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Chapter Two Part Two – Methodology - Page 58
by Matte-Blanco (see below) and others to signify the totality of the dynamics of
transference and countertransference, which overlaps in part with Foulkes’s definitions).
Powell’s (1989) summary of Foulkes’s definitions of the group analytic matrix includes
the following:
The matrix is the hypothetical web of communication and relationship in a given
group. It is the common shared ground which ultimately determines the meaning
and significance of all events and upon which all communication and
interpretations, verbal and non-verbal, rest (Foulkes, 1964, p. 292).
The network of all individual mental processes, the psychological medium in
which they meet, communicate and interact, can be called the matrix (Foulkes &
Anthony, 1957, p. 26).
Inside this network, the individual is conceived as a nodal point (Foulkes, 1964, p.
118).
The mind is not a thing which exists but a series of events, moving and proceeding
all the time (Foulkes, 1973, p. 212).
(the) … lines of force … (of the matrix) … may be conceived as passing right
through the individual members … (of the group) … and it may therefore be
called a transpersonal network, comparable to a magnetic field (Foulkes &
Anthony, 1957, p. 258).
The creation, maintenance and repair of the group-analytic matrix is a recursive process,
and can be a large part of the work of group therapy, much as the creation, maintenance
and repair of the therapeutic alliance is a significant part of the work of individual
therapy (Bordin, 1971). Group analysis contributes an understanding, although it may
often be elaborated post hoc (an example of where clinical work borders on research), in
this case of how individuals change in a group, and how a group forms and changes so
as to enable change in individuals. I need to give more detail on how this works.
Garland (1982) has characterised the process of change in a group as the deflection of
the individual and the group’s attention away from the problem on to the non-problem
(which is how to be and relate in a group), and then the facilitation of play. This is so
that new patterns of behaviour can occur in a context which does not support the typical