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Chapter Five
A Beginning
Up-bringing
This is the beginning
of a session (Session
Ten). In addition,
although the session
actually comes in the
middle of the
semester, it begins
the last run of
sessions of the whole
course. What
happens in the
session also
represents a
beginning of
something different
in the group.
In this session, the
predominant
characteristic of the
unconscious would
seem to be
timelessness, partly
because the session
is a kind of
beginning fairly late
in the course, and
because the person
bringing something
up is not daunted by
issues of time.
Chapter Five - A Beginning – Page 184
Description Analysis Interpretation
This is an account of
the beginning of a
session – important
because this
particular beginning
seems very
disrupted.
Significantly, as the
first example of this
approach to analysis,
this account sets a
tone.
The sequence has a
place in the context
of the semester.
There appears to be a
theme of acceptance
in the group, of the
process of learning
and the difficulties
that learning entails.
The incident (of upbringing)
is a
representation of a
struggle to take a
developmental step
in openness.
A sequence:
One student presents
herself as a mother
(“my girls”).
There is a style of
talk, which reflects
the group getting
into an associative
mode, as if engaged
in group-analysis.
Sadistic pleasure is
expressed, at the
thought of disrupting
nurturance.
A series of pairs of
people move to face
each other.
The group tries to
tell of their struggle
sand to bring it in to
the here-and-now.
There is a sense of
an impulse to make
an angry attack.
One staff member
attacks the group, but
is then attacked in
the break by the
other staff member.
After the break, the
group work well.
Table 5.4
A summary of description, analysis and interpretation
of data in Chapter Five.
This is the group in
Work mode (Bion,
1955) – there is a
pattern of complaints
and challenges, and
then a sense of the
group evolving
beyond these.
The reference to the
‘Third Hour’, the
Reflective Group,
signifies the
recognition of
personal impacts of
this work and a
beginning capacity to
use those impacts in
the work.
Arguably, the
session represents
containment in
action in a climate of
associative
perception – at its
best, the non-action
of the staff is an
important modelling
of being subject to
intense
communication and
yet being open to
understanding the
communication
rather than reacting.