The three R's of group: resistance, rebellion, and refusal

I describe three constellations of group life and group process: resistance, rebellion, and refusal. In resistance, an individual or group remains antagonistic to conscious but not unconscious thinking, the latter manifested in derivatives, including symbol and symptom formation, transference-countertransference, and enactment. Rebellion functions on the level of conscious thinking, manifested in challenge, defiance, and the possibility of sociopolitical action. The basic premises and values of the group and/or leader are at the center of the controversy, to be addressed on that level. Refusal establishes a mental boundary between what is considered appropriate and inappropriate. Unconscious as well as conscious processes of feeling, thinking, and meaning making are refused entry, left undeveloped, rejected, or obstructed. Working with refusal requires appreciating how and why the mind and its thinking operations are being suspended. The theoretical framework is applied to a case example.     

On hostage taking (a psychoanalytic object)

Abstract Hostage taking is a pervasive phenomenon in human relations, in groups, and in societies. It exists literally, figuratively, and psychologically, and hence is both a phenomenon in the mind and in the outside world. A case example illustrates how group members (including the leader) hold, or may seem to hold, others hostage by their words and actions. By conceptualizing and focusing on a series of interactions as a type of object relationship, that is, a complex idea worthy of attention, the group came to understand and experience hostage taking as a "psychoanalytic object."     

On refusal

Traditionally, all efforts to counter psychotherapeutic work have been captured under the umbrella term, "resistance." However, it is useful to distinguish a concept of refusal. Resistance entails therapeutically a gradual elaboration of unconscious, preconscious, and partially conscious experience. Refusal manifests as a willful nonparticipation in offering or responding to material that can be symbolized. All communication has an element of refusal, which occurs at various levels of persistence, intensity, and legitimacy. Clinical examples are provided to discriminate refusal from resistance proper, and to describe three categories of mental and group experience, (a) refusal to perceive external experience; (b) refusal to think about what one knows, and (c) refusal to think about what one does not know. Therapeutic impasses may relate to limitations of the therapist's creativity and flexibility in thinking about and dealing with refusals, including one's own.     

It's All About "Me" (Behold the Leader)

Abstract The group beholds its leader: a looming figure of fantasy, an emerging figure of reality. Psychic patterns that play out in group cohesion, culture, conflicts, and process are rooted in interaction with this combined object. I describe a two-day conference on relational group psychotherapy. An assemblage had beheld "me," a visitor with gifts of knowledge, initially welcomed with collective expectation. Rivalrous and acquisitive desire (Girard, 2004) set group process in motion, involving scapegoating and open conflict, but also, self discovery and mutual appreciation. Confronted with "me," the representative, messenger, even embodiment of truth, the group had to deal with feelings, fantasies, and thoughts that were "not nice." There were moments of fear for the safety and survival of our group, yet I did not comprehend the extent to which envy, in tooth and nail, with devouring hunger tore into every aspect of our mentalities. Under its catabolic force, I was captured and I could not articulate to myself the sense of what it was, until the group shifted and released me from envy's intersubjective captivity. In group, whatever is being talked about-whoever is reacting to whom or to what-the group's focal conflict, predominating basic assumption, developmental level or stage, its regressions and progressions, dyadic interactions, subgroupings, and so forth, I now assume that on one level, it is all about "me."     

The peer supervisory group for psychoanalytic therapists

The recent interest in peer supervisory groups for psychoanalytic therapists raises important questions regarding both psychoanalytic training and group process. The present paper explores these issues and suggests that there exists a continuum from case-centered peer supervisory groups to process-centered peer supervisory groups. Transference and countertransference and the recognition of parallel processes in psychotherapy supervision are examined in their relation to the supervisory group experience. The authors suggest that the model a therapist employs regarding the role of countertransference will most likely influence the kind of peer supervisory group that s/he will choose. Further, there are specific techniques, as well as experiences, which may foster alteration of the group's psychic organization. Illustrative case examples are provided throughout.     

Passion in group: thinking about loving,hating, and knowing

In his early work, Bion (1961) established the goal of learning about and getting beyond the basic assumptions to become a work group. Later, in his structural theory of affect, passion became a key concept. Passion describes the necessary and sufficient condition for a psychotherapy group to be a work group. Passion is an intersubjective process of bearing and utilizing one's most basic affects to reach self-conscious emotional awareness. Bion postulated three primary affects: loving, hating, and knowing (LHK). A clinical example illustrates how the therapist may represent, mentally organize, and mobilize the group's potential for passion by attending to the evolution of his or her own affects. Passion transcends transference-countertransference in that an optimal level of personal meaning from LHK is achieved and utilized in emotional participation.