Transgenerational Atmospheres and Self-Knowledge in Groups: Dreaming the Atmosphere/ Dreamwork in the Group

In previous articles, we have focused on the psychological effects that mass societal traumas can have over multiple generations, and we introduced the concept of the Transgenerational Atmosphere. Later, we developed the concept of the Atmosphere, which describes in broader terms the way the individual and the collective interact. A constant and important feature of our work is that we always view the individual as part of the group, that is, we always seek the collective within the individual. We have long been preoccupied with the question of how methods based on the Atmosphere as a model, or on other psychoanalytical theories and practice, can be applied more broadly, on the “stage” of society. This article gives an account of a therapy process which, in its theory and methodology, builds on experiences gained in individual analytic work, but applies them to the group. The purpose of the group was to process transgenerational legacies. The group was mixed, in other words, the group members were descendants of victims of different societal traumas. As in individual therapy, so also in the group we try to listen to the voice of the “collective,” the we, the group’s unconscious processes. The aim was to dream together a healthier we reality, using the dreaming capacity of the field (the Atmosphere).