Group Analysis

This paper presents a socio-cultural critique of contemporary American and Foulkesian traditions of group psychotherapy. It is argued that the American ethos of individualism has had an impact upon group psychotherapy, promoting an ideology of the autonomous individual, and the Foulkesian view, which gives primacy to the social dimension, is compared to certain American contemporary group approaches.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract theory considered how individuals might be governed as a group without losing their rights as individuals. He speculated about what type of group process would support individual freedom and hypothesized about the formulation of a `general will' to account for the uniformity of belief and action by which a political body charts a common course. Support for the autonomy of individuals and the functional integrity of the group-as-a-whole is also critical to the work of group psychotherapy. This article uses Rousseau's ideas to examine how the group-as-a-whole configures in order to express its general will, what channels of expression are open to members within the body politic, and the nature of the relationship between leaders and followers within the social and therapeutic contract.

This paper explores parallels between modern science, mathematics and psychotherapy that may further a theoretical underpinning for psychotherapy. The paper focuses on chaos theory, strange attractors and fractal geometry; on Bohm's theory of the implicate order and finally on self-organizing systems and a general theory of mind.

Written after an Intercultural Workshop, this paper reflects on language and social structure and finds a connection between translating from one language into another and the Foulkesian concept of `translation' in group analysis. It describes the possibilities for development of the Self opened up by talking another language and emphasizes the significance of `affinitive' talking in crossing cultural boundaries.

This paper considers the implications of emotional pain in learning and personal change. Such pain is a characteristic feature of the experiential group and one which therapists take for granted. Pain is also a feature of professional training and development in areas such as management and teaching, but one which is not acknowledged. A theory of emotions in learning and personal change in professional development would be helpful in applying group analysis to non-clinical fields.

The Median Group is an extension of the conventional Group-analytic Small Group of seven to eight individuals. Encompassing about 12-30 members seated in a circle facing inwards, it stands on the boundary zone between the individual viewed within a family to the individual as citizen in a wider social community. This increases the scope for integrating individual psychodynamics with influences operating in the socio-cultural milieu. The resolution of destructive tendencies is central to this. At the forefront of this work for the past 20 years has been the pioneering figure of RB. de Mare.