On Group Analysis and Beyond ─ Group Analysis As Meta-Theory, Clinical Social Practice, and Art

By extending the views of Foulkes, Bion, Freud, and Klein, this book draws the outline of a group analytic theory and meta-theory by studying the paternal and maternal functions as expressed by the conductor and the analytic group respectively and extrapolating them to the psychoanalytic aspects of Lacan and the structuralism of Levi-Strauss’s anthropological views. From this perspective, it investigates major group analytic phenomena, such as the role of money, envy, scapegoating and the regular or early ending of group therapy by patients with neurosis and borderline personality disorders.