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Group
Psychotherapy | Group
Psychology |
What Participants Learn
This is an on-going psychotherapy group designed for
analytically minded individuals. It models the classical psychoanalytic /
psychodynamic model in that the goals and objectives are to provide a
unique opportunity for gaining interpersonal awareness and resolution to
work through internal and external conflicts, and to share feelings and
concerns in a safe, nurturing and containing environment.
Drawing from many valuable concepts abstracted from Freud,
Klein, Winnicott, Fairbairn, Bion, Kohut, Grotstein, the therapist molds
and shapes group interpretations and interventions to suit and match the
uniqueness of each individual.
What is Group Psychotherapy?
Group therapy acts as an important adjunct to individual
psychotherapy in a safe and containing environment, which is supportive,
facilitating and encouraging. Some think of these in terms of Winnicott's
concept of the "environmental mother" the "background mother," but others
prefer the concept of an "archaic good mother." It offers an opportunity
for patients to view themselves through the reflections (mirroring) and
projections through the "other," which therefore helps the patient
separate and individuate from archaic negative object bonds.
The group provides opportunities for safe play in an environment that
encourages realistic feedback from people who are from similar
backgrounds. One of the best advantages is the opportunity for ample
mirroring with many "witnesses" and "referees" who help to limit the
intensity of negotiations about psychic and social truths. The group
displays many primitive defenses such as shame, guilt, envy, jealousy,
control, domination, victimization, splitting, projection, and projective
identification became glaringly apparent. Although defenses including
scapegoating / blaming and projections do occur, the leader of the group
does not allow the negative aspects to continue instead focuses to help
the members reclaim those parts of themselves that are projected. The
group offers the participants the opportunity to repair for reparation and
forgiveness as the replacement for self persecution, destructive envy and
rage.
This list is based Yalom's (1985) "Ten Curative Factors in
Group Psychotherapy", which has been corroborated by clinical data,
although the search for an eleventh or even a twelfth factor has become an
industry in its own right, as have attempts to reduce this list to several
key factors, especially in connection with the issue of whether the
analysis of group dynamics must be considered when assessing the value of
therapy in a group.
What is Group Psychology?
You might be wondering why would a marital therapist be
interested group formation? Groups like couples form many shared
collective group/couple fantasies and myths, and help us understand why
people in groups/nations/organizations stay in painful, destructive
relationships without ever reaching any conflict resolution. In groups, it
is dogma, religious ideologies, and cultural beliefs that become the
replacement for truth, reason and rational thought. Truth is felt to be
the invisible enemy and must be destroyed. People in regressed groups join
together to find a scapegoat an external enemy (truth) that is felt to be
dangerous and catastrophic to the group organization. Bion (1959) made
major contributions to group dynamics in his seminal work whereby he
highlights two kinds of groups: (1) The work group is a rational-thinking
group; members are task/reality oriented, and its primary concern is the
achievement of goals; and (2) the basic assumption group is the regressed
group whose members function on the basis of blame/shame, fight/flight,
and parasitic bonds. Work group members are acknowledged for their
creativity, individuality, and rely more on thinking than dogma or group
ideology. In basic assumption groups, people never learn from experience
cannot tolerate truth, pain, frustration or ambivalence. They adhere to
quick fixes are impulsive id driven and confuse healthy dependency needs
with parasitic ones. The first is task oriented; the leader does not allow
primitive defenses to dominate, get in the way or control the group.
The reasons listed above make group psychotherapy unique.
The works of Wilfred Bion's group can enhance any group experience.
Leaders less experienced with Bion's groups can unconsciously and
unwittingly allow the group to take over in "fight / flight" or pair off
in many destructive ways. In the latter group "basic assumption" or
regressed groups primitive defenses do get in the way severely interfere
with functionality of the group.
Opportunities for Participants
Participants will have an opportunity to focus on specific
areas of conflict, problem solving, focal points, gain personal growth,
and receive group feedback in a small group environment.
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The group provides a holding and containing environment,
which is supportive, facilitating and encouraging.
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The group offers an opportunity for experience with
transitional objects and transitional phenomena, because it is so
clearly a "me - not me" object and, therefore, it helps an individual to
individuate and separate from archaic, negative maternal objects.
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The group provides opportunities for safe play, that is,
for trying on and taking off various gloves of identity without serious
consequences.
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The group provides opportunities for realistic feedback
from people who are heterogeneous in their social and personal
qualities.
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The group provides the opportunity to negotiate personal
and social boundaries both between self and other and within oneself,
and in this connection to test reality and to understand the difference
between psychic and social facts.
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Face to face interaction with peers and the therapist is
especially suitable for anxieties associated with shame, rage, anger,
jealousy, guilt and other which is more than merely an archaic forms of
affective experience.
Use our handy sign-up/enrollment form.
Contact Joan Lachkar,
Ph.D. for more information.
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