Group Analysis

This paper presents a general overview of the challenges which the practice of group analysis continues to face in the field of clinical research, highlighting some of the social changes and economic pressures which influence and affect these challenges. Economic constraints are highlighted, with some suggestions as to how group analysis can develop in order to endeavour to meet the needs of different types of patients, as well as satisfying the ever-changing demands of health services and organizations.

This article critically examines the aims and methods of evidence-based practice (EBP) with particular reference to group psychotherapy. Six challenges posed by EBP for every psychotherapist are described.

In this paper, I underline the challenges for group-analytic research by demonstrating the immense difference in the amount of research done in group psychotherapy in general as compared to group analysis. After presenting an overview of findings from empirical, quantitative outcome studies in group psychotherapy at large, I will discuss some trends in contemporary group psychotherapy research, and finally, I will give a rough sketch of group-analytic research. I will focus on quantitative research and I will see group analysis as a clinical enterprise - a theory, model, art and craft that has been developed and can be used to treat psychiatric disorders, and toameliorate psychological problems.

The discordant conjunction of irreconcilable elements which the title of this paper represents is intended to convey something of the strange nature of the relationship between the discipline of group analysis and the institutions which offer an academic accreditation today. It is a dialogue which I believe is often an uneasy one and I illustrate some of the reasons why I think that may be so. In the process, I also focus on group-analytic concepts which may help analysts to meet the challenge of Quality Assurance.

This paper examines the concepts of secrecy and confidentiality from an intra-psychic, interpersonal and group dynamic perspective. This is illustrated with material drawn from family therapy, biography, social history and group-analytic training. The case is made for regarding secrecy as an anti-group phenomenon, in contrast with confidentiality, which is presented as a therapeutic factor.

In this paper the author draws attention to how the images and themes in therapeutic groups evolve from the articulation of the ‘associative chains’, and how these evolve at a particular, intermediate, metaphorical semantic level, which is more ‘real’ (‘associative chains’), because of the inter-subjective nature of this process. The construction of images and thematic objects and their ‘use’ by the group, in Winnicottian terms, comprises one of the most productive and creative functions of the group in group therapy.

Beginning with the notion that eating disorders have become the typical ailment of our generation, the author discusses key developments within the contemporary multi-theoretical literature leading to an emerging focus on the role of inter-personal relationships within the psychopathology. Within this, attention is narrowed to a restricted obsessional and concretized repertoire of food which severely limits inter-personal functioning and the capacity for reflection on the same, producing a quasi-symbiotic picture. Following Foulkes’s ideas on open communication, the author details her work with this client group in a short-term group-analytic group and how this relates to multi-disciplinary work that itself derived principally from cognitive behavioural methodologies. The value of such short-term interventions is stressed with this client group, as is its place within the wider organizational context.

This article analyzes five phases in the group process in which narcissism may, also on an archaic basis, be seen to be present, and its effect both on the individuals and the group process, as well as towards the conductor. The author also refers to the tasks of the therapist in respect of this narcissism, as it affects the individual, the other group members, and the group-as-a-whole.

In this article, the authors discuss some of the dilemmas inherent in the combined role of being both clinician and researcher, and some central methodological problems connected to research on long-term psychotherapy. The thesis represents an important contribution to the field, which is in serious need of empirical research on long-term group-analytic psychotherapy. Lorentzen’s work has in an exemplary way demonstrated that it is possible to combine the roles of clinician and researcher.

The socio-cultural matrix of Bosnia-Herzegovina led towards victory of the nationalist parties in the multi-party elections in 1991. Carefully chosen party leaders, awakening the archaic images, led people into what Fromm called the ‘semi-hypnoid state of consciousness’. This caused the breakout of fratricidal - so-called civil - war, to the scene. It lasted from 6 April 1992 to 14 December1995. From then until the present time, Bosnia-Herzegovina has witnessed individuals emerging as political-economical ogres. Controlling the social order in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a part of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, they dictate the replacement of the socialistic regime in which we once lived, imposing the lifestyle codes of their narcissistic culture.