Group Analysis: A Psychoanalytic Treatment of the Individual in and Through the Group

Group Analysis has been applied to several groups with different objectives. This book aims to highlight that Therapeutic Group Analysis is a very good setting to treat and explore the inner and relational life of the individual, of each member of a small group, similarly to psychoanalysis, should the group analyst have in mind the central importance of the unconscious in every day life. Transference may be worked through. Hence, the group analytic training must also include a deep relational experience in small groups besides learning the main trends and concepts of contemporaries’Psychoanalysis and Group Analysis and their complex integration as well as supervision. The Portuguese School of Groupanalysis which was founded by Eduardo Luis Cortesao, who was trained by Foulkes, introduced the concept of Pattern in order to conceptualize the importance and complexity of the role of the conductor/group therapist/group analyst, the importance and complexity of counter-transference. In Therapeutic GA the conductor is a Group Analyst. The differences from PA are based on specific technical aspects. Group Analysis – Groupanalysis as we call Therapeutic Group Analysis – may be considered as an inter-relational form of psychotherapy of the individual in and through the group.