Discussion

THE AUTHORS define the self-analytic task of the group on three levels: intrapsychic, interpersonal, and suprapersonal. The last being the "group-as-a-whole."

The leader's role is defined as leaders of the work group, "the work being to understand group process and structure." It may contribute to the clarity of our discussion to define these terms more precisely.

P.B. de Maré (1972) explored the theoretical background of groups and adopted as his guiding triad, the concepts of structure, process, and content. Structure, in his view, refers to the sociocultural framework, process to the communication network, and content to the meaning of what is communicated.

Hartman and Gibbard emphasize process and content but neglect the sociocultural structure in which their group operates. The word "structure" is used by them to describe intragroup phenomena.

Maré carefully defines structure as a sociological concept that "refers to the spatio-temporal matters of when and where and who, of the framework of selection, size, proximity, frequency, duration, etc. of for example small or large groups, primary or secondary, institutions, communities, societies, etc."

It is precisely that aspect of the total situation, its "structure, " that makes the group experience described by Hartman and Gibbard a mystifying experience for the students who participated in it. The fantasies of the group can be seen as resulting from what Laing describes as the struggle to make sense of the total life experience, in contrast with the reductionistic approaches of the instinct-based theories of Freudians and Kleinians, who emphasize part—object relationships to the exclusion of the total life situation of the patient.

The authors failed to establish a clear contract with the students and to approach the group from the different levels of its reality as a work group. There is first the level of the contract between the students and the school: what are the expectations of both school and student