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J.D. Sutherland

Bion RevisitedGroup Dynamics and Group Psychotherapy*

Bion's First Statement

Bion's account of his experiences with groups falls intotwo parts. The first contains the description of hismethod of work, the phenomena he noted following itsuse and the tentative theories he evolved to understandthem. While he regards his views as an exten sion ofFreud 's (1922 ), his whole thinking has a quitedistinctive character. Like Freud, he refers frequently tovery different entities by the word group, e.g. , toorganizations, or institutions such as the church and thearmy, and to such ill-defined groupings as "thearistocracy." His theories, however, stem from hisobservations in his "laboratory," the small group, and itis against the background of this "pure culture" that wehave to appraise them.

In Experiences in Groups (Bion, 1961), he refers totwo groups, each with a different task as perceived bythe members at the start. In one, composed of "non-patients," the accepted aim was to study group behavior.In the other, the members were patients seeking helpfrom a medical clinic. After an interview, the psychiatristexplained to each prospective patient that an

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understanding of his conflicts in personal relationshipscould help in the amelioration of his symptoms. Suchunderstanding was facilitated by meeting in a group inwhich relationships could be studied as they developed.To Bion, the use of his approach, i.e. one in which thesole activity of the leader or therapist is to makeinterpretations of the phenomena in the group as thesedevelop, made any difference between the two groupsirrelevant. The different expectations of members in theopening phase, however, are reflected in the groups. Infact his main references are to the therapeutic groups inwhich a strictly group-centered stance is stressed.

We readily recognize that the development of hismethod was in itself a major achievement. With aremarkable courage from his convictions, he

*A shorten ed version of the origina l in M. Pines(Editor), Bion and Group Psychotherapy. London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.

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showed that a psychoanalytic approachpermitted the exposure of unrecognized, irrational andpowerful relationships that were specific to the groupsituation. Bion was explicit on the highly subjectivenature of his method, especially in its use of counter-transference feelings and in the detection of processes ofprojective identification wherein the therapist picks up thefeelings of the members through what he senses they areprojecting into him. As in psychoanalysis, the observerlearns to attend to two levels of mental activity: themanifest conscious and the latent subconscious andunconscious. It is its subjectivity that arouses so muchantipathy in those who consider that scientific researchinto human relationships can rest only on behavioraldata. Nevertheless, that he had described something thatilluminated the depths of group phenomena was clearfrom the remarkably rapid and widespread interest in hisobservations. There was little doubt that his work hadmade a profound stir in the new field of group dynamics.Nearly four decades later it continues to be as evocativeas it was at the start—and a short scan of the history oftheoretical views in psychology and the social sciencesduring the century readily shows that to be a quiteunusual distinction.

To sustain the efforts of any group around its taskrequires in the first place a readiness to co-operate,which, for Bion, is a sophisticated product from years ofexperience and training. Next, the mental activityrequired to further the task must be of a particular kind,because judgments about the nature and origin of actualphenomena and actions designed to overcome

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difficulties presented by them have to be testedagainst constant interaction with reality. In short, asopposed to any magical solutions, it must involverational thinking with consequent learning anddevelopment, i.e. , ego-activity. It is this capacity tosustain task-focussed activity that the unorganized groupgreatly alters through the persist ent interfe rence fromcompetin g mental activit ies associa ted, in Bion's view,with powerful emotional drives. These conflicting forcesat first seemed to have little in common except to opposethe task by creating a group that would satisfy theemotional needs of members as these become prominent.This state of the group Bion termed the "groupmentality," and the way in which it might express itself,e.g., to find another leader, he described as the "groupculture." These concepts, however, he soon found didnot clarify sufficiently what his further experienceperceived, namely, patterns of behavior that gripped thegroup into a relatively specific group mentality inopposition to the work activit y. Bion named thesepatterns "basic assumpti ons" (bas) of which heidentified baD (dependence), baF (fight/flight) and baP(pairing). In the dependent group, the basic assumptionis that one person is there to provide security bygratifying the group's longings through magic. After aninitial period of relief, individuals tend to react againstthe assumption because of the infantile demandingnessand greed it engenders. Nevertheless, when he con-fronted the group with the dependence assumption takingover, Bion noted that

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a hostile response to any intervention by himfrequently revealed more than a resentment against hisrefusal to provide the magical pabulum. A longing for amore permanent and comprehensive support was to beseen in the raising of relig ious themes , with the groupfeeli ng that its "reli gion, " in which the thera pist is aphant asied deity , was being taken from it. Fight andfligh t appeared as reactions to what the group wanted toavoid, namely, the work activity (W) that forced it toconfront the need to develop by giving up primitivemagical ideas. The ineffectiveness of these solutions ledat times to a different activity, for which Bion postulatedthe assumption of pairing. Pairing occurred repeatedly inhis groups in the form of two members, irrespective ofsex, getting into a discussion. To his surprise, this waslistened to attentively, with no sign of impatience frommembers whose own problems usually pressed them toseek the center of attenti on for themselv es. Thereseemed to be a shared unconscious phantasy that sexwas the aim, with reproduction as a means of meeting apowerful need to preserve the group as a group.

As mentioned, the group dominated by an assumptionevolves an appropriate culture to express it, e.g. , thedependent group establishes a leader who is felt to behelpful in supplying what it wants. Moreover, theassumptions can be strong enough for members to becontrolled by them to the extent of their thinking andbehavior becoming almost totally unrealistic in relationto the work task. The group is then for each member anundifferentiated whole into which he or she is pressedinexorably to conform and in which each has lostindependent individuality. The individual experiences

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this loss as disturbing, and so the group is in more orless constant change from the interaction of the basicassumptions, the group culture and the individualstruggling to hold on to his or her individuality.

Basic assumptions originate within the individual aspowerful emotions associated with a specific cluster ofideas which compel the individual to behave accordinglyand also to be attracted to those imbued with the samefeeling with an immediacy that struck Bion as moreanalogous to tropisms than to purposive behavior. Thesebonds Bion termed "valency" because of the chemical-like nature of the attraction.

As primal motivating forces, the basic assumptionssupply a fundamental thrust to all activity, yet the drivetowards interaction with the real environmentremains themore powerful dynamic in the long run, for, without thatadaptive urge, survival would not be possible. Thedifficulties of reality interactions, however, are great.The physical environment may present insolubleproblems; but it is the socia l facto rs that becomepromin ent in their effec ts on the capacities of theindividual when work demands co-operation with all thegive and take that entails. The frustrations in sustainingwork activity are thus perpetually liable to induce theregressed behavior of the assumptions. The more theindividual becomes identified with a basic assumption,the more does

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he or she get a sense of security and vitality from fusionwith the group, along with the pull back to the sharedillusory hopes of magical omnipotent achievementinherent in the phantasies of the assumption. From allthese sources there is derived what Bion described as ahatred of learning, a profound resistance to staying in thestruggle with the reality task until some action gives theexperience of mastery of at least a part of it, i.e. , untildevelopment of new inner resources occurs.

The appeal of each assumption rests in the associatedemotion which gets a characteristic quality from thespecific phantasies and ideas it involves. Theassumptions do not conflict with each other. Instead,they change from one to another and conflict occurs onlybetween them and the work group. When one ba iscombined with work activity, however, the other bas aresuppressed. A further observation Bion made was theway in which the ba group could change to its "dual."Thus the dependent group under the frustrations of theleader's failure to gratify its longings could reverse rolesso that the group treated the leader as the one in need ofhelp. In this connection, he also noted the tendency of thedependent group when left to its own devices to chooseas leader the most disturbed member, as if it could bestdepend on someone of its own kind, as dependent asitself—the familiar genius, madman or fanatic.

The interrelations of the bas, plus the tenacity andexclusiveness with which the emotions and ideas arebound together in each ba, led Bion to what he felt was atheoretical impasse which no available psychologicalexplanation could illumine. He therefore postulated a

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metapsychological notion that transcends experiencein the form of a proto-mental system in which theprototype of each ba exists "as a whole in which no partcan be separated from the rest." The emotion in eachindividual that starts the ba progresses to thepsychological manifestations that can be identified.

The physical and the mental are undifferentiated in thebasic levels of this system, a feature which led to hissuggestion that certain illnesses, e.g. , those in which asubstantial psychosomatic component has long beenrecognized, might well be diseases of certainconditi ons in groups. To test such ideas needed muchlarger populations than the small group could provide,but he hoped it might be done in order to establish thebasic assumptions as clinical entities.

Bion's concluding observations become increasinglyconcerned with aspects of group dynamics in general,e.g. , the oscillations in attitudes to the leader as leaderof the assumption group or of the work group, or splitsin the group. On the relationship of the individual to thegroup, he agrees with Freud that a group instinct is notprimitive and that the individual's groupishnessoriginates in his or her upbringing within the family.Bion adds to these, however, from his observations theview that, while the group adds nothing to the individual,certain aspects of individual psychology cannot beexplained

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except by reference to the matrix of the group as the onlysituation that evokes them. The individual loses his orher distinctiveness when in a basic assumption group,i.e. , one in which individuality is swamped by the groupvalencies. When it has to deal with realities, such agroup has to change, or perish.

Earlier I noted that most of Bion's references were tohis therapeutic groups and he states how he believes theiraim is furthered. His first and most emphatic view is thatany help individuals may get from the group situationtowards understanding themselves more fully rests onthe extent to which they can recognize themselves as tornbetween the pull of the basic groups and membership ofthe work group which represents ego functioning. Forthis reason, any interventions from the therapist directedto the psychopathology of the individual must be avoidedbecause they are destructive of the experience of the basicgroup. By adhering strictly to his standpoint, heconcluded that individuals do become less oppressed bybasic group activity within themselves. In other words,what he asserts is that by showing the group the ways inwhich it avoids its task through regressing todependency, fight/flight or pairing, it can become morework oriented and so further the development bylearning of all members.

Much of the subsequent criticism of Bion's approach asa psychotherapeutic method arises, I believe, from afailure to keep his aims clear and especially to avoid theconfusion which the use of the word therapeutic, andespecially psychotherapeutic, has engendered. To thoseseeking to use the group situation in a

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psychother apeut ic way, i.e. , to cope with theenormo us diver sity of neurotic behavior and its uniqueconfiguration in every individual, work has to be basedon our understanding of psychopathology. The groupprocesses must therefore be directly relatable to the latter.Bion's approach in fact originated in the problem ofneurosis as a social one, i.e. , how does the largeorganization cope with the failu res of its members tocomply with its work task. The opening sentences inhis book make plain that, for him, "group therapy" canmean the thera py of indiv idual s in group s, in whichcase neuro sis is the problem of the individual, but thatin the treatment of the group it has to be a problem of thegroup.

His conception of group therapy may then be put asfollows: the individual contains within his or her innateendowment certain potential patterns which are releasedin the unorganized group. This unorganized group is nota special kind of group identifiable by its externalfeatures, but a state of mind that can overtake any group.Once elicited, these patterns or basic assumptions bondthe individuals together to give security by preserving thegroup as a unity and by seeking a course of action for itgoverned largely by magical phantasies. These pattern sremove the individuals' distinctivene ss, i.e. , theiroverall modes of dealing with their own purposes asfashioned by their learning from the experience ofreality. Because these modes—ego functioning—arealways

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present in some measure, a conflict between ego andabsorption in any basic assumption behavior is neverabsent. Such group-determined behavior is a seriouslimitation to the individuals in any group when faced withan unfamiliar task. They tend to feel in an unorganizedstate, so their capacity to tackle the task realisticallybecomes quite unreliable. (The commonest remarks afterintensive exposure to the unorganized group situation atGroup Relations Conferences run on the Tavistock modelare those describing feelings of being "de-skilled.") Tohave developed a method whereby these group dynamicscan be experienced in adequate depth, and to have shownsome of the requirements in the leader for the applicationof this method, is an extremely valuable contribution tothe whole study of group dynamics. His findings canassist those responsible for groups coping with tasks tonote when their effectiveness is impaired by ba behavior,and this kind of experience features prominently in manymanagement training schemes.

It is a quite separate issue, however, to appraise thevalue of the principles underlying Bion's work in relationto the use of groups for analytical psychotherapy. Thedistinction between the study of group dynamics andgroup therapy has become a clear one in the coursesdeveloped by A .K . Rice and his associates, as was seenin the staff attitude to any individual who got intoserious personal difficulties during a conference. Thestaff arranged to get the help needed, but it would notconfuse its own role by attempting to provide psychiatrichelp itself. The strict use of B ion's approach has neverbeen widely adopted by analytical psychotherapists, noteven in the Tavistock Clinic. Many have, however, made

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more systematic use of the group situation in theirinterpretations than have most other therapists, in thesense of trying to base these strictly on the here-and-nowdynamics in the group situation as a whole.

Although we can agree on a separation of these twotasks, we are left with many unsolved questions thataffect our understanding of both. To state that theindividual's groupishness is an inherent property in hisor her makeup as a social animal has not really carriedforward our understanding of its nature and origin. Arethe phenomena of the basic assumptions as specific tothe group situation as he asserts? There is no questionthat, when activated by them, individuals can show aremarkable capacity to abandon their distinctiveness.The group gives a prominence to these responses byintensifying them, yet they do not appear to be differentfrom the primitive relationships that can be seen inindividual treatment, especially in light of our furtherknowledge of the earliest stages of the development ofthe person.

One feature of Bion's thought that I believe isunrecognized by him is his underlying adherence toconcepts of energy as in the classical psychoanalytictheories of Freud. Thus basic assumptions originate asemotions which are viewed as sources of energy, andBion is then puzzled by the specific clusters of phantasiesaround them. Phantasies are of imagined relationshipsand, if we

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take emotions to be the affective coloringaccompanying any relationship, their specific quality isdetermined by the specifics of the relationships. Thedependence and pairing assumptions are much morecomplex in this respect than the others. They can bereadily seen as the prototypes of human relationships, e.g.as infantile dependence in which the self and the objectare not differentiated, becoming the more differentiatedclinging or attachment to a differentiated object in bapairing. Fight and flight are the basic responses of allanimals to situations that evoke pain or the threat ofdanger. Bion seems to sense the problem of theindividual and the group as needing a good deal offurther clarification, and the choice he made for his nextstep was to turn his microscope, to use his ownmetaphor, back to the earliest stages of individualdevelopment. This move leads to a major amplification inhis understanding of the dynamics of all groups.

Re-View of the First Statement

In his re-view of the dynamics of the group, Bion "hopesto show that in his contact with the complexities of life ina group the adult resorts, in what may be a massiveregression, to mechanisms described by Melanie Klein astypical of the earliest phases of mental life." This task of"establishing contact with the emotional life of the group. . . would appear to be as formidable to the adult as therelationship with the breast appears to be to the infant,and the failure to meet the demands of this task isrevealed in his regression." The two main features ofthis regression are, first, a belief that the group exists as

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an entity which is endowed with characteristics by eachindividual. Distinct individuals become lost and thegroup is treated as if it were another person. Second is thechange within the individual that accompanies his or herregressed perception of the group. For this change Bionquotes Freud's description of the loss of the individual'sdistinctiveness, with the addition that the individual'sstruggle to retain it varies with the state of the group.Organization helps to maintain work group activity, andindeed that is its aim.

In the work group, individuals remain individuals andco-operate, whereas in the basic assumption group theyare swept spontaneously by the "valency" ofidentification, the primitive gregarious quality in thepersonality, into the undifferentiated unity of the bagroup in which inner realities overwhelm therelationship with the real task.

Although starting his re-view with the regression ingroups as their most striking feature, he emphasizesagain the fundamental dynamic of the work group,which also has its combination of emotions and ideas.Especially important is the idea that development andthe validity of learning by experience is the impetus inthe individual to possess the autonomy of his own mental

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life. It is as if there was a recognition "of the painfuland often fatal consequences of having to act without anadequate grasp of reality." Despite the dominantinfluence of the basic assumptions over it at times, workactivity is what takes precedence eventually—as it must.Freud, following Le Bon, believed the intellectual abilityof the group was reduced, but Bion disagrees. Hisexperience is that, even when basic assumptions areactive, the group shows high-level intellectual work inthe assimilation of interpretations. Although this workgoes on in a segregated part of the mind with little overtindication, its presence has to be assumed from the wayin which interpretations, ostensibly ignored, arenevertheless worked upon between sessions withsubsequent reports from individuals of how they hadbeen thinking of them, though they meant nothing at thetime they were made. It is only in activity of the workgroup that words are used normally, i.e. , with theirsymbolic significance. The basic assumption groups, bycontrast, use language as a mode of action and arethereby deprived of the flexibility of thought thatdevelopment requires.

Bion considerably amplifies what he now discerns inthe bas. This development is related to his much greaterfamiliarity with primitive mental processes and theirdetection by an increased responsiveness to projectiveidentification as described by Melanie Klein (1940). Hebelieves this method, which requires a psychoanalyticallytrained observer, is the only one that can detect theimportant subjective processes. Conclusions based on itsuse have to be appraised by the effect of interventions

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and by the experience of many observers over time.

In the dependent group, he adds to the expectation oftreatment from the therapist, a much more primitivephantasy of being literally fed by him. At a lessprimitive level he again stresses the presence of aprojected deity who is clung to with tenaciouspossessiveness. The sexual phantasies which character-ized the pairing group, with the possible implication ofreproduction as preserving the group, are now taken to bethe result of a degree of rationalization. Nevertheless,Oedipal sexual phantasies are present much of the timein all of the assumptions. They are not, however, ofFreud's classical type, but of the much more primitivenature described by Klein (1932). According to her, thephantasies of very young children show, as the self isemerging in relation to its objects, themes of the parentsmutually incorporating parts of each other. Hungrysadistic urges abound that the child attributes to one orboth figures by its identification with them. The childcan then experience a psychotic or disintegrative degreeof anxiety from the fear of being the object of retaliatoryattacks. It then splits off the part of its self involved inthe relationship and attempts to get rid of it by projectiveidentification. These primitive Oedipal relationships,according to Bion, are distributed in various ways among(i) the

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individual, (ii) the group felt as one fragmentedindividual with (iii) a hidden figure, the leader, usedhere by detaching him from his role as leader of thework group. A further addition to the Oedipal figures,one ignored in the classical formulation, is the sphinx—a role carried by the therapist and the work group. Thecuriosity of the individual about the group and thetherapist evokes the dread associated with the infant'sphantasied intrusions to get at and to devour what isinside the mother and what goes on in the phantasiedprimal scene.

The anxieties inherent in the primitive phantasies,sexual and other, are instinctively responded to by anattempt to find "allies," figures with whom the feeling ofa close contact can bring reassurance. Bion accordinglysuggests this need as a powerful stimulus to the creationof the pairing group. Another factor in its establishmentand maintenance, also operative with no regard to the sexof the pair, is the feeli ng of hope, not a phant asy of afutur e event , but a "feelin g of hope itself. " Thisfeeling he takes to be the opposi te of all the strongnegative feelings of hatred, destructiveness and despairand it is sustained by the idea of finding a saviour, aMessiah essentially, an idea that must never be realized.

The fight/flight groups are, as would be expected, muchless associated with complex phantasied relationships,since they have the relatively simple aim of getting rid ofthe threat of danger when no other assumption or activityseems appropriate. On this group Bion (1961) makes,almost as an aside, what I find to be a remarkablestatement: "The fight/flight group expresses a sense of

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incapacity for understanding and the lovewithout which understanding cannot exist" (my italics). Ido not think its full implications are taken up by Bion inregard to the emergence of any of the assumptions and tothe role of the leader, topics to which I shall return.

Recognition of their more specific contents leads Bionto reconsider the status of his notions about the basicassumptions. There was no doubt they were helpful inordering the chaotic manifestations in the group, but, inview of the primitive phantasies related to them, theynow appeared as derivatives of these more fundamentalprocesses. All the assumptions drive the group to find aleader, yet none of them is felt to establish a satisfactorystate in the group. There is consequently perpetualinstability with changes from one assumption to anotherwith all those remaining opposed to learning anddevelopment. For all these manifestations, and for theirvery existence, Bion could find no explana tion. Theexposur e of primitiv e phantas ies and the anxieti esthey induce now made it clear that the basic assumptionswere derivatives whose function is to defend the groupagainst these anxieties becoming too intense. Asdefenses, however, they are all inadequate because oftheir segregation from any reality-testing. For Bion, thedynamics of the group could now be

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adequately experienced and understood only by theworking out of these primitive primal scene phantasiesas the factors underlying the basic assumptions and theircomplex inter-relationships.

Bion always kept Freud's views on groups in mind, andso he now looked at where he stood in relation to them.Leaving aside the references made to complex socialorganizations such as the church and the army, he re-asserts his agreement with Freud in rejecting the need topostulate a herd instinct. For him the individual is a groupanimal by nature, yet at war with the group and withthose forces in him that determine his groupishness. Thelatter is in no way created by the group; it is merelyactivated and exposed by it. The impact of the group onthe individual's distinctiveness springs from the state ofmind in the group, i.e. , the degree to which its lack oforganization and structure fails to keep work activity, acontact with reality, the dominant activity. In the orga-nized group the bond between members is one of co-operation, whereas in an unorganized state the bondsbecome the valencies of the basic assumption states.Bion sees McDougall's (192o) criteria for the organizedgroup as the conditions that suppress the basicassumption trends in the members by keeping themrelated to reality.

The bonding from valency is a more primitive processthan that from libido, which Bion takes to operate only inthe pairing group. Freud's view of the bond to the leaderas almost entirely an introjection of him by the ego (Biondoes not mention Freud's ego-ideal as a separatestructure) is again only part of the relationship to aleader. For Bion, Freud does not recognize the much

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more potentially dangerous bonding that arises in theassumption groups. Here the individual does notintroject a leader who carries power for him through hiscontact with external reality. The leader in the basicassumption exhibits features that appeal to theassumption state in the members, who thereforeprojectively identify with him. This leader is thus asmuch a part of the assumption state as the members andjust as divorced from external reality, so that he leads asoften to disaster as not. Freud's view of the leader as theego-ideal led him to see panic in military groups asfollowing the loss of the leader. Bion thinks this accountis not right, for panic arises when the situation might asreadily give rise to rage as fear. Intense fight/flightbehavior may resemble panic, but for Bion the group canwell be still related to the leader on such occasions.Panic occurs when a situation arises completely outwiththe purposes of the group and its associatedorganization.

Freud saw in the group the kind of relationships presentin the family when the individual has developed to thestage of the traditional Oedipus complex, i.e. , itsemotional features were neurotic in character with themain sources of anxiety being the fears of loss of love orof being castrated. Bion saw them as deriving from muchearlier phases in which the fears are of disintegration, i.e.,loss of the self or madness. His belief that the onlyfeasible therapeutic help in

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the group lies in the individual experiencing itsprimitive emotions and attitudes to him is againmaintained.

Much as Bion has contributed, we are left with whatseem to be the crucial questions about groupsunanswered. What does the individual's groupishnessrest on? We have Freud's libidinal bonds supplementedby valencies from primitive projective identificationswith a great deal about "mechanisms," all manifested asthe individual's distinctiveness is removed. This regressedstate, moreover, can come and go with a high degree oflability. For Bion, this distinctiveness is placed inopposition to the groupishness conceived as theexpression of emotions with which the individual has tobe at war. Freud, on the other hand, sees the conflict asbetween the id and the culture of the individual's societyinternalized in his or her own super-ego and ego-ideal.Adult or mature groupishness, if we might put it that way,rests for Bion on cooperation, the sophisticated productof years of training. It is like an activity imposed on thefreedom of the individual to be "doing his own thing"and accepted more or less reluctantly. How can such anachievement vanish within a few minutes in theunorganized situation of Bion's groups? Both Freud andBion from their psychoanalytic studies have emphasizedthat individual and group psychology constitute the samefield of study. If we accept that position we are a longway from understanding it. The intimate inter-relatednessof the individual with his social field strongly suggeststhat we are dealing with the individual as a highly opensystem maintained in his organization by appropriateinput from a social field itself structured to provide this

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input. The phenomena seem to require theorganization concept of open systems, which neitherFreud nor Bion had.

Though stressing the highly tentative and limitedstatus of his study of groups, Freud has reachedconclusions of great significance. He has made it clearthat what happens in any group is a particular instance ofthe relationship between the individual's inner world andhis social world. Thus he has answered his questionsabout the group by expanding an answer to the unstatedquestion of what is an individual. He had to advance thetheory of the ego and its relationships by showing that asub-system within the ego, the ego-ideal, entered intorelationships that differed in character from those of theego. Moreover, the most striking feature from hisconclusions is the open and rapid dynamic transactionsthat can occur in the group whereby the individual,sensing his own inability and that of the other membersto act effectively, can promptly alter the boundary of hisself to internalize the leader as a part of it and so tosurrender his previous distinctiveness in favor of a lessmature organization of his self. Viewed in terms ofFreud's metapsychology, and the meta-science availableto him, with the dynamics of the person based upon theredistribution of psychic energies, the phenomena couldnot be adequately conceptualized. We are clearlyconfronted again with problems of the organi-

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zation of the individual as a highly open system in anenvironment which reacts with him in a correspondinglyopen way. Individual and environment are structured by,and within, each other.

Recent Psychoanalytic Conceptions ofthe Individual and Social Relatedness

Clinical work and child observation studies of the last fewdecades have shown that the personality acquires thecapacity to make effective relations with others only whenthere has been early experience of being treated as aperson by the mother, and later the father, withstimulating encouraging interactions conveyed with joy.The satisfaction of physical needs has to be supplementedby a social input that meets the need to become a person.There appears to be from an early stage an overallGestalt that gives to the potential self a feeling of thingsbeing right or not. Bodily sensations and the affectsaccompanying many specific behavioral systems allcontribute to the affective tone in the self, yet a generalmalaise, even to the point of death, can follow from afailure in being personalized by appropriate mothering.Child studies show the dramatic results under certainconditions of deprivation, e.g. , when a consistent mater-nal relationship is absent (see Spitz, 1965). Clinicalfindings from the more seriously distorted personalitiesemphasize lifelong feelings of never having been valuedfor themselves as with cold or indifferent mothers or,more frequently, with mothers experienced as imposingpreconceptions that denied powerful urges to develop

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autonomously (see Lichtenstein, 1977). Theself-system is thus structured by the internalization ofthe relationship between mother and child,undifferentiated at the start then progressively separatedthroughout the long period of human dependence.

Early structuring of the personality is inevitablydominated by the physical closeness in which themother's attitudes are communicated through innumer-able signa ls in her whole handl ing of, and respo nsesto, her child . The emotional experiences are graduallycohered by consistent reliable mothering into a primaryor central self. This integration is a labile process withthreats to it producing at times intense anxiety andaggression. Negative feelings from the inevitablefrustrations are separated from this primary self, butwith ordinary care these divisions are diminished so that asufficiently coherent, resilient self become s thedominant mediat or in relat ing to the envir onment .The primary self remains the visible self, the one adaptedto the mother. Should the latter have failed to facilitatedevelopment sufficiently well, this primary self acquiresdistortions of its capacity to relate, and when negativeexperiences have been strong enough, substantialdivisions within the structure of the self-system areformed. These sub-selves embody frustrated needs,especially for

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unmet recognition as a valued person, and theaggressive reactions to the frustrating mother linkedwith fears of her retaliation. The self-systems eachretain a self-pole and an object -pole, with an imago ofthe kind of parent desired or feared and hated. Theprimary self relates to the outer world and so learns fromits expanding experience. The sub-selves, whileremaining highly dynamic as portions of the originalself, have to find covert outlets—the processes describedin the whole of psychopathology—because their aimshave to be hidden from the feared parental attacks.

Defenses or control measures are evolved by the centralself in keeping with its reality pressures and incorporatedinto its patterning. When the urges cannot be managed inthis way they constitute a secret self in conflict with thecentral one. Stabilizing factors such as family and work,or selected social groups, all assist in their control,though the precarious balance shows when the function-ing of the central reality-related self is altered as by drugsor by changes in the social environment. The central selfordinarily copes with such changes but removal ofsecurity-pinnings from it rapidly leads to the emergenceof subsystem dominance.

When the imagos constituting the object-poles in theinner relationships are facilitative, the impact of infantilesexuality is worked through without undue trouble.Marked divisions in the self make for serious difficultiesbecause the new urges to closeness are dealt with in theirterms, e.g., hostile imagos evoke anxieties about rejectionand retaliation and so lead to the fusion of aggression andsexuality in sadistic and perverse expression in which theobject becomes in varying measure de-personalized.

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The essential change in this way of conceiving theperson is from one based on theories of psychic energiesto one dealing with the organization of experience ofrelationships in an open system interacting with thesocial environment. Because of the incompletedifferentiation of self and object, relations in the primaryself are characterized by identifications and urges to haveomnipotent magical control with regressive clinging toobjects for security against the threat of "going to bits."With growing appreciation of reality and differentiationof self and others, the primary self is progressivelysuperseded by a strengthened definition of the selfthrough satisfactions from talents and skills. Attachmentto others changes to relationships based on sharedactivities. Goals and purposes become organized, andvalues add to the integration of the self. The personalityacquires its characteristic configuration, i.e., its identity(see Erikson, 1959), and, in keeping with the uniquelyevolved patterns from its specific experience, theindividual requires constant affirmation from the socialmilieu. The constant need for this "pyschosocialmetabolism" in maintaining a normal degree of effectiveintegrated functioning is readily exposed when sectionsof the environment are removed, quite apart from anyinterference with the biologically rooted sexual andprocreational needs. Populations dis-

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placed from their usual cultural setting showwidespread indications of disorganization as in the riseof illnesses of all kinds, not only psychiatric. Again,when individuals lose a feeling of personal significancein their work, similar stress manifestations occur (seeTrist and Bamforth, 1951). These deprivationsdisorganize the most developed adaptive functioning ofthe social self, and lead to the increased dominance ofthe primary self with its insecurities and more primitivecompulsive relations. Such regressive disorganization isalmost universal. With individuals whose sub-systems area constant threat, the loss of their usual sources ofrelative security confronts them with the extra danger oftheir secret selves being exposed.

The origin and nature of the individual's groupishnessis thus no problem. From the very start he cannot survivewithout his needs for social relatedness being met.

There is no phase in the life-cycle in which man canlive apart from his groups. Bion's statement that theindividual is at war "with himself for being a groupanimal and with those aspects of his personality thatconstitute his groupishness" therefore has to beexamined.

Group Dynamics and Group Psychotherapy

GROUP DYNAMICS

From the view of the individual I have sketched, theimportant questions about groups are those devoted to the

28

conditions that take away the factors in socialenvironment that ordinarily keep his self-system in itsnormal integration. Bion stated that the basic assumptionsare states of mind the individuals in the group get into.He then described these states and what seemed toconstitute them. What he uncovered was the emergenceof the primary mechanisms of relatedness, those of thedeveloping infant to the breast/mother, and it is theintense anxieties associated with these mechanisms thatdrive the group into the assumptions. The individual'sstate of mind in them, however, remains a moredeveloped organization than would pertain exclusively totheir earliest phase. In the latter, differentiation ofexternal objects hardly exists, whereas in theassumptions there are intense needs to relate to a leaderand to each other. The phase in development that appearsto be activated here is that of separation-individuation(Mahler et al. , 1975). As described earlier, this phaseextends over several years, and a range in the depth ofregression is to be expected. The dominant characteristicof this early self is its primal instinctive type ofrelationship, the precursors of the maturer ones in whichthe external reality of others is appreciated. The more thedevelopmental elaborations around the

29

earliest structures are put out of action the moreprimitive the levels that are exposed. Ba dependence canbe interpreted as the re-emergence of this stage in whichthe need for closeness gives to identifications aconsiderable urgency and immediacy; and the phantasyclusters around them represent the ways in which this isevoke d, e.g., by being fed or prote cted or held inparen tal security. Fight/flight responses similarly showthis level of identification to provide security. As Biondescribed, the urgency of the identifications can makethe whole group an undifferentiated object within whichthe greatest security is to be found. Pairing is clearly amore developed state in which more precise definition ofthe self is sought in the relationship with one other. At thedeepest levels it can activate the mother-child pair, inwhich case the attraction affirms the existence of the self.As he puts it, an ally against the dread of isolation inface of mounting anxiety is then provided. The fact thatthe rest of the group preserves it by giving the pair theirrapt attention suggests that for them it has become theirsecurity, either from the primitive relationship or by thiscombined with the parental sexual couple, byidentification with the pair.

Regression to these stages represents the removal ofthe influence of later structuring and an inability torecover it. The awareness of the group remains in itsregressed form because the group is there and so restrainsfurther disintegration which would be tantamount topsychotic states, an eventuality that the early structuringof the self also resists desperately. The problems of

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group dynamics thus become those of how thenormal affirmations of the self system are removed. Thesituations of groups in this respect are of almost infinitevariety. Thus when Bion said that certain illnesses mightoriginate as diseases of the group, he thought specificillnesses might prove to be linked to specific states of thegroup. So far this has not been established, though thereis much evidence now to show that disruptions of someareas of normal relatedness, as in groups displaced fromtheir familiar environment, lead to increased illness ofall kinds, physical and psychological. In view of thiscomplexity of factors, it is best for present purposes toconsider Bion's groups only. Here the most prominentstem from the task. Although there may have been somenominal description such as "to study group processes,"none of the members has any clear notion of what thattask involves. There is therefore immediately aconsiderable loss for the self of its ego anchorage inreality. Important also is the realization that the task, inwhatever form it emerges, will involve members in someexposure of their private and even hidden self. This factorI believe to be important in the group dynamics group,although much more so in the therapeutic one. Since theorigin of the secret self was its unacceptability, there is agreat deal of anxious suspicion among members,alleviated only as each member demonstrates hisparticipation in the task by the freedom with which heexpresses some of his feelings about the situation.Likewise the intense

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curiosity about the leader derives from wondering how heis going to help them with the task at its reality level andfrom the fears of what he will read into their minds andhow persecutory or rejecting he will then be.

What characterized Bion's method of work is hiswaiting for developments to occur spontaneously nomatter what the pressures on him "to help." There is nodoubt his stance exposed the regressed basic states with,at times, considerable intensity and persistence. For himit is imperative that members should experience theprimitive nature and power of these states, and to havecontact with these layers of their personality contributes agreat self-integration in that the boundaries of their self-understanding are thereby extended. By focusingexclusively on the group, however, one notes only thosefeatures in the shared assumption states. Suchrecognition is essential, but to learn more about howthey are brought into being is as important.

Freud had noted early in his experience howindividuals will only with the greatest reluctance give upa source of gratification. The group's hatred of learninghas this quality for Bion when he confronts them withclinging to assumption behavior instead of learning tocope with reality. In emphasizing this reaction we have,however, to balance it with the impetus to develop, theimpetus which in the work group Bion notes aseventually overcoming the irrational resistances to it.We may then ask if Bion fosters an exaggerated degreeof basic assumption behavior by not giving help sooner.This is a question not easily answered. I referred earlier

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to his almost incidental remark on love as anecessity for understanding, i.e. , in this context, somefostering assistance. Bion was an extremely caringperson and so one is left wondering whether he was inpart fascinated by the basic assumption behavior to theneglect of how much help from the leader the egos of themembers required to be re-asserted for the learning task.

The assumption made about the leader's role is that thegroup will by itself progressively learn to tackle thereality of the task through the leader pointing out what itis doing. Since, however, much of the overt behavior isdetermined by the need to avoid unrecognized feelings,these must require more explicit interpretation than Biongives. Interpretations would seem to need more of a"because" clause—an attempt to identify what it is that isfeared. Without this "help" the work group cannotfunction effectively. A group met to study its dynamicsis, like any other task group, a socio-technical system andhere, as elsewhere, the technical job has to come into thesphere of the ego's resources for mastering and using it.The specific complexity of this situation is that undoingthe depersonalizing of the members because of their lostego-involvement is itself the aim of the technology. Adegree of understanding does go on much of the time, butit has to be asked whether it is optimal; when once in thegrip of the basic assumptions it is all the more difficultto get back to normal ego-functioning. It thus seems that,as in analytical psychotherapy, a simultaneous

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relatio nship with the members' egos and theregress ed state has to be kept alive.

Bion referred to the struggle of the individual againsthis groupishness. We can put this in another way. Thegroupishness he describes is clearly that of the regressedseparation-individuation stage from which the individualhas developed to inhabit his adult distinctive identity.This new development, however, has its own needs forgroup relatedness, namely, in groups in which his identityis affirmed and enriched by the extent of the ego's realityinvolvement in them.

The situation created in Bion's groups takes away theanchorage of the adult self-identity and it has to be askedwhether the resentment of groupishness is because ofthis loss. The self-identity requires identification byothers of its ordinary status plus the engagement withthe task in a meaningful way. The organization of thegroup has to match the nature of the work, and if thelatter presents a puzzle the group does not see how tocope with, then the leader has the task of dealing with thetendency of the group members to regress as well asenabling them to see that their belief that they have noresources is not entirely founded in reality. Theexperience of the latter, i.e. , of regaining ego-function,brings back the work capacity.

GROUP PSYCHOTHERAPY

As Bion mentions at the start of his book, this term isitself ambiguous as to whether it means therapy of thegroup conceived as an entity and so concerned with

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facilitating the group in overcoming barriers fromits internal conflicts to its effectiveness as a work groupor whether its purpose is therapy of the individualscomprising it. In practice, the latter purpose would bemore accurately described as analytical psychotherapy ingroups.

When Bion says that his method of work cannot becalled psychoanalysis he means that the fundamentalprinciples of psychoanalysis do not apply to it. There ishere a source of widespread differences of view evenamongst analysts. Both the classical and Kleiniananalysts believe that a comprehensive exploration ofunconscious processes is possible only in the traditionalsetting with the analyst preserving a somewhat distantstance in the interests of objectivity, maintain ing acertain intensi ty in the conduct of the process , usuallyfive times per week, and avoiding any other activity thanthe analytic one, e. g. , no reassurances of any kind noradvice; offering understanding of the unconscious solelyby interpretation. The value of this approach is not inquestion. What is, however, is the common assumptionthat other less intensive and rigorous approaches arerelatively poor substitutes and, in short, "not analysis."Analytical psychotherapy on a less intensive pattern thanthe standard psychoanalytical one has in recent yearsaltered this view; it is widely

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practiced by analysts themselves with the conviction thatit can be of considerable help for the individual. Manyunconscious factors in the personality can be exposed andtheir disturbing effects ameliorated in a range of patient-therapist settings. The critical factors are not so much thelatter as the therapist's understanding of the unconsciousand the extent to which he focuses on that.

The psychotherapeutic factor in Bion's method—againto be recalled as directed towards group dynamics—canbe considered if we take one of his examples, the eventsin a group occasioned by a woman talking about a fear ofchoking in restaurants or, on a recent occasion, of herembarrassment during a meal in the presence of anattractive woman (Bion, 1961:182). About half of thegroup responded by saying they did not feel like that, andthe others were indifferent. Bion notes that in analysissuch a statement would have evoked various possibleinterpretations, none of which he felt could be regardedas appropriate to the group. What he did point out to themembers was that the woman's difficulty was also theirs,although in repudiating it they made themselves superiorto her. Moreover, in doing so they made it difficult for anymember to admit any problem because they would thenbe made to feel more inferior and worthless. From ananalytic point of view he appreciates that the woman gotno help and is left in discomfort because in fact grouptreatment is the wrong treatment. He then adds that hermanner of speaking suggested that she felt there was asingle object, the group, that had been split into pieces(the individual members) by her eating; and that being therecipient of the members' projective identifications was

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her fault and so reinforced her guilt which, in turn,made it difficult for her to grasp how the actions of theothers had affected her. For the other members, they havenot only rid themselves of the woman's troubles as part oftheir own, but they have also got rid of any responsibilityfor her by splitting off their caring parts into the therapist.The result of this process is akin to a "loss of individualdistinctiveness" through the basic assumption state ofdependence. The group dynamics are clear; thepsychotherapeutic effect is not only nil, it is negative.

The question is why Bion could not have made aninterpretation along the lines he indicated in thisreflection about the situation, at least to the extent ofconveying the woman's hunger (perhaps felt as greed) asdestructive to the group, with the latter attacking her, asthey did these feelings in themselves. Also, by treatingeach other's problems in this way they were perpetuatingthe feeling that there was no help to be had from thegroup, only from the therapist. The precise interpretationis not so important as long as enough of the underlyingdynamics of the total situation are articulated. Byfocusing exclusively on the group as a whole, certainawareness of group attitudes is made possible. Has thatbeen as helpful as it might have been for thedevelopment of each individual? Kleinian analystsfrequently use the term "the correct interpretation." It isdoubtful if such an achievement is ever possible,especially in the

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group situation, so that a degree of metaphoriclatitude helps to catch some of the wide range ofprocesses going on in each individual.Psychotherapuetic change is a developmental processrequiring considerable time, and Bion mentio ned, asevide nce of intel lectu al work going on in spite of itscover t nature, the fact that patients came back to hiscomments in later sessions. In other words, reflectionon what is happening in the group with delayed assim-ilation is a necessary part of the individual' s "work"activity. The therapist's task, I believe, is to further thisby giving individuals as much awareness of all sides oftheir responses in the group situation, includingespecially the apparent reasons for abandoning their"distinctiveness" when faced with their own intolerancetoward their unconscious processes. In my ownexperience with groups over thirty years, I have neverceased to be impressed by the importance that membersattach to their group meetings, even though only onceper week. It is common after only a few months forthem to remark that what goes on in the session plays aprominent part in how they feel for the rest of that week.By commenting along the lines I believe Bion couldhave done in the light of what he described, he wouldhave avoided in some measure in at least some of themembers the depressing feelings of the badness of the

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group as almost inevitable.In regard to pairing, he again warns against

concentrating on the possible unconscious contents ofthe pair interaction. Here too, however, it is not at alldifficult to comment on the group's interest in thisinteraction and in what this interest might consist. I havefrequently heard reports in groups that certain session swith marked pairing on which interpr etive commentswere made, were recalled vividly for long periods ashaving been particularly helpful.

Bion like ned the prob lem of the indi vidu alcoming to terms with the emotional life of the groupas closely akin to that of the infant in its firstrelationship, viz., with the breast/mother. In his lateranalytic work he spelled out the nature of the infant'stask in overcoming frustration, i.e. , when instead of theexpected breast there was a "no breast" situation. Forthis achievement he took the mother's role as a"container" to be crucial. This is perhaps an inadequateterm for the active contribution of the mother in makingher comforting and encouraging presence felt. It couldreadily be said that, for the group therapist, Bionadvocates a role of considerable withholding.

The importance of Bion's strictures can be granted.The essential aspect in all these issues is whether or notenough of the total dynamics in the group are being

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brought to notice when an individual is beingreferred to. Basic assumption behavior occurs in groups,whether the task is explicitly therapy or not. But whenthe aim is therapy, the individuals need to understandmuch more of themselves than the tendency to regressto the primal self of their separation-individuation stageof development. I have stressed that the paramountconsideration is much more our understanding thanusing an assumed correct tech-

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nique. Understanding the unconscious is notoriouslysubject to individual bias. Increasingly over recent yearsmy bias has been a much greater focus on the state of theself that underlies the particular expression of theunconscious motives. To revert to the example justquoted, one may ask whether Bion's reluctance to usethe individual in the group situation is influenced by theKlein ian view of greed as stemming from a highdegre e of oral sadis m. Melanie Klein retained the viewthat aggressive phantasies were mainly the product ofthe death instinct. If one takes the view that the mostprofound aggression arises from the universally desperatestruggle to maintain the self—a view that Freud took—then the greed of Bion's patient might well be seen as aprimitive expression of her attempt to get possession ofthe object she needs to maintain a security in her self. Inthis case the social relevance of her symptoms, andhence their importance for the group, is different fromwhat it would be had her greed been taken as a problemof excessive oral sadism.

The need to cope with anxieties over the self can beseen in another of the examples he quotes (Bion,1961:144). The members discuss a suggestion to useChristian names. Three are for it as a good idea thatwould make things more friendly. Of the other three,one doesn't want her name to be known because shedislikes it, another suggests pseudonyms and the thirdkeeps out of it. I do not want to make unjustified use ofthe example, especially as Bion mentions only certainaspects of the episode to make his point. What he takesup is the way the group seems to regard friendliness orpleasant emotions in the group as a means of cure, as a

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contribution to their work group. Perhaps moreimmediately relevant to the work group are the anxietiesabout whether or not the selves of the three dissidentswill be secure if they begin to be looked at by the others.

The disadvantages of groups as a therapeutic mediumare well known. They do, however, have severaladvantages. The sharing of humiliations, shame and guiltis a different experience for many when they receivesympathetic understanding from other members. Also,whereas the projective identification of self-objects fromthe segregated systems has to be done mainly one at atime with the therapeutic pair, the projection of severalaround members of the group is active much of the timeand their recognition can be used by all.

The individual in psychotherapy has to learn about hisor her split-off relationships. This task can become alife-long one for any individual. Therapy, as in otherlearning, has to give enough capacity to carry on thework. Psychotherapy in groups has to make much moreof a contribution to this capacity than can be donethrough confining attention solely to the group dynamicsequated with the basic assumptions.

Bion, like so many creative thinkers, confined hisstudy of the work of others to relatively few. Perhaps hefelt, like Winnicott who once said to me, "I did not payclose attention to Fairbairn as I was too absorbed in myown

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pregnancies at the time." I never heard Bion discussFoulkes, and I do not think he knew much about his workbecause he had left groups by the time Foulkes waspublishing his accounts of it. He was not given todisparaging the work of others if it differed from his own;for him, experience would eventually find its survivalvalue. Foulkes was convinced the total groupinteractions had to be used in therapy, and I believe thatB ion, had he done more group therapeutic work, wouldhave accepted that position though he would haveinsisted on what might be loosely put as more rigor andmore depth, more attention to the primitive relationships.

None of Bion's Tavistock colleagues engaged in grouptherapy, in contrast with those concerned with groupdynamics, adhered to his view about the sole use of thelatter in their work. Ezriel's formulation (195o) of using acommon tension in the group once it could be identifiedas coming from the wish for a specific relationship withthe therapist, and adding to its exposure by showing howeach individual dealt with it, was considered to be moreappropriate. Revisiting both led me to conclude thatEzriel's views could not account for the group dynamicsin general, and I believe our understanding of theindividual should be such as to account for both. It hasseemed to me for some years that a theory of theorganization of the self is the emerging task forpsychoanalysis and so I used my own rathe r rough andready gropi ngs in this direc tion. Analytic grouppsychotherapy has usually been considered by its usersas a valuable therapeutic medium in spite of the negativefindings of Malan and his colleagues (Malan, 1976).Perhaps we expose here the inadequacies in our concepts

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of the nature of psychotherapy as well asour means of assessing change. Because of my interestin the self as an independent variable in the therapeutictask, Gill and I (197o) carried out an exploratory trialusing spontaneous sentences as an indication of conflictswithin the self system. Significant changes in patientsafter eighteen months of treatment were found, soMalan's criteria seem to have referred to differentprocesses.

For me Bion has always been the preux chevaliermaking his doughty forays into the confused tangles ofpsychoanalytic thought and the complexities of humanrelationships. His power to look at phenomena withfresh challenges remains a permanent questioninglegacy.

References

Bion, W.R. 1961. Experiences in Groups and OtherPapers. London: Tavistock Publications; New York:Basic Books.

Erikson, E.H. 1959. Identity and the Life Cycle. NewYork and London: Norton. Ezriel, H. 195o. "A Psycho-Analytic Approach to Group Treatment." British Journalof Medical Psychology, 23:59-74.

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Freud, S. 1922. Group Psychology, Standard Edition,Vol.18. London: Hogarth Press. Jantsch, E. and C.H.Waddington (Editors). 1976. Evolution andConsciousness. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Klein, M. 1932. The Psycho-Analysis of Children.London: Hogarth Press.. 1940. "Mourning and Its Relation to Manic-Depressive States." In Contributions to Psycho-Analysis 1921-1945. London: Hogarth Press, 1948.

Lichtenstein, H. 1977. The Dilemma of Human Identity.New York: Aronson. McDougall, W. 1920. The Group

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Mind (2nd edition). London: CambridgeUniversity Press.Mahler, M.S., F. Pine and A. Bergman (Editors). 1975.

The Psychological Birth of theHuman Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation. New York:Basic Books.

Malan, D. 1976. "A Follow-up Study of GroupPsychotherapy." Archives of GeneralPsychiatry, 33:1303-15.

Spitz, R.A. 1965. The First Year of Life. New York:International University Press. Sutherland, J.D. andH.S. Gill. 1970. Language and PsychodynamicAppraisal. London: Karnac Books.

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Trist, E.L. and K.W. Bamforth. 1951. "SomeSocial and Psychological Consequences of the LongwallMethod of Coal Getting." Human Relations, 4:3-38.