Group Analysis Post-Pandemic: Power In Numbers

I am a Group Analyst who has delivered therapeutic groups for over 15 years across a range of different contexts, including NHS, community settings, therapy trainings and private practice. I am particularly vocal about how to reduce the re-traumatising element of both participating in and facilitating group work. I was drawn to training as a Group Analyst to deepen my practice as a facilitator but also because the lens of working with social conditioning, which included the socio-political, spoke to me personally. In therapy, we have tended to privilege the personal and forget our social conditioning is just as informative.

In future posts I will be discussing a range of different ways of working with groups within a group analytic context. But in this first post I want to talk about the importance of groups at this point in history, and the needs that group work is serving.

During Covid-19 there was a big rush for all therapeutic work to be moved online. The evidence has been encouraging in showing online groups have been more than effective alongside individual online work. In light of the current global and socio-political contexts, the theory of group analytic work in particular has become even more relevant.

Groups aren’t just more affordable for the individual. They can enable a more dynamic relational experience of healing. We all have an experience of being in groups as we are all born into a group – i.e., a family system. There is an ‘Ego training in action’ element of group analysis that cannot be replicated within individual therapy, as clients work with live relational difficulties and address them in relationship with group members. A central tenet of group analysis is that it is a ‘form of psychotherapy by the group, of the group, including its conductor’ (Foulkes). This idea of ‘the whole as more elementary than the parts’ leads to ‘so-called individual difficulties becoming a whole group issue’ (Foulkes).

This is taken from Gestalt psychology and is underpinned by an understanding of the social, political and the personal as key formative experiences that make us who we are, ‘pre-conditioned to the core by our community, even before we are born’ (Foulkes). This is significant in our times of individualism and isolation in the global context in light of knowing we are all ‘hard wired for relationship’. The source of the difficulties that bring many people to therapy is relational wounding.

Group Analysis enables members to engage with ruptures and present an opportunity for repairing in relationships with multiple others. It becomes a microcosm of the wider social context, enabling a small group to attend to and make sense of their own positionality to each other and within the world. Group analysis fosters mutual interconnectedness, empathy and understanding and can help us grapple with issues of power, privilege and positioning with the support of the conductor.

This can emerge through the process of mirroring where members can see in other group members aspects of themselves that have been denied or repressed. Members see they are not alone in holding these intrapsychic / interrelational dynamics but that these are shared experiences of being human. This over time builds attachment, attunement, and empathy between members and safety within the group.

A mantra for many group analysts is ‘trust the group’. But equally it’s important for the group conductor to intervene, especially where challenges might lead to traumatisation for members at the margins of these groups – i.e. people from intersectional minoritised groups. I am more active when dealing with these dynamics as I aim to provide the group with an opportunity to not blindly repeat the harms of the past but work together toward repair and renewed hope.

As part of addressing these destructive processes or ‘anti-group dynamics’, enactments may need to take place in order to deeply explore significant relationships such as with siblings, family and authority figures. This enables members to find a way to make sense of and develop a new way of relating, leading to growth and healing.

Group analysis can sound daunting and the prospect can leave people with a sense of dread – but the experience and benefits are profound. With people in society more isolated than ever, group analysis can support people to find themselves back into meaningful connection with others and themselves.