Working on the future of group analysis — the future of the past

Abstract

If we observe group analysis as a figure in the social field, many changes in society undoubtedly shape it both as a theory, a therapeutic method and a form of training. That is how it was and will be. This shaping is slow, discreet but an active process of constant acculturation of both group analysis and group analysts. Wars, migrations, emigrations, cultural diversities create a need for a more flexible and culturally attuned profile of group analysts, who are not only capable of working with diversity, but also within diversity—actively reflecting on their own identity and experience even under the pressure and tormented by problems of preserving their own tent canvas. This is one possible future for group analysis, in the ever-increasing intertwining and cross-fertilization between human sciences such as sociology, history, anthropology, ethnology, linguistics, communicology, art, with no fear of diversity that threatens identity, with openness of new generation of group analysts to heteroglossia.