Control and Leadership in Group Psychotherapy

Abstract

For the group-analytic conductor the question of control is ever-present. In its simplest guise it is how to tread the line between over-control of the group on the one hand, and outright abdication on the other. But it is clear that the conductor's conscious intention is not the only, or even the most significant, force controlling the group: forces within subgroups, the group as a whole, or pressure from other individual members may be much stronger. The conductor may even become aware that his or her own position and actions are not relatively independent and objective, but are a function of larger unconscious forces in the group. In this paper I take a clinical example in which control issues become explicit, and then examine four approaches to group theory—M.A. Lieberman's description of effective styles of leadership; A.P. Beck's system theory; S.H. Foulkes's group analysis, and W.R. Bion's psychoanalytic approach—in an attempt to clarify the nature of `appropriate control'. This suggests some approaches to the problems of over-control versus abdication, the need to deal with other sources of power in the group, and the pressure on the conductor to act out the group's unconscious conflicts.