Growth and Training of a Modern Group Analyst*

We know that growth begins with conception and that it takes a mother and father to make a baby. The comfort or discomfort we feel in the womb, the feelings we have, and the sounds we hear even before our birth are the beginnings of our roots as group leaders. So the growth of the modern group analysts begins with their biological conceptions.

In my own case, my mother was a peddler. Both she and my father peddled goods with a wagon, so it's likely I was jostled around. My adjustment to that circumstance was the percursor for later adjustements and leads to the particular way I as a group leader. That's only the beginning. We could go back before our beginnings to the beginnings of our parents. We could go back even further to the beginnings of our grandparents. We're not going to do that. I'm working on what I came into this world with and what is occurring within me and my reactions to the world around me from being in the womb and onward.

In Spotnitz's book The Couch and The Circle (1961), there is a chapter where he focuses on his own early orientation as the oldest brother to his siblings. As arbitrator in charge of guiding their activities, he talkds about the effects of his place in the family and the effects of the particular neighboured he lived in, which was crime-infested. He learned to act quickly while maintaining sufficient