ABSTRACT

S. H. Foulkes group-analytic model challenges Freudian, one-person psychology; a psychology that construes the individual mind, dominated by innate drives, as a relatively closed system. In groups, the conductor uses countertransference to contain not only individual but also sub-group and group-as-a-whole projections. Attachment theory's influence on group-analytic thinking is, though identifiable, also limited. This may relate to psychoanalysis's own historical resistance to it, M. Rutter, indeed, noting how J. Bowlby was at one time effectively ostracised by the psychoanalytic community. Foulkes emphasises the group as 'all embracing mother'. Developmental psychology research shows infants, from the earliest weeks, engaging in 'evocative behaviour' designed to obtain empathic responses necessary for development. A group offers ample opportunity to observe empathic sensitivity, addressing 'developmental deficiencies in empathy' where necessary. A. Prodgers offers not only a Jungian-influenced redress but also a Bionian one and it is to Bion's work, and group analysis's relationship with it.