ABSTRACT
S. H. Foulkes trained as a psychoanalyst in Vienna in 1923. Unequivocal about psychoanalysis's centrality in his thinking, Foulkes makes his allegiance clear: The contributions which Psycho-Analysis has made have inaugurated an epoch in the understanding of the human mind. Many of the pioneering psychoanalytically-trained psychiatrists, whether successful or not in those early group ventures, went on to make significant contributions to the development of group-work in civilian contexts. Foulkes adopts a neurological metaphor to describe how, in a therapy group, each individual is 'a little nodal point' in a 'communicational network'. N. Elias's sociological perspective further challenges the 'false dichotomy' between 'individual' and group/'society'. Individuals, can only be understood, he argues, indeed can only exist, in the context of their 'interdependencies' with each other, as part of networks of social relations, or 'figurations'. Elias, a sociologist, was a key influence on Foulkes, providing him with the backbone for his 'socio-analysis'.
