Defence and Coping: The `Outsider' in the Group

Abstract

This paper is based on clinical observations of how groups generate defence and coping mechanisms toward members who perceive themselves as totally different from the others and move towards an `outsider' position, expressing serious intentions of leaving the group. The individual background to this dynamic process is a severe narcissistic problem. The group process activates a conflict between intense needs and wishes for emotional exchange, for being recognized, held, integrated and loved, and fear of fusion with the group and loss of individuality. In such situations splitting phenomena and strong feelings of hate and aggression occur The group oscillates between integration and expulsion, identification with the `outsider' and projective defence of aggression. The concept of `coping' in such situations is discussed with respect to S.H. Foulkes's concept of `ego training in action'.