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The aim of this paper is not only to analyze to what extent group psychoanalysis can utilize Karen Horney's clinical concepts but also to show how powerfully her theory works in the clinical practice of group analysis. In this clinical discussion I will be referring primarily to Horney's theory (with an overall reference to her writings and to my own text: Garofalo, 1979) as well as to V. Morrone's skillful clinical work (who brought me directly into clinical group work and whom I would like to take this opportunity to thank explicitly).
Morrone's clinical work is inspired by the teaching of H. Kelman, one of the pioneers of Horney group analysis (Kelman, 1948, 1971). Morrone has reached that level of mature understanding that Horney herself had hoped for in her 1951 symposium (De Rosis et al., 1952) thanks mainly to specialists like L. De Rosis, S. Rose, B. Wassell, L. Landman and, of course, to Kelman himself. They were the first to point out certain problems and techniques of group therapy, the richness of the analytic and interindividual relationship in group analysis, and its particular advantages and disadvantages tied to the specific nature of the constructive and obstructive forces that are at work (De Rosis et al., 1955; Rose, 1953, 1956). For clarity (and possibly at the cost of some repetition) I will hinge my argument on three basic themes or angles of the therapeutic process, seen in the light of Horney's theory applied to group analysis: the consciousness-unconscious relationship, the ego-others relationship, and the patient-therapist relationship.
Horney has often repeated that hers is a psychoanalytic theory, in that she believes in unconscious psychic forces and consequently in psychic determinism, and insofar as she makes use of the psychoanalytic method of “working through” and the analysis of the transference, and recognizes her