The Grail and the Group

This paper is a response to an invitation to contribute to the theme of creativity by talking about group analysis. Although I happily accepted the invitation, I was aware that it presented something of a challenge. Jung was inclined to see groups as destructive rather than creative, as potentially of great danger to the individual. This they certainly can be. Nevertheless, there is a growing number of Jungians who have discovered that they need not be. Jung formed this view before anyone had tried to develop a format for analysis in groups, a format which had gradually to evolve, while paying full attention to the sort of danger to the individual envisaged by Jung. In this evolution the constructive possibilities of group dynamics were gradually appreciated. Everything was found to depend on such matters as the size of the group, the selection of the members, the role of the conductor, and the creation of a certain atmosphere: in other words, on getting the setting right. In doing this analysts bear in mind what can take place in the one-to-one arrangement and try to preserve these possibilities in the group. Some will argue that this is not possible, that the setting has been so changed that what they call ‘real analysis’ cannot take place in a group. While acknowledging that there are certain inevitable differences in the process, there are, in my view, sufficient resemblances to justify the claim that not only analysis but individuation takes place in the group setting. I would not make this claim for group psychotherapy in general. My claim is based on my experience of training at the Institute of Group Analysis, using the methods of S. H. Foulkes, having worked for many years as an analytical psychologist (FOULKES 3).

For my purposes here I will not argue in defence of this claim but hope you will bear with me if I take group analysis as providing a different setting for the same process, an activity roughly called analysis leading towards individuation in the