The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst by Robert Grossmark

Author:Robert Grossmark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Enactment: the total situation in a group analysis

In Betty Joseph’s first example of transference, the total situation was of a supervision group that ultimately realized that their lost and confused experience when talking about a patient captured the patient’s internal world. I would like to briefly mention an example of the enactment of a total situation in a group analysis. This clinical material is mentioned in much greater detail in Chapter 9 and illustrates how the whole group can come to enact and live through the non-symbolized total situations of the group members’ early years.

In short, the group struggled with Gregory, who was dismissive and haughty toward the other group members and the whole endeavor. His repetitive complaint, wrapped in contempt for the group, was that no one in the group really understood him or was helpful to him. This aroused ire in other group members, who felt that he had consumed a good amount of group time talking about his abusive upbringing, and that they had offered their care and forbearance. The group became deeply frustrated with Gregory, who threatened to leave amidst a torrent of recriminations. Only when I noticed that he seemed lost and confused during one session did it become clear to me that we – Gregory, the group-as-a-whole (the field), and I – had all been engaged in living out the total situation of chronic and damaging misattunement that had completely dominated his development and now characterized his inner and relational world. I mention this example to complement the case of Phoebe and to illustrate once again how the total situation arises not only in the transference, but in the mutually enacted dimension of the field of the treatment involving both patient and analyst, and in this example, the group-as-a-whole as well.

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