Locating the Group Conductor in Group Analysis.

Dr Peter Hengstberger, Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists (AAGP). 

To be read as a pair with Pia Hirsch’s paper. 

Dr Peter Hengstberger is a Consultant Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and Group Analyst working in full time private practice in Brisbane, Australia. He is a member of the Faculty of Psychotherapy of RANZCP, the Queensland Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association (QPPA) and the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists (AAGP). Currently, he is President of the AAGP, and a member of the Training Committee of the AAGP. He has a special interest in the development of training in psychoanalytic psychotherapies and provision of psychoanalytic psychotherapies to members of the LGBTQI+ community, as well as the broader impact of homo/bi/transphobia on individuals and groups.

SH Foulkes (1975/2002) famously wrote of group analysis, that it is

“…analysis of the group, by the group, including the conductor” (p3).

This places the conductor of the group firmly within the group, not only as the individual or couple responsible for the dynamic administration of the group, and as therapist(s) but also as a member of the group. By dynamic administration, I mean all the thinking, tasks and activities that work to conceive of, gestate and give birth to the group; activities and thinking that serve to maintain the bounded space of the group.

The conception of and creation of the group is a fundamental aspect of the conductors’ role and authority. In a recent group, a member wondered what it would be like for the group members to meet outside and talk without Pia and me. Of course, the reality is, they are unlikely to have ever met without the existence of the group that has been created by the conductors. Without the conductors, this group of strangers are unlikely to have ever met.

The other aspect of the conductor’s authority lay in their roles as therapists. Their training, skills and experience in understanding group dynamics.

From a group analytic perspective there is a progressive democratisation of this authority. The group progressively (but never linearly) assumes the mantle of its own leadership. This authority is never completely relinquished by the conductor; the tasks of dynamic administration are always those of the conductor. However, in a mature group, some task may be taken up to a greater degree by the group, such as the issue of lateness or nonattendance. How a group responds to the authority of the conductor is an often complex, potentially destructive but also potentially creative area of work.

As a member of the group, the conductors become a component of the group matrix; that is the interconnectedness of all group members, the communicational and relational web of the group (Foulkes 1964/2002). Simultaneously each member, including the conductor, exists as a component of every group they have inhabited beginning with their family of origin. The family of origin exists within larger societal, cultural and historical groups. (Barwick 2018). Each individual therefore brings their own personal matrix to the group. To quote Barwick (2018): “…an individual mind is forged in relation to his group of origin and therefore, in a profound way, is an expression of it.”

As the group is formed and develops over time, the weaving together of these personal matrices creates something new: the dynamic matrix of the group. Each person’s story and each interaction within the group comes to have both group and individual meaning to all members of the group (Foulkes 1975/2002).

In addition to these two matrices, Foulkes (1975/2002) also added the foundation matrix, this being all the “biological properties of the species” (p131) and is firmly embedded in the cultural values and reactions of a society. From this perspective the intrapsychic is not only a personal shareable experience but an already shared one.  The group conductor is no exception to this.

Stevenson (2020) asks the conductor to consider the intersectionality and positionality of themselves in relation to the group members when considering the question of analytic neutrality. Stevenson (2020) places the positionality of the conductor as central to the frame of the group.

Their own personal matrix enters the group with them and becomes part of the evolving dynamic matrix of the group. This is despite and he argues, perhaps even because of analytic neutrality. He calls for reflection and self-scrutiny when considering the conductor’s stance in the group.

Questions of privilege, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, to name some, all play a role in the social hierarchy of each individual’s personal and foundation matrices, and are considerations in who might be included and excluded from a group. Failure to attend to these may result in harm or damage to group member(s).

My Positionality.

In his paper, Stevenson (2020) describes his own personal background and matrix. Following in his footsteps, I would like to share something about how I see mine.

In considering the question of how I work as a group analyst, I have been aware of my own history and origins, my own personal matrix and the foundation matrix of the groups Pia and I have run.

So, to share something of my own personal matrix, I would like to share some thoughts around these with you. I was born a cisgendered white male, into a working-class family who “did well” because of the hard work and determination of my father to be more. He was the oldest son of German and English/Scottish immigrants. My mother’s family had been in Australia for several generations. During my childhood, education, particularly tertiary education, was relatively free. I inherited my mother’s intellect and curiosity and gained entry into medical school and eventually qualified as a psychiatrist. In my training as a psychiatrist, I sought out positions that took me towards psychotherapy training. Opportunities became available to train in both individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy and group therapy. I took them up. This has lent me a privileged position.

But I am also a gay man. From an early age I was aware of my difference and how the broader community viewed this. A profound feeling of being othered without really understanding the nature or why of this pervaded my early life. The very fabric of the school yard and the childhood slurs made this all to evident. The entertainment we watched on television reinforced my otherness. I also, apart from several years in childhood when my family packed up and moved to Sydney, grew up in Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland. It was a time of Special Branch and fierce homophobic rhetoric, such that as a young adolescent I had to stay hidden. The truth felt dangerous. To be seen was dangerous. A matter of life and death. Medicine was both a way to divert questions of relationships from family members and myself. Ironically, its institutional homophobia was pervasive. I also chose to train as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and group therapist, both with rather dubious histories when it comes to the queer community.

Then during my years in medical school, when I took my first tentative steps into the gay community of the university and broader society, I was faced, along with all gay men, with the arrival of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Sex, love and intimacy became deadly. Friends became sick and some died.

So, what does this all mean? When being in a group as a conductor, it becomes necessary to consider my own position of authority as conductor within the context of my own privilege as a white male psychiatrist. I would argue, this positions me in a way that provides a fertile ground for projections regarding power and authority, as well as authoritarianism. Equally, being part of a minority group which can be to some extent hidden socially, has its resonance for me with analytic neutrality. I have become aware that when I experience an anxious silencing in myself, it is likely to indicate aggression and persecution in a group. A risk of othering, erasure and scapegoating.

Positionality and Co-Therapy.

The relationship between Pia and I has taken a long time to develop and required careful and challenging discussions. It has been hard won and become very precious.

It too involved the complexities of positionality. As co-conductors we are aware of what we as a couple might represent and evoke in the group. There have been a number of different issues to work through both in the group with its members and between ourselves. As Dudley and Caton (2024) describe, being male and female co-conductors has resulted in gendered transferences.

This has also extended to ways in which we have conducted the group and the dynamic administration of the group. For example, Pia would open the door to the group room at the beginning of the group, inviting members in. A maternal embrace and gathering in. And it fell to me to be the voice of interruptions; the voice which brought the group to a close at the end of each session. The paternal ‘no’. Neither of these two tasks were deliberately arranged, we did not determine these roles for ourselves consciously. Rather they emerged from day one of our first group together, organically if you will. It speaks to something within the foundation matrix of the group and gendered roles we each took on form the social unconscious of our culture.

My position as a white, male psychiatrist in the group also brought a variety of projections around power and authority. Questions were often directed to me, leaving Pia with a sense of being my “assistant”, as if all authority rested with me. The experience she carried seemed to speak to some of the projection regarding gendered and professional roles. These experiences are in keeping with what Dudley and Caton (2024) described as the group working hard “keep you (us) together as a heterosexual couple” (p363). What remains essential in the face of these forces is to hold our own awareness of our own personal gender and sexual identities, and the complexes associations that constitute the lived experience of both group members and conductors.

Conclusions.

This has been a very brief exploration of some of the considerations for me about how I work as a group analyst and the way the personal and foundation matrices become an integral part of group life.

References.

Barwick, N. (2018) Core Concepts. What Goes on in Groups? (Part 2). In Barwick N and Weegmann M. Group Therapy. A group Analytic Approach. Routledge London.

Dudley J and Caton M (2024). Looking beyond the ‘couple’: Exploring the relationship between co-conductors facilitating experiential groups for psychodynamic psychotherapy students. Group Analysis, 57(3), 349-366.

DOI: 10:1177/05333164241260419.

Foulkes SH (1964/2002). Therapeutic Group Analysis. Karnac, London.

Foulkes SH (1975/2002). Group Analytic Psychotherapy. Methods and principles. Karnac, London.

Stevenson S (2020). Psychodynamic intersectionality and the positionality of the group analyst: the tension between analytic neutrality and intersubjectivity. Group Analysis 53(4), 498-514. DOI: 10:1177/0533316420953660.