ABSTRACT
Group analysis typifies an unremitting relational stance, continually moving in and out of the perspectival worlds, those variously organised subjectivities, of the participants. In this chapter, the author analyzes J. Dewey’s approach as one of “principled, reflective inquiry”, which, like F. Nietzsche’s perspectivism, has a rich import for understanding the psychic life of therapeutic groups.” All human activities and distinctions have an interpretive character, so it is not merely a question of different ways of seeing, but also of different ways of being, the “perspectival character of existence”. Human experience is an active and constantly organising affair, with pragmatist expressions such as “field”, “stream”, or “circuit”, pointing to that experience as ongoing and relational, not to be falsely abstracted into discrete units. Nietzsche’s parable of laughter in the market place vividly illustrates the perspectival nature of experience and the complex influence of shifting relations of desire and drive—we are animated, energised by perspective.
