Group-Analytic Contexts, Issue 80, June 2018

10 Group-Analytic Society International - Contexts
of the group uneasily abstained. After a further pause, Miss T asked
more firmly to be excused. Someone said she needn’t get permission,
since I had obviously left it up to the group to do what it felt like.
Another member said emphatically, ‘I think she should stay.’ Finally,
Miss T got up, and with an apologetic smile, excused herself and
walked out. I nodded a slight acknowledgement in her direction, not
daring to ask yet again what the group felt about that,
After a further pause, Mrs D locked me into her gaze and
asked, ‘Doctor, will I be able to go home over the weekend? adding
with a nervous smile, ‘You’ve got to answer that one.’
Once again, I addressed the group, saying, ‘Mrs D has put a
question specifically to me.’ Another silence fell over the group. Mrs
B stretched out airily in her comfortable chair and rolled her eyes to
the ceiling.
Miss W was looking at no one in particular. She seemed to
be studiously avoiding meeting anyone’s gaze. Somebody commented
that the silence seemed to be affecting everyone. Mrs B chipped in
quickly, saying with an apologetic laugh, ‘I know I can’t stand silence.’
Someone asked Miss C (anti-group) whether she wasn’t perhaps
affected by the silence. She replied calmly that it didn’t bother her in
the least, that loudness affected her, but not silence.
Mrs B then said that since nobody seemed to have anything
to say for themselves, shouldn’t the meeting be closed? Addressing
Miss P directly she said, ‘Pam, do you think that the meeting should
close?’ Miss P, speaking quietly and hesitantly, said that maybe it was
up to the group to talk about something and that perhaps they could
learn something from what was happening right now.
An exchange then ensued around the question of whether
anybody had anything to say or not. Mrs B turned to Miss O and asked
her point-blank whether she felt that the group should end. Miss O
replied that she thought that the group should carry on. She mentioned
that the staff were prepared to give up their time and that they wouldn’t
have done so if they had thought it was a waste of time. Somebody
else retorted that it was their job but Miss O persisted, saying that I
and other members of the staff could be doing lots of other things but
that instead we had chosen to be with the group, and the least the group
could do was to sit through until the end.
Undaunted, Mrs B then turned to each patient member of the
group in turn, asking them whether they felt that the group should
finish or carry on. Mrs G, who during the silences had been sitting
sunken in her armchair with her eyes closed, said in a small voice,
‘Close.’ To the same question, Miss W replied in an equally soft voice,