Past Events

Foulkes Lecture and Study Day 2009. Authority and Revolt: The Challenges of Group Leadership. Respondent: Wil Pennycook. Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre, City University London, Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB. Friday 15th May 2009 at 8:00pm.

Authority – and the failure of authority – is at the heart of current social problems, from youth crime to political leadership to global financial crisis. S.H. Foulkes adopted a particular view of authority in group analysis: authority should be vested in the group not the group leader (“conductor”). He advocated a “decrescendo” in the authority of the conductor and a “crescendo” in the authority of the group, encouraging a democratic spirit in group leadership. How does this view stand up to critical inquiry? Drawing on perspectives from group analysis, psychoanalysis, history and mythology – and with reference to visual art – Morris Nitsun argues that Foulkes’ model, commendable as it is, leaves a gap in understanding of our relationship to authority. His argument has implications for theory and clinical practice and for the application of group analysis outside the consulting room.

Morris Nitsun, Consultant Clinical Psychologist in Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust: formerly Head of Psychology and Psychotherapy in the North-East Thames NHS Trust for three decades (1971 – 2001); a training group analyst at the Institute of Group Analysis: and private practitioner at the Group Analytic Practice, London. He has published widely and his books “The Anti-group: destructive forces in the group and their creative potential” (1996) and “The Group as an Object of Desire” (2006) have been described as classics in the field.

Wil Pennycook. Group Analyst and Consultant Psychotherapist at the Maudsley Hospital where she is Lead Clinician for Group Psychotherapy. She is also an organizational consultant, with a long-standing interest in authority in relation to leadership.

Chaired by: Gerda Winther, President, Group-Analytic Society

Followed by the Foulkes Study Day. All day, Saturday 16th May, The Tavistock Centre, 120 Belsize Lane, London NW3 5BA. (nearest tube stations – Finchley Road or Swiss Cottage)

Mentalizing the Matrix. New Perspectives of ´Ego Training in Action`

Thursday 29 October - Sunday 1 November 2009

Venue: The Institute of Group Analysis, 1 Daleham Gardens, London NW3

It is more than fifty years since Foulkes first described the process of group analytic psychotherapy as ´ego training in action` (1957). Drawing from the insights of self psychology and the object relations approach, the concept was taken up and reworded by Dennis Brown who spoke of  ´self development through subjective interaction` (1994).  Meanwhile our understanding of the metapsychology of the ego and its actions within the therapeutic process in indvidual and group analysis has become enriched even more by the findings of attachment theory as developped by Bateman, Fonagy, Main and Target and also by recent research into the  neurobiological foundations of attachment behaviour, affect regulation and  memory systems.

The 38th Autumn Workshop on ´Mentalizing the Matrix` will address these developments. It is a clinical wokshop intended to offer ´ego training in action` for the participants.  This includes lectures & panels on mentalization based treatment (MBT) as well as the opportunity to  experience it in small groups guided by a team of international colleagues who have pioneered its application in groups and group analytic practice. Also, the workshop will offer a chance to explore the interface of MBT and its clinical value in comparison to more traditional ways of group analytic work.

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