The Ghost Matrix

Foulkes’ concept of the matrix, the hypothetical web of communication, has long since left the consulting room and entered the wider sphere of communities, countries, and institutions. This article will discuss how the matrix encompasses a whole profession, that of medical doctors. Together with a deep-rooted sense of identity, which I refer to as the medical self, the medical matrix contributes to doctors’ professional wellbeing but also begins to explain the enormous recent increase in mental illness in the medical profession seen across the world. The article focuses on doctors. However, the ideas are relevant to any group (for example, teachers, the clergy, psychotherapists) which has a strong personal and professional identity, with all its attendant privileges and problems.

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confidence: 99%

The making of a doctor: the matrix and self

Gerada¹

2019

“…And reading might have therapeutic value in its own right. This is something I experienced reading Carla Penna’s courageous paper The Ghost Matrix (2015), in which she takes the bull by the horns and creates a remarkable piece of applied group analysis.…”

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confidence: 98%

“…And we need to bear in mind that small therapeutic groups are inevitably part of a wider 'multi-group' system. Penna (2015) had to navigate through an emotionally unfavourable and defensive hospital environment where, besides, the lack of financial resources was causing additional problems. The understandable fears triggered by the severity of the patients' illnesses were aggravated by social deprivation and other difficulties in the patients' families.…”

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confidence: 99%

Hovering Death: A Group Analytic Story. A Response to Penna’s ‘Ghost Matrix’

Ezquerro¹

2016

Death is ubiquitous; yet, group analysis has often turned a blind eye to it. Maybe, death is not a group concept. Different group members die at different times; but the group goes on.The group analytic community celebrated last year the life, and longevity, of James Anthony-who died on 10th December 2014, aged 98. He was a co-founder of the Group Analytic Society, in 1952, with S.H. Foulkes, Malcolm Pines (the only living co-founding member) and others. Sometime after having finished his analysis with Foulkes, Anthony paid a visit to him in London and was asked to examine him for chest pains: 'a queer reversal of the doctor-patient relationship', as Anthony (2010: 84) put it. After the examination, he recommended to Foulkes to have a full medical check-up and to take a rest from his professional work. It seems Foulkes did not quite follow this advice.Suddenly, while conducting a group of colleagues, S.H. Foulkes died at the age of 77, from a coronary thrombosis. It was 7.05 pm, on 8th July 1976, in Room 9 of 88 Montagu Mansions, the main group analytic base in London at the time. Shocked by the unexpected manner, timing and place of his death, Malcolm Pines (my analyst), who had also been a Foulkes' analysand and saw him dying, would say at the funeral: 'We did not know then how soon his time would come, alas, it came too soon but one can scarcely wish a better death than his which was swift, painless, at a time when once more for the last time he was speaking of his discoveries, of his convictions, sharing generously with us what his life had been about . . .; may he long rest in peace' (Pines 1977: 7).

“…Are the ghosts our hosts? Ghosts as shadowy, uncontained aspects of the figures in the Northfield’s matrix (Frosh, 2013; Penna, 2016). If so, how to welcome them to be good hosts for us?…”

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confidence: 99%

Introduction and welcome for the Winter Workshop 2018, ‘Northfield Revisited’

Mojović¹

2018

Dear colleagues and friends, I am pleased and excited to be in this role to welcome you all to our GASi Winter Workshop 2018-Northfield Revisited. Dear lecturers, Tom Harrison, Bob Hinshelwood, Dieter Nitzgen and Diane Menzies, it was a stimulation working together online in the lecturers discussion group, which lands here now, continues throughout the workshop-event, and, as agreed, keeps on working together for a few weeks after the event. Thank you for this experience. Gratitude goes especially to Bob, for your efforts to travel in spite of circumstances, and also for reminding me on this 75th Anniversary of the Northfield Experiments, ever since the event idea was conceived some years ago in our talks; Tom-for all the decades of your historical explorations, carefully recording the detailed biography of Northfield as an institution, and continuing to hold the freshness of this research-further publications soon to arrive! Another work-group, Linde, Peter and me, were holding other aspects of the event-was another good experience. Thanks to the old and new GASi Management Committee, and to our bridging group, which was efficient and warm. Welcome to all the median and large group conductors. Sue and Peter from the very beginning were part of the endeavour to make this possible: Sue as Scientific Head of the old GASi Management Committee and Peter as an ex-resident of Birmingham helping us with all sorts of logistics and resistances.