This is a speech by Qatar in the 1950s-60s, which he compiled in the collection Psychoanalysis and Transversality. It is very appropriate to refer to revolutionary group relations in the Catalan sense of the term "mainstream continuity": The break-up between the subjects is an important prerequisite for the psychoanalysis of Lacan, which, through its interpretation of such a cohesive and seamlessly understood group, Gattali eloquently transformed into a special case for himself, just as he transformed his family into a group - Psychoanalysis and Transversality is a work in the field of psychoanalysis of great importance for the development of the land.
Group therapy is not necessarily the best option for psychoanalysis! Moreover, group therapy may also be destroyed by a religious blinding of the group. Group life can have harmful consequences: people use group events as pretexts and pretexts to shut themselves down. But groups can also trigger a retreat, a reverse atomization of the division of labour. Working in groups is not simple.
All of this means that we must remain vigilant and not let ourselves fall into the trap of collectiveism's blind faith - God knows that many such organizations exist today, especially in our field. And Laborde is using the same group approach!
Are we exorcising wolves? I still hope not to be blamed. Individuals do not know what they are, that they cannot find their own identity in their own bodies, and that they cannot identify themselves from the main conflicting fragments of their bodies and organize themselves into a single unity. They always look for something bigger than themselves, a reference point, something they can act as individuals. You know, instead of making them cry at the moon, it's better to bring them into a diverse group. And it's really working - the vast majority of participants like it, they'll come again, they'll talk about it everywhere.
There is no need to be surprised by the risks inherent in group therapy. After all, we can do something in this way.
Give people food, education, vitamins and vaccines, teach them manners, give them enough leave to relax - This "group life" is purely animal and one of the necessities of modern society. As Oury used to say, if we're talking about group therapy, the baker on the right hand can do a lot better than we do, and we don't need daily meetings and feedback -- all the busy work we do...
I don't have much more to say about this mistake!
I think we can introduce an entirely new concept to clarify the notion of group therapy: continuity of the subject.
Only two people were present for psychological treatment. It may succeed, but in some cases it will succeed - people will be fascinated by this analyst. Freud once said that you had to reach a certain level of psychoanalysis, but he did not say (he should have said!), which required a specific position. In Labord, of course, there will never be a situation of "two people" and there will always be others present - as if we were talking to even two people and still knew whose ears were attached outside the door! But, of course, the numbers must be kept within a range, and if there were thousands of people who would not be as effective, it would be like a train station waiting room with thousands of people.
This group treatment, which is dedicated to the continuity of the subject matter, works well if it is seen as a revolution. But different, revolutions are usually short, flashy.
Group therapy requires a moderate number of groups, a suitable range - a group on which my study and practice of continuity is built.
There are disarray groups in which subjects have no way of clearly identifying themselves. People also speak in their families, but sometimes they don't understand where these words come from - everyone speaks to others, and what they hear in the end is the ghost of the earlier ancestors (the ancestors of Oedipus) wandering around the house. No, it's sick. This is not at all the space where psychotherapy can happen.
We tried everything in Labor. However, until now, the groups we have chosen are always too large (we tried to divide the entire clinic into four groups) or too small (individual treatment). By setting up Basic Therapy Units, or the BTUs, we try to adapt our programs - we try to produce family organizations ourselves. BTUs are no longer a single item on the timetable, and it is not possible for individuals to decide freely to join or withdraw - at this point in time, to freely release themselves and receive treatment without considering the whole of BTUs. The term "individuals of BTUs" replaces "free individuals in BTUs". At the same time, it appears that this "stand-up" has injected energy into individuals on the margins, rather than expelling them with a majority of solidarity. But why is that related to therapy?
Because, as I said earlier, a group like this is the plane of the individual reference line, and it is very difficult for those in it to escape its effects. When people rescue themselves from the plight of collectivism, their negative effects on groups are too cautious. So, for example, assuming you're standing in a crowd against the police, if you're not familiar with the people standing next to you, it's easy to slip away. It doesn't matter. It's not my group. But when you and your BTUs stand together, it's completely different: there's a real, heart-to-heart conversation between you, and it's going to be very different -- you're like being stuck, you're like being stuck to a mouse. Among them, you know that the meaning of what you say no longer slips on the surface of their bodies, on the feathers of their ears - they know what you mean.
We come back and see how things are different in traditional forms of family. At home, some people say something, others may say something against it - the same can happen, but there is no point
You say that... so... balabala.
You can't call me a liar!
Oh, yeah? That's what I'm saying!
Oh, I'm not drinking soup. I'm going back to my room.
What happens next is clear to us.
Everyone in the home is like this, and their words are wandering around, and they cannot be placed on a particular plane, and they are gibberish and in fact do not communicate at all. When we speak of private languages in a negative sense, that internal language says that we are referring to such things.
That's what happened on the couch of traditional psychoanalysis. The patient was trapped by anonymous others, he didn't know what he was going to say, and he probably didn't want to say anything. He says it's in an empty space, in his own history.
In BTUs, we rotate as analysts and analysts. And sometimes what you decide to do, who you decide to live with, is enough to be your analyst -- skiing, toasting -- at these times the vocabulary works in a reference system, a limited but open field. In this field, people can experience continuity in their own subject matter.