The Effects of War: External Reality as Experienced in the Group. The Overdependent Emigré

Abstract

The interplay between external and internal reality and its analysis is of the essence of psychoanalysis and therefore group analysis. The war situation in the former Yugoslavia offered the authors of this article the opportunity to observe the situation in group analysis at close quarters and by direct participation. By documenting the particular experiences of two patients, one drafted into the war the other the `overdependent emigre', the article focuses on the interplay of the psychopathology of the group members and the group at a certain stage of its development, with the external reality which confronts one or the other of the group members and its influence on the group processes.

Keywords

draft emigre group group members internal and external reality war

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