ABSTRACT
Groups for people with AIDS have been run by leaders whose orientations and experience vary widely; a great deal has been written on the subject (Anderson, Laudry, and Kerby, 1991). The object of this chapter is to describe one such group, which was guided as much by my own particular interest in understanding the complexity of member experience as it was to provide “support.” As a clinician now for some years, I have been surprised to discover that my interest in my chosen field is sustained as much by a kind of passion to understand as it is by a wish to help. This “passion” is the moving force behind psychoanalysis. Not all psychoanalysts want to understand for the same reasons, however. I work on the premise that if I can comprehend the implications of experience at each phase of development, I will always be able to accommodate the difficulties, even those with the most dire consequences, 176including those ending in death. This premise, needless to say, is something of a fantasy: one cannot always easily grasp the full implications of human experience, especially when death is the sting. In fact, cumulative loss cannot be very well accommodated; I learned this from running my group. Before I began, all I knew was that people by the thousands were dying of AIDS, and I felt compelled to better understand what they were going through, having had little firsthand experience with death myself. The Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York City, I knew, was doing the most comprehensive job of any agency at the time (1988) in providing service to its clients. Hence, with no idea of what I was getting into, I signed on to lead a group there, as one of approximately 90 volunteer clinicians. A few weeks later I had completed the required orientation and was ready to start.
