The author describes his experiences of the development of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for Groups (TFP-G) for the treatment of personality disorders. TFP-G derives from object relations theory, which is a theory of psychic presences. However, the author reports his observation of psychic absences and draws on field theory to describe these experiences of non-representation which are not typically associated with the more extreme alterations of split self and object representations characterising borderline conditions. He proposes broadening the scope of the therapist’s observations to take into account the work of the negative so as not to go undetected or be confused as a form of Basic Assumption. TFP-G places an emphasis on the therapist’s use of countertransference, but this is insufficient for non-represented states. The author discusses the application of the concepts of the field and alpha function for dealing with these phenomena whilst remaining faithful to the TFP-G model.