Group Analysis: Other Sights of the Conscious and the Unconscious

Abstract

Definition of Group Analysis  Group-analysis came into view with Foulkes' works in the Northfield Hospital in London by the 1940s during the World War II. His conceptions among us were modified by Cortesão (1989). To speak about group-analysis in Portugal, it is indispensable to define its specificity and to clarify the concepts which support it. Thus, it is conceptualized and described as a way of investigation and therapy based on the psychoanalytic theory; however, it operates with discriminated proceedings, which are in connexion with the new setting, the group, and with the theory and technique of the group-analysis. The purpose of the group-analysis is working through a made steady transference structure, which allows its distinction from the group-psychotherapy based on the psychoanalytic theory. Cortesão (1989) defines group analytic process as "the way through which several theoretical and practical dimensions-which contribute to the consistency and shape of the group analytic therapy-are framed, organized and perform a function". Once the specific concepts are structured and organized, they cross one another to perform the practice. The therapeutic process is performed during the intercourse between the group matrix and the groupanalitic pattern. The pattern is gradually integrated into the dynamic matrix as Ancona (1992) says. We can consider that