Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017

Newsletter – Autumn 2017 83
social processes seem different" and a comprehensible tendency arises
to resist a mental dislocation in such adverse circumstances.
I describe the response of my first audience as a contextual
resistance. A psychiatric institution, as an extended group, is, in the
dynamic sense, nothing but a huge hall of mirrors. The idea that we,
professionally involved persons, remain free from distortions is
misleading, but protects against institutional-related fears and
uncertainties. The development and maintenance of a culture of
inquiry is the structural counterpart for one's own individual and group
self-experience. This is intended to help the young therapists, who
primarily work in the institutional context and experience on their way
"from the couch to the circle" how the supposed interpretive
supremacy and the asymmetry of the therapeutic dyad become
relativized (Schultz-Venrath, 2008).
I would name the reaction of the second auditorium as contentrelated
resistance. The therapist's ability to perceive can be understood
as an ability to deal with the patient's issues so cautiously that
psychological growth arises. Bolognini (2004), in particular, speaks
of the balancing act between the concordant and complementary
attitude, between compassion and sympathy. I, myself, worked for
three years in a forensic-psychiatric clinic as a young therapist at the
beginning of my education, and I have experienced how difficult this
dichotomy is under the adverse conditions of the setting or a certain
content. Also, the notion of Northfield as a therapeutic utopia is
misleading. Rather, it was a heterotopy in the sense of Foucault (2009),
a place not located outside of ordinary space and time, but rather a
special creative approach to the disruptions of the social matrix.
Without giving any details about the subsequent discussion in
the second case, I will conclude some of the topics: the different,
personal experiences of the participants with a new world that has
become more uncertain, dealing with individual trans-generational
heritage, with the socialization experience of some participants, issues
such as exclusion, betrayal and extinction, as well as the concerns
about cultural mixing caused by the current migration wave. Slowly,
however, the common idea of the importance of group culture for a
civilizing which deals with boundaries and differences also developed.
In retrospect, I see it as a successful Northfield reloading.
References
BILLOW, R. (2017): Relational Group Psychotherapy: An Overview.
Part II: Relational Models of Group Process. Group Analysis.
50 (2): 135-158.