ABSTRACT
The field of psychoneuroimmunology elaborates these impacts into the immune system and other subsystems of the human body that regulate physical health. Linkages between the body of the individual and group dynamics have been part of psychological thinking since the work of Cannon on Voodoo Death and the work of H. Selye on stress. The “Real” of the body is symbolized and saturated with imaginary elaborations. These symbolizations and imaginings become socially constructed reality and in their turn affect the body. If the group represses, in its discourse, certain feelings, thoughts, and fantasies, these will return and be manifested in the “real” of the body. The body is affected by the unconscious “programmings” developed through the life-course of the individual, their locations in their society and their familial and individual history. A key to the consultant becoming aware of the body in the group is that they are in touch with their own bodies.
