Relational Psychoanalytic Sessions as Large Group Therapy with Two Representatives: Theoretical and Technical Issues of the “Group Turn” in Relational Psychoanalytic Thinking

Abstract

This paper offers theoretical formulations and technical considerations in the hope of facilitating a “group turn” in the relational psychoanalytic field. My approach, respecting relational foundations, extends them through the group lens. More specifically, I view relational psychoanalytic sessions as a “large group” process with two multi-objectified/subjectified representatives, the analyst and the analysand, interacting in a multilayered world of group attachments. I suggest that the dynamics and difficulties of certain types of patients can be understood further and more fully as multiple objects/subjects in this expanded model. In particular, patients with intergenerational traumas and/or accumulated traumatic attachments, patients who come from extended families, and patients with multiethnic identities can be helped with a “large group” perspective.