The architecture of the Larger Group: Politics,community and culture [the blueprint from Frankfurt]

Abstract

This lecture takes a new look at Foulkes’ experience as a refugee from Germany. It questions the focus on the psychoanalytic component of group analysis at the expense of the more ‘revolutionary’ element Foulkes brought with him from his time of working with Kurt Goldstein in Frankfurt. I also suggest that de Maré’s longstanding relationship with Foulkes sowed the seeds of his groundbreaking work on the Larger Group. My thinking is based on a hypothesis that as de Maré’s dialogical approach bears an uncanny resemblance to the thinking of the ‘Frankfurt School’, it emerged via a form of ‘second generation transmission’ through Foulkes. I elaborate these ideas and develop my own perspective.