Group phenomena have been used since antiquity in therapeutic, social, economic and political domains. According to Bion, the interactions between group members generate a "group unconscious" and its behavior is governed and oriented by Bion's "basic assumptions." The present work has been conducted during group analysis training at the Basque Foundation for the Investigation of Mental Health (OMIE) at Bilbao, consisting of eleven sessions. The participants are presented with an "absurd questionnaire" proposing 50 pairs of images, in each of which one image has to be chosen. The results are used to search for evidence in favor of the influence of group dynamics on individual choices of the images proposed in the questionnaire. Our analysis finds some evidence for an effect of group dynamics both on the initial choice of the pictures and on the evolution of the number of changes (swaps) of picture choices across the eleven sessions. We interpret these effects in the light of Bion's view of group dynamics, which postulates an immediate onset of the unconscious and its evolution during the group activity.

The present paper is an addendum to a previous study on the work that has been conducted during the eleven sessions of a group analysis training at the Basque Foundation for the Investigation of Mental Health at Bilbao. The participants were presented with an "absurd questionnaire" proposing 50 pairs of images, in each of which one image had to be chosen. The results of the previous study were in favors of the influence of group dynamics on individual choices of the images proposed in the questionnaire. Our present analysis complements the previous work with the exploration of the relations between the orientation of the answers in the groups as results of multiple variable analysis and the distribution of Bernoulli's Entropy. Consistently with the conclusions of the previous paper, we interpret these correlations as group effects in the light of Bion's view of group dynamics, which postulates an immediate onset of a group unconscious and its evolution during the group activity.

Introduction: this paper presents an update of a previous study we conducted to explore the presence and behavior of a common orientation among the participants to a group training for therapists via their answers to an "absurd questionnaire". Having measured a second class of trainees during their training, we are able to compare the results with those obtained by the first measurement.Methods: as in the previous study, during the training we have submitted to the trainees 11 questionnaires composed of 50 pairs of images asking them to choose one image from each pair. We have then analyzed their initial picture choices and how they evolved over time. We also present the analysis of the combined data of both experiments. Results:In both experiments we found statistical evidence that both the initial choices of the pictures and their evolution during the training are not simply governed by randomness. The initial picture choice in each pair is highly skewed toward one of the two pictures, and there is a statistically significant change in the picture choice in the first part of the training in both experiments. Conclusions:The results could be interpreted as a manifestation of group dynamics postulated by Bion with his "basic assumptions". We see patterns that suggest an initial "honey moon" (dependence from the leader) followed by a "fight-flight" attitude (frustrated dependence from the leader) and finally a "mourning" of the group and of the training experience. In spite of some statistically significant differences between the two experiment, the behavior is largely compatible. Bion himself used to say that "as you never bath yourself twice in the same river, you never enter twice the same group", being every human assembly unique and singular.