Therapeutic Group Analysis (Maresfield Library)

321 Pages·1984·7.166 MB·English

by  S.H. Foulkes

T H E R A P E U T IC

G R O UP

ANALYSIS

S. H. FOULKES
THERAPEUTIC GROUP ANALYSIS

THERAPEUTIC

GROUP ANALYSIS

S. H. FOULKES
M.D.
Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society
President of the Group-Analytic Society (London)
Honorary Physician to the Bethlem Royal Hospital
and the Maudsley Hospital
MARESFIELD REPRINTS

LONDON
First published in 1964 by
George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Reprinted 1984 with permission of
the Literary Executor by
H. Karnac (Books) Ltd,
118 Finchley Road,
London NW3 5HT
© 1984 Elizabeth Foulkes
Printed & bound in Great Britain by
A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd, Exeter
ISBN 978-0-946439-09-6
TO THE MEMORY O

KILMENY FOULKES

Preface
This book is based on twenty-five years of intensive study of
patients in psychotherapeutic groups. The attitude is psycho­
analytic but the method and technique are new. The back­
ground of consideration is the mental matrix of the group as
a whole inside which all intrapsychic processes interact. This
has a profound significance for psycho-analytic concepts and
the many problems connected with them in psycho-analytic
practice and theory. In addition the observations now pos­
sible in this 'group-analytic situation' gave rise to new
insights and theoretical concepts. The relation is a dialectic
one. The new situation leads to new concepts, but the present
writer was also consciously led to develop this method as a
result of new insights. These concerned particularly the
growing evidence that what was thought to be biological, is
often cultural inheritance. The task was to find a method and
theory which would do away with pseudo problems such as
biological versus cultural, somatogenic versus psychogenic,
individual versus group, reality versus fantasy. Instead we
must endeavour to use concepts which from the beginning do
justice to an integrated view.
As in the individual field, in psycho-analysis, so in this
multipersonal, supraindividual, field, the study of the patho­
logical proved most fruitful, opening the doors to dynamic
unconscious forces which are otherwise closed and barred. It
is not accidental therefore that observation and discovery in
the therapeutic group are of special significance. Group-
Analysis as here conceived, should prove a contribution to a
truly social, transpersonal psychopathology and transcul­
tural anthropology.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank the Editors of the following Journals for
their kind permission to include in this book material
previously published in their Journals:
Acta Psychotkerapeutica: (Chapter 10)
British Journal of Medical Psychology: (Chapters 1, 3, 7,
11,13)
Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic: (Chapter 15)
International Journal of Group Psychotherapy: (Chapters
4 and 9)
InternationalJournalofPsycho-Analysis: (Chapters 8 and 14-)
International Journal of Social Psychiatry: (Chapters 18
and 19)
I also wish to thank the Army Psychiatric Services AMD . 11,
for permission to include material from a memorandum
prepared for Army use in Chapter 15, and Messrs S.
Karger for permission to use material published in Vol. 2
of Topical Problems of Psychotherapy, 1960.
These acknowledgments refer to a number of papers pre­
viously published which have been incorporated into this
volume fully or in part.
A complete list of publications by the author will be found
in the Appendix where references will be found to the
appropriate chapters.
S. H. F.
Contents
PREFACE page 7

PART i: THE EVOLUTION OF GROUP-
ANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY
Historical Perspective IS
1. Group Analysis: A Study in the Treatment of

Groups on Psycho-Analytic Lines 20

2. On Group-Analytic Psychotherapy: Method and

Dynamics 38

3. Group Therapy: Survey, Orientation, Classification 47

4. Concerning Leadership in Group-Analytic Psycho­

therapy 54

5. Outline and Development of Group Analysis 66

PART 2: PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND GROUP
ANALYSIS
Introduction 85

6. Group Psychotherapy in the Light of Psycho­

analysis 87

7. Similarities and Differences between Psycho-ana­

lytic Principles and Group-Analytic Principles 93

8. Group-Analytic Observations and the Indication

for Psycho-analytic Treatment 101

9. Psychodynamic Processes in the Light of Psycho­

analysis and Group Analysis 108

10. Psycho-analysis, Group Psychotherapy, Group

Analysis: A Personal View of Present Trends 120

PART S: GROUP DYNAMICS AND THE INDI­
VIDUAL
Introduction 133

11. Psychotherapy in the 'Sixties 135

12. Application of Group Concepts to the Treatment

of the Individual in the Group 155

13. Group Processes and the Individual in the Thera­

peutic Group 170