Group Cohesion and Coherency and a Threat of Loss in the Analytic Group

Abstract

We discuss the dynamics of an analytic group when a female member spoke about her three-year-old child suffering from a malignant disease. The group was slow-open and consisted of six members and the female therapist (the first author). The group held sessions one and a half hours a week for approximately five years. The therapist conducted the group in accordance with the theoretical background of Foulkes. During the period described in this article (10 months), the group went through hard times; they moved from an initial fear of disintegration to gradual recovery by working through the previous separation anxiety of individual members and of the group as a whole. We believe that the threatening loss (i.e., facing the fear of death) led to more profound interactions. In our opinion, the well-developed coherency very much contributed to the gradual recovery.