of the group participant’s superego. In relation to the role of the superego in his theoretical model, Freud considered the capacity for self-observation ‘indispensable in order for the conscience to be able to perform its function as a judge’ (Freud, 1933a: 65). Analogously to the superego of an individual, the observers, following the group work from a distance, are confronted with all of the participants’ contributions, including those that may be embarrassing or frowned upon. This will promote the projection of superego traits onto the observers. On comparing the statements from this aspect, we find a superego that has likeable as well as unlikeable parts about it, that is marked by entangled hierarchical relationships, ponderabilities and imponderabilities, and all in all, has a ‘human face’. The fact that this part of the superego is silenced, so to speak, makes things easier for the group participants: The observer does not intervene in the group work but rather behaves in a neutral way. This interpretation is in line with the current mainstream opinion among group analysts that the observer has a neutral effect on the group participants (cf. Wellert, 2003; Yalom and Leszcz, 2005; Janssen and Sachs, 2018).

In contrast to the view held by Capiello et al., according to which the observer attracts aggression that would otherwise be directed at the group leaders (thereby creating the possibility of a divide), our interpretation emphasizes the opportunity given to the participant to temper his or her own ‘internal observer’ through experiencing the presence of a physical observer. The physical observers are more an older sibling than an aging parent, are in a process of development rather than already established, and are actively involved in maintaining a balance rather than being an unshakeable figure. They are merely an observer and hence permissive rather than demanding or restraining in character.

Besides reminding of oedipal symbolism or the concept of the therapeutic tertium, the role constellations of ‘participant – group leader – observer’ bring up associations with the dynamic innerpsychic interplay of id, ego and superego.

Another interesting question is whether being observed from outside helps group participants to become ‘inner observers’ in the sense of becoming able to experience a ‘split of the ego’ but also to distance themselves and reflect.

Be this as it may, the workshop setting in Altaussee was evidently conducive, in the main, to positive feelings towards the observers, at least at the ‘manifest’ surface, though also, in part, to negative feelings. The setting made it possible for participants to blind out, as a means of resistance, the observers’ existence. More importantly, however, it enabled them to habituate themselves to them as neutral witnesses, let them recede into the background of their experience and ultimately lose awareness of them.

This was presumably largely attributable to the group leaders’ style of shifting attention sometimes to one and then to another participant, as taught by Foulkes (Foulkes and Anthony, 1965), as well as to certain social conventions, whether explicitly agreed or tacit (Böttger, 1994; Shaked, 1997). This may have guarded against divisive tendencies in participant-to-therapist or participant-to-observer transferences (cf. Böttger, 1994). It may also have made it emotionally easier for the observers to fulfil their task (cf. Lear, 1988), without therefore being of less benefit to the group’s progress in Capiello’s sense.

Together with the social conventions that apply in both analytic client/patient groups (e.g. in outpatient institutions) and in analytic self-experience groups (e.g. of the IAG in Altaussee), adopting Foulkes’ approach should be effective in minimizing any detrimental influences from observers in either type of setting, despite the significant differences that exist between the two.