Group-Analytic Contexts, Issue 80, June 2018

Newsletter – Summer 2018 3
Editorial
Contexts serves group analysis and GASi in a number of ways. One
of which is to facilitate communication among a diffuse membership
spread across 40 or more countries. While this function is still at the
heart of what this publication is about, it should be acknowledged that
the presence of the Forum, even though it does not include all
members, has to some degree taken over this role. The Forum, always
open 24/7 and requiring no editorial intervention of any kind, apart
from the inner editor of each contributing member, contains
contributions and exchanges ranging from the startlingly banal to the
most well-informed and original – both of which often conflate such
that it is hard to know which is which. The urges to write and to
communicate with the wider membership, both of which are vital to
the survival of Contexts, can be more than met by active participation
in GASi’s virtual large group agora. Since Contexts became a digital
publication only, it increasingly begins to feel that it has been to some
degree supplanted by the forum as a space through which to be in
touch with GA peers and colleagues. A current thread on the forum,
continuing with issues present in the recent Foulkes weekend,
concerns whether, how and to what degree the forum might also be
impacting our face-to-face encounters. Is our disembodied online
communication in some sense hurting the GASi body?
So, what does this mean for Contexts? The commissioning
side of the editor’s role, encouraging and badgering people to write,
sometimes for the first time, has taken on a greater significance and
has become more necessary. I am increasingly drawn to inviting guest
editors to share in this work, developing theme-centred issues. From
time-to-time I receive proposals for special issues, nonetheless I
would like to use this editorial to openly invite others to come forward
and become involved in this way. Some ideas for special issues I have
been hoping to develop, are: GA and social class; applications of large
groups outside of clinical settings; GA and sport. If you think you
might be interested in taking on the guest-editing of any of the above
or have an idea yourself for a special issue, please do not hesitate to
contact me.
This issue covers a number of themes. As someone heavily
involved in the planning of the next GASi Symposium in Barcelona,
I am very pleased to include reports of the co-chairs of the various
committees involved in putting together the Berlin Symposium. There
are always so many lessons to learn and to avoid the feeling that we
are constantly reinventing the wheel, these reports, as well as the