Die Zukunft der Gruppenpsychotherapie und Gruppenanalyse

Abstract

Summary The Future of Group Psychotherapy and Group Analysis Although in Hebrew we say “From the day of the destruction of the temple, prophecy was given to the fools”, in this article I try to foresee and predict possible developments in group psychotherapy and group analysis in the next ten years. The article focuses on the longterm consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s mind and behaviours, especially in the therapeutic field and specifically for online groups. The online revolution expands beyond the impact of the pandemic and impacts the sense of self as a decentered polymorphous phenomenon, which in turn affects group therapy. In addition, taking into consideration the world politics and social processes, including the rise of populistic political movements and narcissistic charismatic leaders, I assume that leading therapy groups will suffer from impinging and penetrating the boundaries of the group, affecting the relationship with the group analyst due to “failed dependency”. Adding the powerful social movements of “Me Too” and “Black Lives Matter”, the multicultural nature of almost all countries nowadays, and the waves of immigration that shook the world in the previous decade, group therapy cannot escape being affected by these processes, and the 4th basic assumption of Incohesion: Massification and Aggregation, would become ubiquitous in groups.