ABSTRACT

Group therapy is often said to be modelled on a paradigm offamily dynamics, the group situation replicating the familial-social microcosm of the component patients/members (Welldon, 2011) where the therapist represents the parental figure, and the patients relate to each other as siblings. For a group composed solely of male patients with a female therapist, the latter might quickly be experienced as a powerful maternal transference figure, composed from the group’s collective unconscious fantasies of mothering, which in turn derive from each patient’s individual experiences of his own mother, real and wished-for. However, group therapy does not only recreate the early family situation, it is also a living experience in the here-and-now in which troubled adults seeking help from their symptoms come together and interact with each other in complex ways, revealing patterns of relating based not only on familial experience, but influenced also by specific cultural and societal values and mores. These will include stereotypes and constructs of sexuality and gender which will have shaped each group member’s attitudes and beliefs

regarding sexual roles and relating, and will inevitably affect the male group’s experience of their female therapist.