Special Section: Where to look? Supervising Group Analysis — A Relations Disorder Perspective

Abstract

Thinking in interpersonal terms rather than intra-psychic processes may not be easy. A further move in this direction seems cardinal in the development of conductors of group therapy. Handling questions of the optimal therapeutic environment for patients encounters great difficulties because of the lamentable scarcity of indications for group therapy. The unsatisfactory situation of indications is also true for individual psychotherapy. This article focuses on some of the most common problems encountered while supervising group therapy, related to the therapist's difficulty in handling the relations patterns and their influence.The primary purpose of supervision is to throw light on the therapeutic relationship; its secondary purpose is to enhance the supervisee skills as a therapist. (Behr and Hearst, 2005: 238) Without a more sophisticated relations perspective, a therapist cannot facilitate the full potential of the group. Foulkes (1975) thought that the outstanding areas to which interpretations usually refer are the ongoing interactive group processes and the conflict that the individual repeats in the group situation (1975: 124). The therapist who is not aware of the group as a Group Analysis.

The problem of romance in an analytic group

“…Whereas classic psychology assumes that mental problems people have are related to their individual personalities, the modern approach of 'relation disorders' (Friedman, 2007) adds a broader angle. According to this approach, which drew not only on Foulkes and group analysis, but also on the spirit of relational psychoanalysis, a large part of problems people have, are transpersonal.…”

Radical Uncertainty in Action. A Response to Dalal’s ‘The Analytic and the Relational: Inquiring into Practice’

“…Dalal explains how to take the group seriously and emphasizes 'the thing that we step outside and into-is context' (Dalal, 1998: 226). Indeed; the way to work with radical uncertainty, understand what is happening and keep helping our group members (and ourselves)-is to shift our attention from figure to ground and backwards, use our 'binocular vision' (Bion, 1970), take the social unconscious into account (Doron, 2017), see phenomena in the group as relations disorders (Friedman, 2007) and work horizontally using the transpersonal wisdom of the group matrix (Foulkes, 1964). In this way we will be analytic and relational at the same time.…”

A Different Stance in Psychotherapeutic Work: Being Unobtrusive in Psychodynamic Work with Addicted Patients a clinical review

“…There was an attack, by almost all the group members on an elected member, when the group attempted to establish a safe place for the majority or the "norm' by the distancing of "outsiders" that doesn't belong. 5 The group was, intriguingly, also able to engage in their own process of "reclaiming the projections" from Jack and in their own ways, recognized that there were split off and disowned parts of themselves that they have projected onto Jack. I would agree that if this process is somewhat interrupted by the therapist, the regression from the group members may not unfold in its full glory and be made available for work in the group.…”