Back to Table of Contents
reality model of the group, consisting of associative interfering processe s, the shared dreamlike space , and unconscious alliances . In this complex metapsychology inter-subjective system, the triple alliance of fundamentally narcissistic nature is to the Idea, the Ideal and the Idol. It reflects the tyranny of the omnipotent and idealized maternal image and the use of various primitive defense mechanisms of cleavage/splitting, denial and disavowal against the archaic anxieties. Such and other concepts were readily applicable to analytic therapy groups, but also to organizational and institutional groups. IV. Bb. Group Analytic Therapies The group analytic therapies have been applying the Freudian and Bionian notions of unconscious processes and contents ever since their inception in the post WWII era, especially the orientations modeled after Slavson (1947), where unconscious group dynamic factors are thought of as fostering the resistance against the individual’s growth and are interpreted accordingly, and/or Foulkes (1948) where unconscious group dynamic factors and their multi- level communication are utilized to promote the individual’s development. The consensus is that Analytic Group Therapy , as practiced today, is most suitable for characterological problems because in small therapy groups multiple transferences of both projection and displacement types onto the therapist as well as onto the group and the group members are quickly activated, characterological resistances are readily visible and therefore readily interpretable (Slavson, 1947; Glatzer, 1953; McKenzie, 1992; Kauff, 2011). A group analyst’s function is to provide safety from unconscious impulses being acted on, and maintain boundaries and frame, largely via interpretation of unconscious conflicts and strivings when they present resistance to the individual and/or group’s progress. From the (unconscious) group dynamic Bionian point of view, this amounts to the group analyst containing, listening for and interpreting the ‘basic assumption’ group’s unconscious regressive tendencies. Overall, group analytic therapies, which evolved from group work with children (Slavson, 1947) and with veterans of WWII (Foulkes, 1948), have grown into an internally coherent field, further developing and applying various extended views of the unconscious, corresponding to most psychoanalytic orientations, including Winnicottian, Mahlerian, relational, self psychology, inter-subjectivist, and field theory models of the unconscious. The core notion of the unconscious continues to be the view of the group taking on the transferential, as well as developmental emergent function , and as such, providing a unique dynamic reservoir of the interplay of unconscious processes, which might otherwise not come into full view. A hybrid clinical-organizational modality of psychoanalytically oriented “EXPERIENTIAL PROCESS GROUPS” for professionals, business managers, students or faculty has been employing the concepts of unconscious group dynamics, multiple transference-resistances and unconscious communications to increase functionality of work or study groups and its members across North America businesses, hospitals, non-profit and academic institutions (Papiasvili, 2011). A specific group modality developed first with children and adolescents, later practiced with all age groups, was a psychoanalytic psychodrama of Lebovici and Diatkine (Lebovici, Diatkine and Kestemberg, 1958). Theirs was an individual analytic therapy through
1013
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online