ПСИХОЛОГИЯ. ПСИХОАНАЛИЗ. ГРУППАНАЛИЗ.

Пятница, 29.03.2024, 14:18

Приветствую Вас Гость | RSS | Главная | Каталог статей | Регистрация | Вход

Главная » Статьи » Мои статьи

S.A. Bugrova In The Footsteps of a Project

In The Footsteps of a Project

 

S.A. Bugrova

 

 

 

‘It is on account of great love for his or her mother

that a child has so much to draw from

for his or her later attachments’.

M. Klein

 

 

 

Introduction

 

This article is an attempt to reflect on and describe a new experience gained during three years of conducting an unusual group with the group analysis method. The group was uncommon as it consisted of several subgroups, which included mothers and infants aged 0 to 3 years old. The group came to an end when the elder child turned four years old and the younger – two. Apart from the conductor, the group featured a child psychologist. As far as I know, this is the first case of such work in Russia.

 

Although the idea of creating a group which would unite both parents and children had been in my mind for several years, I could not begin the project for quite a long time. After the group had been created, I came across the presentation of the similar group by the British colleagues at the group-analytic Parental figures conference in Moscow (the presentation of Sheila Richi’s group). This presentation gave me confidence in the possibility and worthiness of such work. This reassured me of having chosen the right kind of a mixed group, where young mothers could be together with their babies aged 0 to 3 years old. I believe this is an important period in a child’s development as the relations with the most significant person – the mother and the consequences of these relations matter throughout the whole life of an individual.

 

As confidentiality requires, I will touch upon only group processes and rely more upon new experience of the conductor herself, her feelings and the complexity of working with such composition of the group.

 

 

Group 1

 

The group, which was created and conducted, was small, group-analytic, semi-closed, limited in time. The semi-closed nature of the group implied that it could be attended by fathers as well, which enabled the group to meet on a regular basis because small children were often sick. This decision was taken because of the participants’ requests and further discussion at the group.

 

The setting was not common for group analysis – once a week for 50 minutes. I chose such setting from the very beginning, considering the age of the youngest group participants. At first, the adult participants suggested working for 90 minutes. However, the further group work proved that the chosen duration was correct and enabled to cope with the tension which was increasing as the children were growing. During the group work only one pair – a mother and a child – left the group before its end. The other participants attended the group up to its end. As it has already been mentioned the group had to end its work because two of its participants overgrew the

milestone of three years. Among the participants there was a baby who joined the group in the pre-natal state and came back after the birth and summer holidays at the age of two months. By the end of the group he was two years old.

 

The leading concept of group analysis is the matrix. Z. Foulkes, a German-British psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and founder of the group analysis, said that ‘group analysis views the social nature of man as his main quality, while an individual is viewed as a result of his formation in society…’ [18].

 

This idea implies that man is a social being and can progress only in relations with others. The group is the best thing to facilitate this process, with the group matrix being both the matrix-web and the matrix-womb. The group is a web of associations and its participants are parts of the collective web. The maternal womb is the foundation where a human being evolves, grows, develops and is nourished. The matrix as a whole consists of relations and culture within the group, i.e. the communicative web of society.

 

Foulkes viewed the matrix as a hypothetical web of relations on four levels of communication.

 

‘The matrix is the common shared foundation which determines the meaning and significance of all events’. [18]

 

 

2 Objectives

 

Among the objectives were organizing and conducting the group with the method of group analysis in a mixed ‘parents-children’ group in order to realize the viability of such a group, the difficulty of the setting, maintaining the boundaries and the role of a conductor. It is possible to state that these objectives have been completed. At the sessions new unpredictable challenges appeared and were solved, thus adding interest and motivation for further work. The group process proved a lot of theoretical materials. Apart from the group analyst (conductor), there was also a child psychologist having experience in group work and in the method of group analysis, which was of some support for the conductor.

 

 

3 Specifics of group process and its phenomena

 

This project actually comprised two subgroups working with the group analysis method – on the one hand, adult participants, i.e. mothers and specialists, and children on the other hand. The adult participants sat in a circle and had a free conversation which turned out to be more about parent-child and sometimes partner relations, as well as observation of what was going on in the children group. At the beginning of the projects the babies were in the centre of the circle, some playing, some sitting (lying) next to their mothers. As children were growing, they left the circle of adults and explored the room and the toys. The conductor did not just observe this process passively, but also helped the subgroups – parents-children, parents-parents, children-children – to find most comfortable and perspective communications.

 

It was often necessary to translate the language of these two subgroups to each other, to help the mothers cope with the children’s emotions without interfering in the processes which were taking place in the children’s group, to differentiate the danger of non-interference, etc. The adult participants could gradually bear their frustrations. To translate the processes in the children’s group to the adult group turned out to be the most difficult task. During the group the mothers shared their new knowledge, their understanding of what was going on, their feelings and realizing

destructive stereotypes, connected with ancestral scenarios. There were many insights. Gradually, trust was appearing in the group and subgroups. Towards the end of the group the adult members shared the experience they had received in the group, told the group how they practiced this knowledge in their life outside the group, how their children’s behavior differed from other children’s behavior in playgrounds and in other children groups. The children learnt to stand their point without hysteria and manipulation, their vocabulary enabled them to negotiate without fighting. They learnt to deal with their emotions better and to trust the adult group participants. By the end of the project the children started to organize joint games, came to agreements without taking away each other’s toys. The adult group also trusted children more, remaining neutral observers and letting their children settle the problems themselves. At the beginning of the group mothers got actively involved in children’s quarrels and could hardly bear fights between children.

 

‘Training Ego in action’ in the adult group proved relevant and influenced the adult’s ability to give children more freedom, to control less and to trust more. Hopefully, this experience was useful for the ‘inner child’ of the adult participants. The topics of violence, aggression, sadism in upbringing children both in families and educational institutions, as well as the topic of power were regularly brought up. The adults also touched upon the topics of learning and teaching culture through elements of violence, they tried to justify family violence, different rituals of submission, manipulative techniques, blackmail, etc. Among the relevant topics were the ones dealing with difficulties to contact strangers, unauthorized persons or just other people. Fears of homosexuality in children sometimes arose, they were often accompanied by devaluation of men and sacrifice of women. The split into good mothers and bad fathers was there for a rather long period of time. Gradually, the adult group came to realize its feminine identity and the role of mother in the family and society and stopped being afraid of admitting the existence of strong women, rather than slaves or victims. Renouncing the status of the victim enabled the group participants to build vertical mother-child relations in dyadic subgroups and to establish themselves in social role models. Among other leading topics arising during the sessions were a desire to get rid of collective fault, as well as the topic of envy and shame.

 

The group work confirmed the importance of attachment, which was first mentioned by John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst (1907-1990) and developed by Mary Ainsworth, a Canadian psychologist. While watching children between 12 and 18 months old in the Baltimore laboratory (1969-1970), she defined three main patterns of attachment: secure, avoidant and anxious-ambivalent. All of them manifested in the group. The parents could see and realize the importance of creating conditions for a more secure style of attachment in relations with their babies, as well as work on their own problems dealing with this subject and having an impact on their adult life. As a rule, those whose childhood attachment was secure have a positive self-esteem, strong relations and are able to open up in relations with other people. When growing up, they usually build healthy, happy and long-lasting relations.

 

The first study of parents showing how it is possible to transfer secure and unsecure attachment between generations was conducted by Mary Mane, an American psychologist who Ainsworth’s disciple. She discovered that the way parents remember and structure their own childhood experience predicts the attachment type their children would have.

 

The mothers from our group observed that their children demonstrated a high level of self-confidence, ability to adapt, greater self-reliance and less dependence as compared to their peers. They were less aggressive, more collaborative with their peers, more obedient and able to come to an agreement in problematic situations.

 

 

As for the fourth attachment style – disorganized, which was introduced later by Mane and Solomon (Asch Solomon is a social psychologist of Polish origin, 1907-1996) as a result of their own experiments, it was not observed in the group.

 

The fathers would sometimes substitute mothers who could not attend the group due to various reasons. The group dynamics changed and we received new experience, including the relations between children in the presence of their fathers. However, this experience was rather an exclusion, though it still expanded the opportunities of the group as a whole. The group would sometimes become a therapist by reflecting all the processes and finding a successful way of solving the problems and conflicts, thus broadening the ways out.

 

An important phenomenon in group processes is the anxiety of rejection which is connected with the feeling of belonging. Belonging to a certain group, family, kin, etc. brings peace, comfort, emotional harmony, facilitates identity development. On the contrary, rejection, exclusion leads to marginality and destruction. Rejection is a trauma, whereas belonging is healing from the trauma. The group work in a mixed parents-children group gives an opportunity to prevent the trauma of rejection at the early stage of a child’s development, which we face in our adult life anyway (rejection on the national, professional and other criterion). Belonging to a working group, strengthening of trust is based on an unconscious expectation that there will be no rejection in the group.

 

It should be mentioned about the reverie in the group. ‘Waking dream’, reverie was first introduced by U.R. Bion, a British psychoanalyst (1897-1979). Or a ‘common experience of psycho-emotional state as a therapeutic factor [2] led to the possibility of reflexion and transfer from the unconscious to consciousness both on the individual and group levels. It was most evident if you observe the types of resistance in the group. This issue will be covered in the next chapter.

 

Avi Berman, an Israeli group analyst and psychoanalyst, points to the existence of collective reverie of the group which is made up from the combination of personal associations of the group participants and gives an opportunity to contain anxiety of the group participants and to live through the group processes together. A. Bion believes that the communicative process between a mother and a child generates the ability to think, as well as the child’s cognitive and emotional development. The role of the group working with the group analysis method, in our case it was a mixed group, confirms its importance in the psycho-emotional development of babies.

 

‘Every member of the group brings into it their own strengths and weaknesses. The ability of the participants to contain their emotional experience joins the expanding the emotional horizon of the group as a whole. Every member contributes and enriches the abilities of others. Together they acquire a better and more various understanding of the inner world of every individual and, therefore, of a patient (or a group) under discussion’. [1]

 

4 Resistance in a group

 

Resistance is a psychic mechanism, preventing the psychoanalytic penetration into the unconscious. Z. Freud considered it the ‘power which sustains the sickly state, i.e. everything which creates obstacles for psychoanalytic work’. [16]

 

The founder of psychoanalysis considered resistance to be the main specific mechanism which psychoanalysis should deal with, as well as the unconscious and transference. Resistance may be conscious, subconscious and unconscious. Later they defined the resistance of super ego, ego and id. The interpretation of resistance is among the main psychoanalytic techniques both in individual

and group analysis. There are different manifestations of resistance – being late, skipping sessions, forgetfulness, avoiding some topics, obsessive repetition of some topics, silence, saying too much, boredom, small talk and other. I am interested in the peculiarities of resistance which I faced as a conductor of a mixed parents-children group. Among them I would mention:

* being late;

* forgetfulness;

* somatization;

* rigidity;

* sleeping;

* acting out;

* covering talk;

* selective silence;

* resistance to progress.

 

Being late, forgetfulness, rigidity was demonstrated by the adult subgroup. However, in case of being late there was an impact on the other subgroup – mother-baby – which usually had to wait, including the children. When those participants who had been late would finally come, the group dynamics would change. The children would start playing different games. The most common excuse would be the third person – a taxi which did not arrive, waiting for a father, babysitter, grandmother, etc. for long. As a rule, such an excuse would not be analyzed at the current session and would be accepted by the group as an alibi. Late arrivals stopped when it was possible to discuss this topic and thus control aggressive feelings about the boundaries of the group.

 

Selective silence would manifest itself through pauses and observations of the children group.

 

Acting out revealed itself not from the beginning, but later, when one group participants blurted out that she had been at the birthday party of a child of another group participant despite the warning against contacting outside the group. Later the group discussed this topic at several sessions.

 

Somatization was also one of the psychic defenses against the processes in the group. It was more often used by the adult group.

 

Sleeping was the most interesting phenomenon for me, as it was demonstrated by children. One or another child would change their daily routing all of a sudden, they would be brought to the group sleepy or waking up. A child could sometimes sleep through the whole group. The group also accepted sleeping as an alibi and was not willing to discuss this phenomenon. When we finally managed to include this resistance in the discussion of the adult group, the child’s routine changed. Sometimes, a mother used her child’s sleep unconsciously as a defense against her own unbearable feelings connected with the child’s behavior in the group, or with revealing the concealed aggression to the group and the conductor, as well as resistance to progress.

 

 

5 Role of conductor in mixed ‘parents-children’ group

 

The group work proved the ideas of D.Winnicott, a British psychoanalyst and child psychotherapist, about the fact that ‘in a clinical setting the analyst must create an atmosphere similar the maternal supportive atmosphere’ [6], as well as the idea of a ‘good enough mother’ (the term was first introduced in 1965). The group, or its matrix, to be precise, must become such a mother during the work. The idea of ‘a good enough mother’ was in the group throughout its work, as well as considerations about ‘the right to make a mistake’ and ‘perfect mother’. Both adults and children repetitively experience certain communication between a mother and a child.

The conductor must become perceptible as the personality which makes her role in the group more active. The task of a small group with adult participants is to learn both to receive and to give, whereas individual therapy facilitates learning ‘to eat and to regurgitate. Meanwhile, the mixed group of parents and children meets both these tasks. H. Kohut, an American psychoanalyst, the founder of self-object psychology, believed that working with a patient may create the atmosphere of early childhood to detect ‘a good self-object which will facilitate the dynamic exchange’ [1]. This approach enables to recover from the narcissistic trauma and attach to the self-objects matrix, which makes it possible to be a social being. Both Kohut and Winnikott thought that the threat of ‘breaking the social organism into pieces’ [7] decreases under individual therapy which enables the individual to grow.

 

Under group analysis such task is quite achievable even more successfully than under individual analysis because it is in the group that we face social powers. In the parents-children group the conductor becomes visible and identifiable in the role of the analyst. She consciously models the group as ‘the mother of the environment’ [15]. The conductor’s role in such a group continuous relying on Z. Foulkes three-component assumptions – dynamic administration, analysis itself and translation.

 

In this project dynamic administration was based on developing the setting which would be most efficient for its participants taking into consideration the age of the babies. The group met once a week for 50 minutes. Fathers could also attend the sessions. It was necessary to consider the babies’ routine when choosing the working hours of the group.

 

The difficulties of translation were about the subgroups, each one having its own language. As a translator the conductor assumes that the therapeutic process coincides with the communication one. Foulkes assumed that people exchanged on four levels and the conductor had to translate the attempts to communicate from the authentic and unconscious level to the verbal and conscious. The role of the translator implies revealing the symptoms in the group matrix and perceiving them as non-freedom and incoherence. It is worthwhile realizing the conductors as translators the conductors can convey the approximate meaning of the real thing. Therefore, interventions by other group participants are as important as interventions of the conductor. The conductor interferes in the dialogue leaving room for feedback and letting the group, including the children group, which reacted non-verbally, decide whether an interpretation is appropriate or not. The illusion that the conductor can take a neutral and abstinent position and be an impartial and objective observer failed in the project which brings to the point that the views of the early group analysts about the role of the conductor should be reconsidered. The group can proceed only when it learns to bear a high level of frustration. Therefore, the conductor’s support is rather important.

 

Apart from verbal and non-verbal interventions, there were other difficulties of the analysis dealing with the necessity to decode what was going on in the children subgroup. There were mainly teaching, revealing moments rather than interpretations. The tendency of modern group analysis sets new tasks before the conductor. She must trust the group in order to facilitate any communication and to build the group matrix. Herhard Wilke, a British group analyst, following Thomas Ogden, an American Professor of Medicine, group analyst, says that the relationships between the analyst and the analyzer in the group are within an interactive triangular which leads to creating ‘the third subject’. Wilke believes that ‘events of a transference are not a repetitive acting of the past but a scenic repetitive dramatization of inner experience here and now happening in the group context. Although interaction is characterized by the transference and counter-transference referring to the family relations, it can be described only with regard to what is happening here and now, as the pattern of interaction has never been the same as before and has never been shaped by this particular group. This is a unique act of repeated creation between those who are in the current group and the social matrix surrounding it’. [5]

 

It is this observation and comprehension of what is taking place that enables to change the family scenario when discovering its destructiveness. Such kind of work is obviously of greater importance in the adult subgroup.

The group, the conductor and the analyzer (in our case – a pair) form a mutually dependent gestalt. An analytic insight is combined with comprehension of what is taking place and the narrative (the language of telling the story). The verbal interventions of the conductor depend upon the unconscious conflict in the group and mark the change which has already been made in the interactive mode by the group, its subgroups and the conductor herself.

 

In such a situation the conductor must become perceivable, active, more visible, identifiable as an analyst. It is important that the conductor is able to contain and transform the projects of the group participants in order to live through the group processes together in a safe environment.

 

6 Conclusion

 

The project has demonstrated that the group which works with the group analysis method, reflecting the real events which take place within every family system of the participants, and demonstrating the destructive patterns of behavior, as well as steady patterns which prevent children from open development and do not let parents take independent decisions, has had a different experience of interaction. This indicates that the method of group analysis has perspectives not only among adults, but also among children.

 

The group made it possible to work out the fear of ‘a bad mother’ and incomprehensible behavior of a child. It facilitated strengthening the identity of ‘a good mother inside’ and establishing trust in oneself and a baby. The possibility of forming a more reliable attachment of a baby to their mother creates conditions for the further psychic development of a child and their better adaptation in social groups, which was observed by the parents at the end of the project. Belonging to the group strengthened the trust of all group participants. Compared to individual analysis, group analysis deals with a more complex idea about the unconscious, so it provides a wider view on both the fundamental and personal matrix.

 

Belonging to the best matrix implies that the group takes effort to develop its efficiency which improves group functioning and allows to deny personal destructive matrixes.

 

 

 

Reference list

 

1. Berman Avi, Berger M., Matrix and reverie in supervisory groups, SGA, Bulletin on group analysis, 1st ed., Saint-Petersburg, 2018.

2. Bion U.R., Learning through experience, Cogito-Centre, Moscow, 2008.

3. Bowlby D., Attachment, Gardariki, Moscow, 2003.

4. Bowlby D., Ainsworth M., Benedek T. and others, Psychology of attachment, ERGO, Moscow, 2005.

5. Foulkes S.H., Therapeutic Group Analysis, Carnac, London, 1964.

6. Foulkes Z., Selected works: Psychoanalysis and group analysis, 1990.

7. Freud Z., Introduction to psychoanalysis, Lectures 1-15, Aleteya, Saint-Petersburg, 1999.

8. Grinson R.R., Technique and practice of psychoanalysis, Cogito-Centre, Moscow, 2003.

9. Klein M., Love, fault and reparation, Psychoanalytic works, vol.2, ID ERGO, Izhevsk, 2007.

10. Klein M., Child psychoanalysis, IOI, Moscow, 2016.

11. Kohut H., Analysis of the self, Cogito-Centre, Moscow, 2003.

12. Louis R. Ormont, Group psychotherapy: from theory to practice, parts 1,2, Saint-Petersburg, 1988.

13. Thomas G. Ogden, Dreams and interpretations, Class, Moscow, 2001.

14. Shamov V., The common theory of systems and synergy in group analysis, Bulletin of psychoanalysis, Saint-Petersburg, 2010.

15. Wilke H., The art of group analysis in organizations. The use of intuitive and experiential knowledge, 2014.

16. Winnikott D., Playing and reality, IOI, Moscow, 2008.

17. Winnikott D., Small children and their mothers, Class, Moscow, 2011.

18. Yalom I., The theory and practice of group psychotherapy, Saint-Petersburg, 2000

Категория: Мои статьи | Добавил: bugrova (02.04.2019)
Просмотров: 224 | Рейтинг: 0.0/0
Всего комментариев: 0
Имя *:
Email *:
Код *:

Друзья сайта

Поиск

Категории раздела

Мои статьи [142]