Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017

102 Group-Analytic Society International - Contexts
2017 Czech Spring Group Days, Prague, Czech
Republic
By Denisa Schücková
This spring the Group Section of the Czech Society for
Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy (CSPAP) held its second three-day
experiential group analytic seminar, “How to Experience and Survive
a Group.” This year´s subtitle was, “What are Groups Silent about?”
The event took place on April 20 th – 22 nd 2017 in the premises of the
Film Faculty of Charles University in downtown Prague. Prague´s
new annual group analytic seminar is inspired by the rich and fertile
experience that we gained from co-organising with Regine Scholz and
David Glyn the GASI Summer School in 2015.
Last year we organised the first such seminar in Prague:
“How to Experience and Survive a Group: Unconscious Dependencies
in Human Groups,” and the report is available in Winter 2016
Contexts. The 2016 event was very modest as to the number of
participants; this year the number of participants more than doubled.
During two years in the local Czech environment, the
original GASI “Summer School” has evolved into the “Spring Group
Days,” but the essential structure and purpose of the local “offspring”
remains very similar to the “parent”. It is built primarily on
experiencing the processes of small and large groups, learning from
each other in supervision groups; and the program is also
supplemented by theoretical blocks. It provides the local therapy
community with a place for sharing ideas and exchanging experiences
in the field of group therapy as well as a creative space for reflecting
on larger societal themes.
Naturally, there are also some differences between the two
events. Unlike the Summer School, which begins typically with a
lecture, the Spring Group Days begin with the large group – thus
throwing participants directly into the process. We held three LGs
during the three days: in the first LG, associations arose of an “empty
table”, people awaiting “meals” that we will have to “cook together”
during the three days. I dare to say that, in the end, we all “ate” to our
hearts´ content. Small experiential groups met three times for 90
minutes and offered private spaces to discuss more intimate issues and
conference experience. Supervision groups met twice for 90 minutes
and were widely appreciated - we have thus learned about a general
thirst for more group supervision opportunities in the country.