ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Robert Gosling's published contributions to the field of group and institutional processes. Bob trained as a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst and was a distinguished practitioner in those disciplines. Bob's description of his experiences, and his characterization of the psychological field opened up in this setting, broke new ground: in particular, in his drawing attention to the problem of intimacy as "an impending danger that must always be guarded against", a problem that seemed to put limitations on what could take place, draining energy in a way that could lead members to miss what one described as "the power politics of the small group and all the attendant archaic and crazy events". The chapter discusses on the range and variability of Bob Gosling's professional activities and interests, and the constancy of a certain mental practice.
