ABSTRACT
Group analysis was developed by S.H. Foulkes. For a short biography and bibliography, see Pines (1983, pp. xi–xviii). Group analysis is a form of psychodynamic group therapy where treatment of individual patients takes place in the group and is effected by the group, including the leader. The group of people gathered is therefore the actual treatment instrument, and it is the therapist’s task to involve the group in this process. Although Foulkes developed several concepts to describe the structure and process in therapeutic groups, group analysis shares many of the basic assumptions of other psychodynamic or psychoanalytic therapies: a developmental perspective on personality, existence of internal representations of interpersonal relationships, psychological causation, influence of unconscious individual and group processes on behaviour, ubiquity of psychological conflict and the existence of psychic defences.
