ABSTRACT
The philosopher Ernst Cassirer examines the power of the unconscious syntax of experience present in culture and maintained by language in Language and Myth. He quotes the German naturalist and writer Alexander W. Von Humboldt, who says eloquently what language does both to and for the human being. The three fundamental steps taken by the child, from need through demand to desire, become operational in all human relations. The group therapist’s interventions and those of the group members take on a more complex meaning through the transference in relation to the three phases. The psychoanalytic concept of abstinence is tied to a proper understanding of this triad in the management of the transference. The child becomes subject to the desire of the other through demand. The child wants to be desired by the other. The child’s desire becomes, first and foremost, the desire to be desired.
