Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017
Newsletter of the Group Analytic Society International
Newsletter of the Group Analytic Society International
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56 <strong>Group</strong>-<strong>Analytic</strong> Society International - <strong>Contexts</strong><br />
Berlin and the social self-conscious<br />
By Di King<br />
Does being grown-up mean letting go of the sensitivity of individual<br />
feelings? Are both possible? Being grown-up and also obsessed with<br />
personal interactions.<br />
Social competence preoccupied me at the conference and my<br />
experience told me that if I feel something as strongly as this then it is<br />
likely to be experienced by others. One border that was evident to me<br />
over the days of the conference was confidence. If you have it, you<br />
have it. If you don’t you don’t and isn’t this one of the first thing that<br />
goes in the presence of brutality and abuse?<br />
This characteristic hypervigilance can help in therapeutic<br />
work, as those who struggle with it know what it feels like to resist<br />
growth. Is there a legitimate role for the immature or is it just a stuck<br />
indulgence holding its breath till maturity happens? Can the<br />
preoccupied measuring of the world through minute vigilance and<br />
sensitivity be taken seriously and valued as much as social maturity?<br />
Might something of the subtlety be lost without this painful<br />
narcissistic preoccupation? Can the pupil teach the teacher? We know<br />
they can as long as the teacher has not forgotten his/her original<br />
ignorance.<br />
What had this to do with the conference, the crossing<br />
of borders?<br />
I think there is a link between individual feelings of inclusion and<br />
exclusion in the reality of actual exclusion and where death is<br />
threatened. If you arrive in another country you are dependent on how<br />
the host country accepts you. Every facial gesture, every act of<br />
kindness matters. Who is sincere? Who just doing their job. There<br />
were over 600 people at the symposium. 630 or so possible<br />
connections. One of the themes of the conference was belonging. This<br />
clearly means different things to people. 1<br />
I notice fairly soon that my small group became important to<br />
me. I made the assumption that it was a place where I was free to be<br />
1<br />
As someone helpfully pointed out, using the formula for a group of<br />
any number n/2(n-1) actually give a staggering 290,925 possible<br />
pairs in a group.
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