Group Analysis

The article begins with an exploration of the ambivalence experienced by the author when invited to speak at a conference in Tel Aviv, Israel. This followed by introducing two notions, ‘ethical distress’ and ‘entangled relational’, both of which speak to the ambivalence. Next, it is argued that the notion of ‘the relational’ in psychoanalytic literature is largely apolitical, and that it has required women—who speak from the margins—to theorize and incorporate the political into the relational frame. I argue that the ‘entangled relational’ subsumes and politicizes ‘the relational’. The notion of ‘intimate others’ is utilized to think about processes of Othering and the emotional consequences that follow out of it. This is followed by Nancy Chodorow and Lynne Layton’s politicized feminist theorizations. Layton concludes that psycho-developmental processes taking place under conditions of patriarchy necessarily lead to men and women suffering from a form of narcissistic injury.

The article then uses all these ideas to think about the psychological consequences of militarization on the male and female citizens of militarized societies, and in particular about the psychological consequences for those living in the Israeli-Palestinian context. The article concludes with some thoughts about the possible function and task of psychotherapy in militarized contexts.

This article deals with the efforts to understand the dynamics of unconscious processes in the matrix of a group which were triggered by the trauma of a female member who was raped during puberty. Her suffering set the challenge for everyone in the group to face the force of human destructiveness, both externally and internally. The therapeutic group was invaluable in helping Nina reintegrate her identity as a woman, to embrace and accept aspects of herself that she saw as weak or inferior, her sexuality as well as her destructive feelings.

This article proposes the concepts of psychodynamic intersectionality and intersectional group analysis by addressing the complex issues of the positionality, or self-location, of the group analyst when working with diverse and intersectional patient groups who have been traumatized by structural oppression, institutional and inter-generational othering. I critique the positionality of the group analyst and the essential intersectional and inter-subjective nature of the role and interventions they may or may not make in the group. The article engages with the need not to deny how an understanding of the positionality of the group analyst is central to the clinical frame. Such understanding can assist the clinician to engage with group members who have experienced structural oppression when othering dynamics are inevitably generated in the group matrix. Such dynamics are often being paralleled in the social unconscious and occurrences in society at any given time. I argue that a failure on behalf of the group analyst to reflexively position themselves in relation to powerful phenomena, such as, racism, sexism and homophobia and occurrences in the social unconscious risks a re-traumatizing dynamic being paralleled in the group matrix to the determent of group members from marginalized communities.

This article proposes a conceptualization of symptoms from an interpersonal perspective and advocates group analysis as an appropriate medium for treatment. Psychoanalytic theory has traditionally conceptualized symptoms using the language of intrapsychic conflicts in the individual’s mind. In this article, drawing on ideas from group analysis and contemporary psychoanalytic theories, I propose an interpersonal conceptualization of symptomatic phenomenology. In addition, I introduce a concept that describes a treatment process based on this perspective: Relations Training in Action¹. I will argue that a symptom occurring in one person symbolizes an inadequate interpersonal relations pattern, and that recognition of the pathological relations pattern in therapy enables a process which paddles the creation of healthier communication. Furthermore, I suggest group therapy as a space which offers a rich set of opportunities for the repetition and reparation of relations disorder (Friedman, 2007), and that the transition from the language of intrapsychic symptoms to the language of relationships plays a significant role in broadening the areas of interpersonal communication (Foulkes, 1964). Therapy based on an interpersonal perspective regarding symptoms will facilitate participation in a meaningful and significant relationship with the other, improve the mental health of patients and decrease their need to cling to the symptom.