ABSTRACT
The adult who has already established an identity in other contexts may better tolerate pseudomutuality in the family or in the public small groups or institutions. This chapter argues that thorough pseudomutuality is the extreme case, in which all possible sources of divergence are blurred. The consultation took place in the context of an intergroup exercise of a group relations conference. In this exercise, which involved more than 40 conference members, the members initially convened with the conference director who essentially told them that they could form whatever groups they pleased and study the relations between the groups formed. The consultant thereby feels his own outline in the blur. The teenager with such a family does the same. It rather hardens their resistance; the consultant represents individuality and its isolation which they vicariously participate in, while snug in their nest.
