Constructive Forces in Group Psychoanalysis

All therapy is dependent on innate healthy forces. How these forces are mobilized will vary with the therapeutic approach. In group psychoanalysis they are tapped in a different manner because of the nature of the group situation.

The need to belong and the capacity to participate in a group is in keeping with the nature of man. From birth on, he is a part of many groups which influence him and mold his personality. Each individual has the capacity to experience himself as part of the superindividual whole, such as family, or a social, religious or political group. There is a need in such groups to cooperate, to share, and to conform. This is what Angyal1 calls the trend to homonomy. In the process of participating each one develops a feeling of belonging and a feeling of individuality.

The healthy individual is flexible and able to participate in many different groups because his identification as a group member does not supersede his feeling for himself as a human being. He has an unconscious conviction that he has a place in this world with a feeling of “we-ness.” This can develop only where the early family climate is one of warmth and respect. Where adverse conditions prevail this feeling of belonging is lacking and the individual feels “isolated and helpless in a world