ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces one of Foulkes and Anthony's most original contributions, The layering of experience in groups. They described 12 different layers stratified by their level of conscious or unconscious experience, and they used this account to illustrate degrees of conscious and unconscious experience in the life of every group. The account is consistent through both editions of their book and is then simplified and reduced by Foulkes himself to four levels the current, transference, projective and primordial levels described. The thoughts and feelings that dominate the current climate are drawn from people's past emotional lives. They can be projected in the form of whole-object transference that is addressed in this paragraph or part-object transference that is addressed below in the paragraph on the projective domain. The concluding Vignette 13.7 describes the work of the crying group in which the shift of meaning between domains is put to work in an experiential group at a conference.
