What are the implications of applying complex systems thinking to human group processes? This paper examines some of the themes central to complex systems theory, and goes on to suggest that there are some radically anti-humanist implications. It suggests that the logic of such thinking must lead us away from analysis of the group as an interaction between self-sustaining, individual human minds and bodies. Instead it leads towards an examination of the emergence or becoming of conscious thought, as just one phenomenon amongst many operating within the affective fabric of the group. It also suggests that the emergence of conscious thought is dependent upon the circulation of more fundamental emergent entities within this affective fabric. These ideas are illustrated, in part, by an examination and extension of Wilfred Bion's theory of beta-elements.