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ANALYSIS
Consideration by level.
Chapter Nine – An Ending – Page 280
An important analytic device for this particular experience is the notion of bi-logical
depth, part of the heuristic with connection and difference that was discussed in Chapter
Two Part Two. As laid out there, of particular relevance to group life are Matte-
Blanco’s Strata (One to Five) (Matte-Blanco, 1988), and Foulkes’s Current,
Transference, Projective and Primordial Levels (1948, 1964, 1975). In this case, a
Current Level perspective on the group would take statements at face value. My sense is
that Foulkes’s description of the Transference Level involves uncomplicated
transference based on projection, and does not rely on or make use of projective
identification (which in turn makes particular use of an Other). Although the
Transference level involves the unconscious, the Projective and Primordial Levels rely
far more heavily on this, and on projective identification as communication, and hence
are of particular value when matters at more conscious Levels seem oddly
unsatisfactory.
Thinking at the Projective and Primordial Levels, one view of this group, and in
particular the ending of it and what was not noticed or addressed, is that perhaps we did
accomplish what we needed to do. This feels like a benign or charitable aspect on
things. In Winnicott’s terms, we were ‘good enough’. This will be discussed next, but
other possibilities are considered after that.
Winnicott’s ‘good enough’ mother/teacher(s)/group
This needs some elaboration of Winnicott’s notion of the good-enough mother into the
good-enough teacher(s) or indeed the good-enough group. It also needs an account of