ABSTRACT

This chapter returns to the theme first explored in "Names, Thoughts and Lies": Wilfred Bion's distinction between two modes of mental activity in group life. It argues that a reconsideration of the meaning and significance of the "work group", in both Bion's practice and that of his successors in the field of group relations. The chapter suggests that without such re-thinking, it is not possible either fully to take the measure of the unconscious undertow of group and organizational behaviour or, correspondingly, to make contact with the vitality no less than the defensiveness of our social experience. Both the work group and the basic group are manifestations of group psychology, and neither, as it were, can escape the clutches of the other. The chapter also suggests that within the literature and practice of group relations, the focus of attention, curiosity, and puzzlement has tended to be on the basic assumptions, while the work group has rather been taken for granted.