ABSTRACT
Prompted by technological change, the world has become enormously different since the mid-twentieth century. This de-centering signifies the change from a modern world to a postmodern one. The collapse of power structures, of universal culture, of universal values and identity, the “decentering of contemporary life” all have implications for Group Relations. Group Relations was developed in the era of laboratory training of executives and managers (e.g. T-Groups). The original model is a temporary organization that permits the organizational and psychoanalytic experiential examination of the social, structural and the group through its thoughtful open-system design. The postmodern era brings anxieties of dislocation, an unmooring from what is known, and fears of disintegration. There is a challenge to the familiar and a challenge to an orientation that has been organizing and important in Group Relations for so many years.
