Commentary on the Making of a Modern Group Analyst

I was impressed by the four participants who worked hard to create a group climate and to help each other develop a cohesive atmosphere in which the audience could participate as a functioning unit. The four participants, working under difficult circumstances, depicted how a modern grup analyst conducts group and how he or she should be helped to function by the group

To work as a modern group analyst requires flexibility. The analyst has to have the ability to tolerate the emotions without acting on them, all the while working at the job of resolving group resistances as they appear in the group. A special problem that faces a modern group analyst is the aggressive emotion engendered by the possibly psychotic individuals with whom the modern group analyst may work. If the group analyst cannot manage the aggressive feeling, his work will be impaired.

It is clear that the four group analysts want to create an atmosphere which would expose the audience and themselves to the kind of emotions a modern group analyst is subject to when treating possibly psychotic individuals, be it in a therapy, supervisory, or training group. The task was multiple. First they tried to create an atmosphee common to a group situaiton. Second they tried to help each other to communicate the emotional state they were in. Third they tried to describe the emotional state they were in. Third they tried to describe the emotional problems that could occur in a group setting. Fourth they tried to illustrate how these emotional problems could be resolved by the modern group analyst. To a certain extent they were successful because people in the audience were subjected to a multitude of feelings they didn't understand, and so fell into a psychological state difficult for them to respond to. They admitted