Therapeutic group analysis

TLDR: Foulkes as discussed by the authors used twenty-five years of intensive study of patients in psychotherapeutic groups to study the mental matrix of the group as a whole inside which all intrapsychic processes interact.

Abstract: 'This book is based on twenty-five years of intensive study of patients in psychotherapeutic groups The attitude is psychoanalytic but the method and technique are new The background of consideration is the mental matrix of the group as a whole inside which all intrapsychic processes interact This has a profound significance for psychoanalytical concepts and the many problems connected with them in psychoanalytic practice and theory'As in the individual field, in psychoanalysis, so in this multipersonal, supraindividual, field, the study of the pathological proved most fruitful, opening the doors to dynamic unconscious forces which are otherwise closed and barred It is not accidental therefore that observation and discovery in the therapeutic group are of special significance Group-Analysis as here conceived, should prove a contribution to a truly social, traspersonal psychopathology and transcultural anthropology'- SH Foulkes, from the Preface