Transference, transformations, constitution and resistance in psychoanalytic group work

Abstract

The author presents the possibility of doing therapeutic work with the technique of psychoanalytic psychodrama in a group of "antisocial" adolescent girls. He analyses, in particular, a specific type of transference in the group, which he calls "topical transference", which gives the group a dreamlike dimension. In this way, it is possible to bring out the double umbilical cord of the dream that operates in groups. This double umbilical cord is at the origin of resistance in group work, but above all in institutions. Recognition of this specificity allows fruitful work with groups within institutions. The author analyses the device of traditional care from group theorisations. He compares their differences in the treatment of unconscious conflicts. Through analysing the ways of approaching the Oedipal complex in groups, he demonstrates that the two main modes of transference described earlier are found in the exteriority/confidentiality dynamic. They establish inverse figure/background relations in the psychoanalytic group devices and classical psychoanalytic treatment.