ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to touch upon some of the defence mechanisms and defensive dynamics that seem to impact the thinking within the Group Relations community, especially when working within the community itself. These mechanisms tend to mobilize defensively the very ideas underlying the endeavour of the Group Relations model and psychoanalytic-systemic thinking. The same tools one uses in clarifying reality may also be misused, blurring reality and overlooking certain aspects of the material explored. When this occurs, the tools designed for exploring the unconscious are applied out of context and their intended purpose – getting in touch with the truth, as painful as it may be – is betrayed. The chapter explores these dynamics in order to avoid these pitfalls and thus be able to use the model more creatively. An instance of the defensive use of Group Relations theory, which may be either unconscious or cynical, is the use of metaphors.
