Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017

Newsletter – Autumn 2017 5
President's Foreword
Dear Fellow GASI Members,
This is my first Contexts’ foreword, since becoming President, during
the Berlin symposium.
What a remarkable, overwhelming achievement the
symposium is; how easy to forget, unless you have been directly
involved, the complexity of the process of preparing and organising
such a gathering, particularly when this involves the collaboration of
three different organisations. Inheriting this position in the midst of
the symposium, gave rise to feelings of fear and trepidation - along
with pleasure and anticipation. I wouldn’t be able to tell you the
number of congratulations I received, nor the many sympathetic
noises that sometimes accompanied these. Someone once said to me,
“Why do you want to be GASI President? Don’t you know that the
crocodiles will eat you?”
Now I’m finding my president’s feet, discovering myself,
inevitably, reflected differently in others’ expectations and demands
of me. Someone observed that Robi is a difficult act to follow, which
is undoubtedly the case. I’m reminded of the experience of stepping
into a colleague’s place, as group conductor; there is an odd feeling of
finding oneself in another person’s skin. Until you begin to recognise
yourself, in the role.
Communications amongst GASI members are the basis for
deepening our understanding of the group analytic project. The
society, with its increasing international reach, allows us to discover
what meaning Group Analysis acquires when planted in different
cultural soils. As always, the meaning of concepts is the result of a
process whereby they are applied and understood by different groups,
who make use of them. Communication amongst members of GASI,
buffered from the sorts of pressures that, for example, can affect
training organisations, is an invaluable contribution to the
development of GA.
The creation of opportunities for GASI members to
communicate with one another is at the heart of the Society’s life. Two
such opportunities are contained in the Quarterly Members Group
(QMG) and the GASI forum. I am well aware that many members
encounter obstacles to participating in these.
With the QMG, there are evidently geographical obstacles to
overcome, for many. Is it possible that we could begin to seed further
parallel QMG’s in other centres; these could build on the London
model and take place on the same days in the year? I’d be very pleased