Relatedness and Alienation in Group Psychoanalysis

IN THIS PAPER I shall define the terms “relatedness” and “alienation” and describe their role in the process of group psychoanalysis. “Group psychoanalysis is defined as a process conducted by a trained psychoanalyst in which the patient is helped to grow toward an increasingly greater realization of his total possibilities as a person. This is brought about by the patient's becoming more intensely aware of what was formerly unconscious and by a mutual process of emotional interaction between the patient and the analyst. In a group there exists in addition to the interpersonal relationship between patient and analyst, many important relationships with the different members. This complicates the process, but it can enrich the growth of each participant. It becomes a broader experience of self-awareness and awareness of others through a valuable and increasingly freer contact with people. The constructive potentials, the essentially unconscious forces of strength and health, which are buried and imprisoned by the neurotic character structure of each patient, are encouraged to emerge in this very human group process.”¹

Relationship is the state of connection or association between persons, things, or within oneself. Things can have relationship or connectedness with each other. For example, the furniture and decor of a room have relationship with each other, meaning a state of connectedness. This may be artistically pleasing or not. In a garden, the floral and shrub arrangements have relationship as part of the ensemble. In astronomy, the planets of the solar system have relationship to one another and to the sun. “Relatedness,” however, is a biological phenomenon. In its most rudimentary form it is found in sexual relations of protozoa. The quality of relatedness improves slightly as one moves up the evolutionary ladder and then spurts to great heights in humans. In birds and even more in mammals, there is relatedness between mother and offspring. It is in man that the