This paper explores the re-creation of early psychic structures in the beginning phase of slow-open analytic psychotherapy groups. Mervin Glasser's theory of the `core complex' is explored as a model for infantile perceptions of emotional abandonment and engulfment that reoccur in the early period of the group. Donald Winnicott's ideas of the `false self and the `facilitating environment' are used to describe the defensive personality responses to early emotional deprivation as seen in the group. Aspects of the peculiar vulnerability of the first six months of group life are examined. These include selection, holiday breaks and dropouts.
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