Different Homes for Group Analysis

1. Different Homes for Group Analysis Experiences from the Scottish Highlands Chris MacGregor

2. Fathers, Authority and the Land • Highland landscape • Remote and rural communities • Remnants of clan history • 21st Century legacies

3. Autonomy and Authority • Isolation / participation • Loneliness / sense of connection • Helplessness / personal agency • Sense of identity and ancestry • Good enough fathers

4. Highland Landscapes

5. Highland Landscapes

6. Landscapes

7. Highland Landscapes

8. Landscapes

9. Inverness

10. Inverness

11. Highland Monsters

12. Scottish Government • Mental health strategy • Confidence and selfesteem? • Effects of isolation/living in small communities

13. Historical contexts : Culloden

14. Historical contexts: Glen Coe massacre

15. Glen Coe Massacre

16. Historical contexts: Highland clearances

17. Highland clearances

18. Highland clearances

19. Fatherlands, Motherlands Nationality Ethnicity Cultural status, language/ ‘mother tongue’ Faith, religion Sense of identity and ‘rootedness’ or belonging Confidence in self and community/country Complex and troubling?

20. The status of the father in group analysis • Locus of authority……but restrictive • Orthodox Foulkes : Freud’s primal horde, origins of Oedipal complex • Eliasian Foulkes : Civilising process, interdependence, ideology • Father as patriarchal ruler, law-maker

21. The group conductor and authority • Role of conductor – Foulkes avoided authoritarian leadership • Conductor may ‘dig his own grave’ in relation to authority as group matures? • Challenge of working with maternal matrix • Impact of conductor’s own gender

22. Nitsun(2009): Authority and Revolt • Criticises ‘formulaic’ view of conductor’s transfer of authority • Challenges the benign view of authority • The antigroup- creative potential • Conductor’s own authority issues • Highlights lack of recognition of the masculine elements of group and conductor

23. Nitsun • “Idealisation of our leaders often hides a story of conflict and paradox” • “We have to embrace the monstrous in our leaders and ourselves”

24. Response to Nitsun • Hutchinson (2009): conductor is dynamic administrator (law-giver) and also offers interpretation (authority-giver) • the style and gender of the conductor shape the way the group behaves

25. Response to Nitsun and Hutchinson • Glyn (2010): authority in the family implies some form of legitimacy, entailing a process of triangulation -‘this is how it is done’ • External sources of regulation • Glyn holds that authority does not belong to the conductor, so cannot be given away

26. Gender,Authority and the Conductor • What to do when the bus times change..

27. Conductor gender and authority • Elliott (1986): is group analytic psychotherapy itself gendered? • Conlon(1991): can dynamic administration pose a dilemma for female conductors? • Burman (2002): cautions to beware of implicit as well as explicit features of gendering of power and authority in groups • advises to locate gender and sexuality in relation to changing social structures

28. Conductor gender and authority • Moss(2004) cautions against conductor ‘blindness’ to gender issues • Maguire(1995) refers to conductors ability to draw freely on cross-gender identifications – which will enable patients to integrate maternal and paternal strengths within the transference

29. The group and gender • James(1984) compares Winnicott’s ‘holding’ with Bion’s ‘container’ – in the group setting enables the group’s capacity to think and understand • The maternal matrix, womblike – but the mother requires support • Need for rehabilitation of father in GA

30. Fathers, Society and the Group

31. Fathers, Society and the Group

32. Highland fathers

33. The Good Father

34. The Good Father

35. Parental Dyad and Authority • Lacan’s(1955) nom du pere, centrifugal father • Foulkes(1948): • “The family group and its influence is precipitated in the innermost core of the human mind, incorporated into the child’s growing ego and superego, forming their very nucleus”

36. The Patrix:‘a mould or dye for casting, the reversal of matrix’

37. The Patrix

38. The Patrix with Matrix (MacGregor)

39. Clinical Implications of the Patrix • The group room • The group’s viability • The fence around the play area • The fatherly ‘lap’ where the infant tests his legs • Authority as necessary boundary, working operational , in ‘consummate reciprocity’ • Protective and potent

40. Patrix in Highland groups • Connection with social history and changing roles in contemporary communities • New and inventive ways of surviving and raising families • Stress management without inebriation • Groups can be safe enough

41. Seeing the greater whole • Figure/ ground includes social unconscious and social memory • Dynamic nature of Authority/Autonomy • Klein(1952): infant’s capacity to enjoy relation to both parents at the same time – ‘precondition for the infant’s hope that he can bring them together and unite them in a happy way’ • Patrix and Matrix are part of natural order of balanced psychic world -link to symmetrical thinking ?

42. Patrix as mind of the conductor • Regulating , shaping and forming • Represents conductor’s belief’s and position with reference to authority : flexible/liberal, firm/unyielding or ill-formed/changing etc • Leaders and monsters are created in our own image

43. The first group

44. References • All references are available with handout