Innerer Raum und äußere Räume

Abstract

Mental Space and External Space The paper describes some connections between outer reality (rooms, architecture) and inner reality (mental space). Potsdam and the University of Applied Sciences, hosting the first annual meeting of the German Society for Group Analysis and Group Psychotherapy D3G, serve as examples. "Raum" (Space) is a common metaphor in psychotherapy and group analysis. Concepts and ideas about "space" in physics and sociology are described with reference to their use in groups and psychotherapy. Unfamiliar rooms can be challenging. They may cause anxiety, thrill and raise wishes to act and change these "new" rooms into rooms more familiar to ones own mental spaces. The paper suggests that it is necessary for group analysts to be able to adapt to unfamiliar outer realities (here: architectural and social rooms) - even to those, which appear uncomfortable or ugly at first sight. Unwillingness to adapt to unfamiliar rooms may narrow the use of group analysis and group psychotherapy and the mental spaces they occupy.