Special Section: Between Subjects and Matrix: Transitivity and the ‘Use of Objects’ in Group Therapy

Abstract

In this paper the author draws attention to how the images and themes in therapeutic groups evolve from the articulation of the ‘associative chains’, and how these evolve at a particular, intermediate, metaphorical semantic level, which is more ‘real’ (‘associative chains’), because of the inter-subjective nature of this process. The construction of images and thematic objects and their ‘use’ by the group, in Winnicottian terms, comprises one of the most productive and creative functions of the group in group therapy.