Group analysis,colonialism and language: Towards an anti-colonial practice

Abstract

This article examines how colonial histories and linguistic hierarchies are reproduced within the analytic matrix across five contexts: Albania, Aotearoa New Zealand, Ireland, Mexico, and South Africa. Drawing on chapters from Group Analysis Across Borders: Dialogues on History, Culture and Transformation (Harte, 2026), I argue that colonialism remains an active force shaping speech, silence, and relational life in analytic groups. Engaging Fanon’s reflections on language and decolonization, Martín-Baró’s liberation psychology, and the group-analytic traditions of Foulkes and de Maré, the article traces how trauma, repression, mistranslation, and inherited silences circulate in contemporary practice. Across these settings, analytic groups become spaces where historical injuries resurface and where speech and memory may be cautiously reclaimed. I conclude by considering the dominance of English — including in my own editorial work — as a persistent colonial inheritance that influences who may speak, how, and at what cost. The article argues for an anti-colonial group-analytic practice committed to linguistic plurality and to sustaining multiple symbolic worlds.