This paper suggests an integration of two therapeutic domains in which the author was trained and certified: group analysis and bioenergetic analysis. Bioenergetic analysis is a psychodynamic psychotherapy, which sees the individual as a psychosomatic unity and combines work with the body and the mind. The author considers the pioneering book The Group as an Object of Desire by Morris Nitsun as a facilitating environment for the ideas of this paper to be accepted. Nitsun opens up the importance, on one hand, and the neglect, on the other hand, of sexuality and the body in the discourse of group analysis. The paper brings the body to the front of group analysis. It illuminates the body as the stage on which the drama of shame occurs. The paper discusses five dimensions of shame, categorized into five degrees of pathology, having to do with the developmental stages in which it occurred. The most archaic one (degree 1) is the most malignant and inhibits the social life of the individual. The fifth degree, social shame, is necessary in order to be part of society. A bridge of understanding between group analysis and bioenergetic analysis is suggested in which social shame, the more superficial one, serves as a defence against or displacement of the bodily shame. The ultimate space for working, therapeutically, on shame is the group, provided the body is not dissociated from the arena. A clinical example of working with a group in the integrated model is described, followed by a discussion. It is suggested to consider the matrix as the group body-mind instead of only the group mind.

This article explores the history of the exclusion/inclusion of the body in group analytic theory and practice. At the same time, it aims to promote the subject of the body in the mind of group analysts. The main thesis of the article is that sitting in a circle, face-to-face, is a radical change in the transition Foulkes made from psychoanalysis to group analysis. The implications of this transition have not been explored, and in many cases, have been denied. The article describes the vicissitudes of relating group analysis to the body from the time of Foulkes and Anthony’s work until today. The article claims that working with the body in the group demands that the conductor gives special attention to his/her own bodily sensations and feelings, while at the same time remaining cognizant of the fact that each of the participants is a person with a physical body in which their painful history is stored, and that they may be dissociated because of that embodied history. The thesis of the article is followed by a clinical example. The article ends with the conclusion that being in touch with one’s own body demands a lot of training.

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The aim of this article is to study the impact of parallel processes operating in the overlapping dimensions of history, politics, society, organization, staff and group participants. The focus of the article is the effort to try and make personal sense of and reach a professional understanding of an annihilating, painful process that took place due to combined forces, which will also be examined. These forces, which are of an unconscious, preconscious and conscious character, are very powerful and still exist. Bion's concepts of alpha and beta elements, as applied to organizations, and Nitsun's concept of the anti-group will be discussed as theoretical background that can explain some of the destructive forces. Some moderating factors essential to processes of survival and re-creation and other conclusions will also be discussed.

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