Thea Beech Blogs - Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

June 21, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

Are our emotions shaped by our relationships?

This particularly influences us during infancy, childhood and adolescence. These early experiences can be activated if they have led to the development of unhelpful defenses. The lack of attunement in parental relationships can result in an infant developing an unhealthy attachment style, divorced from reality in the form of fantasy or withdrawal and detachment. This initially protects the infant from the pain, emotion and feelings. Later due to the blocking of the ability to connect emotionally the protector becomes the persecutor.

A chaotic attachment experience can impact on vital neurological developmental pathways leading to permanent damage to later functional performance. Hence the recent research on childhood services from pregnancy to five years of age.

If a “good enough” environment is NOT available for one reason or another during a person’s childhood there will be aspects of this early experience that appear to act at an unconscious level, a shadow of the early object relationship. This can be brought into consciousness and worked with in the therapeutic process. Forming a trusting relationship with a therapist or a stable relationship within a group to hold and contain feelings and emotions to be internalized, made sense of in order to be restored. However, we must not conflate this process by apportioning blame on the parent but as a means of unfolding the neurological pathways that block the capacity for integration. This is re-experienced in the therapeutic alliance as an imago of the infant / child with an immature mind as the “unthought known”

Our brain and therefore our mind can remain adaptable throughout our lives and given the right support can make a conscious decision with a mature mind not that of the infant /child. A similar process occurs in trauma. It can respond making the shifts necessary to live a valued and happy life.

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Further reading by Thea Beech

It is never too late!

The Unconscious Mind

June 7, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

Group Analytic Psychotherapy – the slow open group

The name ‘Slow Open Group’ was adopted to reflect the nature of the psychological process of opening ourselves to our collective experience in our families, culture and social milieu. Slow, because it takes time, Open because people will come and go over time as they do in our lives.

The global pandemic has demonstrated, in a terrible way, the potential harm we are doing to our environment. It has reminded us of our connectiveness with others both at the level of our community and globally. The vaccine and getting it is both a personal act of protection whilst at the same time a civic duty protecting others.

The extraordinary benefits of our connectedness via social media and technology has raised our knowledge of the worldwide suffering from this disease. At the same time we are both informed and sharing in the emotional fallout of so many losses and bewildered at our personal suffering.

Therefore we seek psychotherapy or psychoanalysis in order to understand our emotional reactions; the implicit and explicit meaning of our lives. The implicit, what is going on in our mind and body. The explicit what is happening around us in our world and intimate relationships that triggers influence our responses. The act of choosing to enter therapy is a willingness to begin a journey that will continue throughout our lives.

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Thea Beech is a Psychotherapist and Group Analyst. A Member of The Institute of Group Analysis and Registered with the UKCP. She now works in Private Practice after a long career in Healthcare related industries in the UK. She later taught in Universities South Africa on Group Work and Eating Disorders. She has written on Group Analysis and Eating Disorders. She was part of a small team who developed the Centre for Group Analysis in Cape Town. Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Thea Beech

May 24, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

Is it ever too late to start psychotherapy?

Is it too late to consider going into therapy once we reach a certain age? As I walked through the gardens on an early spring morning, this was the question going through my mind. I intended to get down to writing this blog, an unfamiliar task, when I got back to my office.

We seem to have heard all year about mental and physical decline as we age so it was refreshing to read Levitin (see below) that the brain retains plasticity or the capacity to learn and change through out life. And if we are not taken down by dementia, brain injury or stroke, we can in fact retain a lively and flexible mind throughout life. We have to do the obvious things like follow a balanced diet, exercise, not give up purposeful activity (work) and maintain a good and diverse social network.

Throughout life, our close friends and family are important to our wellbeing. These relationships take enormous strain in a world where change is the only hope for survival. And they need looking after even if this means we might end a relationship, if we have children developing and sustaining a healthy connection can help our children to adjust to the world with a healthy out look.

Transitional periods, retirement, divorce, bereavement, empty-nest syndrome, can benefit from psychotherapy for one or both partners providing the space for increased awareness of ourselves, an opportunity for gaining insight and change.

Considering the later years are often filled with opportunities for reflection on a life lived there is always plenty material to explore in the therapy room. David Levitin, an American Neuroscientist, sees this period of life as an opportunity to see life afresh. His premise is the brain retains its capacity to change through out life, at its greatest in childhood and old age.

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beech, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Further reading by Thea Beech

The Unconscious Mind

May 10, 2021 by BHP Leave a Comment

The Unconscious Mind

How do we bring to mind what is unconscious? Is it important to make this journey? These two questions are central to the therapeutic process of psychological therapy. When we are young we depend on our primary carer’s usually our parents, to hold and contain our emotional needs.

In childhood, none of us have a mature mind to guide us we rely on adults, siblings or our extended social network to help us grow into mature people. Siblings play an important role in our social development our place in the pecking order can determine how we deal later on with competition, rivalry our reaction to authority, etc. This effect can impact on us throughout our lives. Bringing to the conscious mind these experiences can help with regulation of our emotional responses as adults.

Our unconscious can exercise its influence on us leading to destructive patterns in our relationships with family, friends and work colleagues. This is often the primary motivation for people to seek out psychotherapy.

When we are grown up the experiences of childhood can exhort their influence on us leaving us bewildered at our difficulty in managing our emotional responses in everyday situations. It is as if a shadow is caste over us, we are driven by something beyond our control to act out.

Feelings, emotions and experiences from childhood or the accumulation of a long period of small daily undermining by family dynamics or bullying at school can lead to trauma. When we are traumatised, either by an event or the cumulative effect of oppression, our only escape is to detach. This may result in retreating into a fantasy world or addiction, compulsive behaviour or other psychological defenses in order to survive.

The work with the therapist or group on the unconscious allows us to revisit this hidden material. To experience in a safe environment the painful and disturbing events that triggered a defensive psychological response.

This blog to asks more questions than gives you answers. Its aim is to offer you whatever your age, ethnicity or orientation to consider looking at your own journey with greater understanding. You can follow-up this blog by watching a utube webinar “Three Ways of Connecting With Our Unconscious Mind” by Kirsten Heynisch’s, Clinical Psychologist’s description of accessing the unconscious and working with it. This can inform your work with the process of change in Individual or Group Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beach, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Further reading by Thea Beech

December 14, 2020 by BHP Leave a Comment

Groups for Mental Health

“What we cannot hold we cannot process, what we cannot process we cannot transform, what we cannot transform haunts us. It takes another mind to help us heal ours. It takes other minds and hearts to help us grow and re-grow the capacities we have to transform suffering.” Joseph Bobrow

I would like you to consider the above quote in relationship your mental wellbeing. Are you confused by your reactions to thoughts, emotions and feelings, do they seem to come out of the blue? In a group you have a space, with others, to connect with and explore where these feelings and emotions are coming from.

In Group Analytic Psychotherapy, we learn to identify emotional states of mind, fear, anxiety, anger, love, and hate whilst we experience the biological reaction in our bodies; the mental and physical experience of trauma and stress.

At the present time we are facing the daily trauma of living through a pandemic that is killing people worldwide. We are bombarded with information through social media. We try to make sense of what is true/real and what is not. The social and collective nature of what we are experiencing impacts on our relationships with those close to us. The social matrix is changing rapidly we feel out of control, we look to those in power to take control and feel angry when they seem to let us down. This leads to greater divisions in the social matrix divisions occur that lead to greater anxiety and chaos, which, can predispose us to difficulties with regulating our reaction in our work or close intimate relationships.

The group provides a space for the transformation of our thoughts and preoccupations, working through our experiences, creating understanding through thinking, talking and feeling the emotion behind anger and stress. The group space, with an experience group conductor, can hold and contain you through this process.

To enquire about group sessions with Thea Beach, please contact her here, or to view our full clinical team, please click here.

Further reading by Thea Beech

Crossing Borders – Group Analytic Society Symposium, Berlin 2017

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

June 15, 2020 by Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Group Psychotherapy in a post ‘Pandemic World’

I wonder how you have coped with the forced isolation imposed on all of us during the corona virus. Has the weekly hand clapping made you feel more part of your local community providing some small contact with others during the week? Or have you been part of a family meeting on Zoom or with friends?

Now, that we are beginning to return to more familiar routines you may be wondering if joining a psychotherapy group might help with the re-adjustment to the ‘new norm.’

Our relationships with family, friends and fellow workers can be a source of inspiration and support; however, often it is these relationships that baffles us. Joining a group can offer a space for you to share experiences and gain an understanding of yourself.

Why should you join a group? Ask yourself, what are the difficulties I need to address? These usually fall into one of two groups:

Emotions and feelings – which disrupt life including general performance of daily living skills. You may be taking medication to treat the affects of a disorder. Common symptoms include anxiety and depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, eating disorders and social anxiety.

Relational Challenges – we are dependent on our relationships with others to live a happy and secure life. However, these often challenge us in ways we do not understand. The signs and symptoms above are often caused or cause problems in relationships both personal and at work.

What happens next? When you contact Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy, your enquiry will be passed onto me. I will then contact you via your chosen method of contact to discuss your concerns. We will then set up an appointment to meet.

The initial Session – at this first meeting, you and the psychotherapist will have a discussion in order to get to know you. If you both feel joining a group would be helpful another session will be set up. A questionnaire will be sent to you to complete.

Follow-up – at the next session, we will use the questionnaire to follow-up your history, which will have formed the bulk of the first session. What are you hoping for by joining the group? Depending on your needs for preparation prior before starting the group will be agreed. I will ask your permission to share your name with the group in order to check out whether there are any boundary issues i.e. you do not know personally anyone in the group already.

Usually there will be at least one more session before you join the group.

The first Session – joining the group for the first time is always a challenge, you already know the psychotherapist and the names of the group members.

There is no set agenda, the group runs using free association. The boundaries of the group are – (1) always start and finish on time, (2) it will meet in the same venue, (3) it is a confidential space which each person agrees to before joining the group and (4) the members of the group do not have contact outside of the group. It provides a predictable space and time every week for a minimum of 40 to 42 weeks a year.

FAQ’s

Can I be in a group and continue with my individual psychotherapy?

No, the group is the primary therapy for the whole time the person is in the group. A process called splitting can occur if group members are attending psychotherapy outside of the group.

How does Group Psychotherapy work?

The group provides a space to explore relationships in action. As we all come from families or experiences of care in our young life, these influences stay with us and shape how we are later on as adults. The small group offers a space to reconnect with that experience and re-work, often-traumatic events, in a safe and secure environment. In addition to making connections to the past, we can explore current relationships in our families, couples, social and work life. Change of this sort takes time therefore you will need to make a commitment of time for processing and integration.

How confidential is the group?

The group is a confidential space where members of the group are asked not to have contact outside of the group or to share what happens in the group outside of the group space.

How many people are in the group?

A small group has a maximum of 8 members, 9 with the conductor.

Why is the Group Psychotherapist called a Conductor?

This relates to the role of the psychotherapist in the group. As the group matures the group members become familiar with each other; they know each other’s stories and begin to see the patterns each one may be playing out in their lives. The role of the psychotherapist will be to bring together the voices much the same way as the conductor in an orchestra brings in various instruments during a performance.

Further reading by Thea Beech

Crossing Borders – Group Analytic Society Symposium, Berlin 2017

What is a Psychotherapy Group?

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

March 2, 2020 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Termination and endings in Psychotherapy

We have just celebrated the ending of the year, welcoming in a New Year. It provides a shared / collective opportunity to reflect on the past, think ahead to the future. Likewise, psychotherapy invites us to think about the past, how it contributes to who we are, what is important to us, how the past can provide an understanding of previously unconscious material that has been repressed in order for us to reconcile the past and choose what is taken into the future.

This segmentation of time helps to contain a complex worldview. I suggest the break or holiday from psychotherapy offers us a chance to reflect on how we manage our internal world in the absence of the secure base represented by the clinical setting. The break provides an opportunity to see how we feel without the weekly hour or hour and a half in the session or group.

How important are endings in psychotherapy?

The therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the client provides a safe, secure and consistent base for attachment to a reliable figure for working through trauma. Childhood experiences of adult caregivers, depicted most vividly in fairytales of giants and powerful forces that impact on our emotional security; in adulthood leave traces of emotional trauma that can distort our judgment of reality haunting us as adults. Trauma inhibits the development of neurological pathways that lead to self-regulation of emotional states. Attachment styles will influence how we react to stresses in the environment, the challenge of psychotherapy is to find a way of reaching our fears and understanding how these shape our lives. The biological changes in the brain required to establish new pathways takes time and can leave us feeling confused and bewildered.

Neuroscience has given us a greater understanding of the effects of child hood trauma’s and a method of working that bring about changes in how we process feelings and thoughts.

Through our interactions in the therapeutic setting, either individual or group, enables us to experience /observe our defenses at work in a safe and containing space/ in the individual session or through the group matrix of interactions. This results in a re-working of the internal working model originally created to cope with trauma to enable change to occur. We begin to integrate more adaptive responses to our emotions and feelings. To gain mastery over long held ways of relating, the internalized working model that shaped our attachment style is revised.

What part then do breaks and endings play in this process? Jeremy Holmes suggests that different attachment styles require different approaches to endings. (See paper European Psychotherapy on termination of psychotherapy /psychoanalysis)

I suggest that some knowledge of the theory is useful to clients like a comforting diagnosis helps people feel more in control. It is what mindfulness can do for all of us used in the service of our need for regulation during times of heightened arousal / stress.

Whenever we make an attachment be it to a therapist, a working environment or an intimate relationship we are faced with separation. This is why falling is love is so disorientating; the object of our love leaves us fearing loss, jealousy, envy etc. etc. If our love is reciprocated then we are both preoccupied with one another. It becomes a joke when the love struck people are in a group of friends and only have eyes for each other.

So attachment and separation are present and unavoidable; we are social beings who seek closeness and intimacy throughout our lives. (The exception is when we are preparing for the end of life.)

Ending a relationship or needing to adjust to changes in others in our lives such as our children going from being a child to an adult requires an ability to face the often painful and difficult process of change.

Breaks in therapy offer an opportunity to try out our internalized therapeutic capacity for self-regulation. Ending therapy or a good ending requires work on understanding the capacity we have to deal with life outside of the safety and security of the therapeutic alliance.

Thea Beech is a UKCP registered Group Analyst, full member of the Institute of Group Analysis and a Training Group Analyst. Her work in psychodynamic psychotherapy spans 20 years in the NHS and for the last 10 years overseas in South Africa. Thea is available at our Brighton and Hove Practice.

Further reading by Thea Beech

Crossing Borders – Group Analytic Society Symposium, Berlin 2017

What is a Psychotherapy Group?

Group Psychotherapy: The Octopus and the Group – what do they have in common?

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

April 29, 2019 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

What is Social Unconsciousness?

Social unconsciousness is a term used by Earl Hopper to describe the effect of living in a world where we are connected by our common histories, culture and social, political and economic environment.

But how does this affect us? With so much taking place in our ever-changing world, this has a place in our experiences in the present such as Brexit as well as in our past. When it then comes to looking at the therapeutic relationship we have, the focus tends to be on our close relationships. Very rarely do we take time to look at our minds and the effects it has on it.

It is clear however, that economics does determine whether we can reach our potential. The daily commentary on Brexit is primarily focused on the damage of fiscal instability on wealth, employment and the ability of the state to provide for those unable to look after themselves. This is turn creates fear and division resulting in anxiety, which, as a community we are suffering from. All this change creates dissonance which we need to learn to tolerate and adapt too. In a pluralistic society, psychological robustness is essential as we need to tolerate living and coping with the differences.

It is often questioned if part of the increased level of mental illness is due to the disturbances in the social matrix? Does it form part of our experience of the social unconsciousness? I personally wonder if social media and its potential to invade our personal space means we are unprotected from the outpourings of hatred, once confined to the mind where these thoughts can be reflected upon but has now spilt out onto the page for all to see.

We all need to take a moment and remember that not everything has to be shared publicly. We need to reflect on contextualization and take time to examine it against reality and critical thinking. The clinical space, its boundaries of time and location, can provide the holding and containing for our disturbance and anxiety in order to gain a better understanding of ourselves.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

February 25, 2019 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

How are you going to Spend Your Emotional Currency in 2019?

Perhaps it seems odd to you to even think of emotions having an intrinsic value, isn’t it all rather cold and controlling. However, alongside purchasing a house, a car or other valuable object our relationships will need energy and investment of time to make them work well.

So in the next twelve months, wherever you are in the partnership process, there will be things to consider that will require the investment of emotional energy. If you are single you maybe considering looking for a partner or hoping love comes along, whichever way you approach this, a life-long partner will be one of the most important emotional investments you make.

Although many of us go about this in a haphazard way, without giving sufficient thought to what we need to make a commitment to another person. Often we are under pressure from parents or peer group and the ever-present biological clock to get on and find someone or consolidate an existing relationship.

Some of us who are members of a religion will have priests or clergy to go to for advice and preparation before entering into a full commitment. However, this usually occurs after the couple have met and decided to enter into a long-term relationship. At this point the intention has been shared with family and friends, when it is more difficult withdraw, if the preparation phase uncovers areas of incompatibility in the relationship.

I have wondered, through working with couples, whether this should be done earlier in the relationship as soon as couples find they are talking about their future together.

Falling in love is an intense emotional, biological and physical experience, at times expressed as akin to madness. Delightful though this period of time is, it does hinder good decision-making.

Couples will come after a crisis, wanting help to mend a relationship after an event or betrayal has injured the mutual trust in the relationship. Or they come when a life event, such as the birth of the first child, loss of a job, children leaving home, retirement, illness or bereavement. All of these events put demands on the relationship, and people handle them in different ways. It helps to have a supportive family or friendship network around to contain and hold the couple as they navigate their way through these life-changing processes. All require the expenditure of emotional energy to maintain the relationship on an even keel.

So ideally we could envision a couple coming to relationship counselling before they finally decide this is the person they feel able and want to make this commitment to for the rest of their lives.

Dorothea Beech is a UKCP-registered Group Analyst, full member of the Institute of Group Analysis and a Training Group Analyst providing long and short-term psychotherapy to both couples and groups in Hove and Lewes.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

October 1, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Group Psychotherapy: The Octopus and The Group – what do they have in common?

On my way into work the other day I happened to be listening to the radio when a program called “Inside Science” was playing. The theme for the program was “Alien Minds”. A man called Peter Godfery–Smith was talking about his book “Other Minds”. He described how we assume the existence of a central nervous system, like our own, a brain commanding the peripheral nervous system. He then went onto describe the Octopus, whose decision making processes, not sure this is the right word, are distributed throughout the body, the tentacles can act separately to the rest of the body. He describes the research that discovered this; the podcast is available for you to listen to on BBC podcasts.

Why did this stay with me? And why is it relevant to the group? When talking about groups we hear about a group mind, or the social unconscious (Hopper) using the symbol of something central acting on the individual, however, the description of the octopus would perhaps provide a better metaphor for group processes. As individuals we like to think we are free to act from an autonomous position, however when we begin to think about all the influences around us, some known, others we are not aware of, we realize life is more complex than we thought.

When you join a group or team you have access to many minds working together, it multiplies the opportunity for self-awareness, for sharing experiences, for helping others as well as being a help and understanding. Of course on the other side of this is what you are told might be difficult to hear, emotions connected to competition and rivalry, challenges long-held ideas, exposure to others who do not think as you do emerge. However, if we are to build the resilience we need to face these difficult emotions in order to reach our potential.

As the group develops, like the octopus, the group is held together through its biological connections that make it an integrated organism. In the group, a matrix of interactions forms from the histories each member brings to the group, which cross from generation to generation as part of transgenerational processes, the social context with its vast variety of influences, economic, political and familial.

As this plays out in the group each person has the opportunity of gaining insight and understanding into how they have been shaped by the many groups they have encountered throughout their lives and shared history. Relationships evolved, often unconsciously, to influence how we behave in the present, repeating patterns that may not be healthy and need adjustment to enhance our mental wellbeing.

Thea Beech is a Group Analyst, full member of the Institute of Group Analysis and a Training Group Analyst and works from our Hove practice. She is currently running an psychotherapy group which is accepting new members.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

July 23, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

What is a Psychotherapy Group?

Most of us, at one time or another, have avoided groups. Whether it was not attending a party, preferring to stay at home and watch TV after a long week or finding a reason not to go to that meeting at work because it always makes us feel uncomfortable.

When I suggest to a client that group psychotherapy might be helpful, the impression I am often initially left with is it raises anxieties for them. These are usually based on concerns about talking to strangers about personal and intimate aspects of our lives.

Worries about confidentiality, sharing space with others and getting needs met with others competing for attention can also dominate. All of these are perfectly reasonable objections and reassuring people that they will not encounter such experiences is not the purpose of the work before joining a group.

What can group psychotherapy offer?

A group offers the opportunity to tackle competitiveness, dealing with rivalry and finding a voice in a group. What you will be gaining is a sense of your self through the eyes of the group, giving you a perspective on yourself from each member. A mirror for reflection, through the process of sharing with others and learning from them. The relationships in the group offer a place to play out fears in a safe and contained space.

What can you expect if you want to join a group?

The type of group I have described above is called “A Slow Open Group”. It consists of a Group Analyst or Conductor, from 5-8 members, meets weekly for 1.5 hours for 42 weeks a year. You will join the group for a minimum period of 6 to 12 months.

This seems like a big commitment, are you a member of a gym with 12 months membership, which is usually rolled over; this is like a gym workout for the mind with the added advantage of a team of players to work with.

If you are joining a new group you will have seen your group conductor sometime before the group starts, he or she will have spent time with you getting to know you, finding out whether there are any boundary issues with other members. This is a “stranger group” knowing someone beforehand, a friend, family member, however distant, is not conducive to developing a safe and confidential space for open and free discussions.

The group provides a relational field or matrix for exploring and understanding our emotional lives. Your needs may be in your relationships within the family /partnerships/ friends or at work managing others, handling team rivalries or even in the area of sport where managing morale is essential. Isn’t it in every aspect of our communal lives?

Dorothea Beech is a UKCP-registered Group Analyst, full member of the Institute of Group Analysis and a Training Group Analyst. She will be starting a slow open group in October running weekly from our Hove practice.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

February 26, 2018 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy Leave a Comment

Crossing Borders – Group Analytic Society Symposium, Berlin 2017

Berlin was the setting for a symposium organised by the International Group Analytic Society (IGAS.) Over 600 people from 40 plus countries attended. This was my first time in Berlin, a place I had wanted to visit for a long time. When I saw the symposium was going to be based there, it made the event a “must do.”

As I had only recently returned from living in South Africa, it also created an opportunity to meet with colleagues from Johannesburg and Cape Town. The food and restaurants in Berlin are excellent, making the trip an enjoyable occasion, despite working from 8am to 8pm every day, attending events and running a small group each day as part of the programme.

The daily keynote speaker set the tone and topic for the day’s work. After the keynote speeches, everyone dispersed to events and seminars to digest and explore the topic of ‘Crossing Borders’ with all the relevant and multiple meanings of such a topic.

Before lunch, small groups assembled to freely associate with the work of the morning and previous day’s work, making connection to the emotional and dynamic aspects of the experience. The experiential is central to understanding the impact of the material presented and its resonance for each individual attending the conference.

In groups, we focus on the individual in a matrix, a nodal point in a complex web of interactions. These can be present in the moment or contained within our cultural, social and family history, whereby patterns of relating are reenacted in the present. These patterns of relating are developed as a means of adapting to the environment; they may link to early trauma such as experiences of war or social exclusion or the multiple small traumas during childhood. It is the work of the members of the group and the group conductor to use the group time to search for meaning within the narrative of the group. The group is conducted in a process of un-layering through mirroring, transference, and parallel process towards transformation. It is through this process that change comes about.

It is all very well reading, studying and writing papers, but the business of the work is to connect and to be in relationship with the experience. This often involves getting in touch with painful memories of loss, suffering, loneliness and isolation. It is important to connect to the experience of early separation from parental care giving, reliving those moments of joy and connectedness with others.

Dorothea Beech is a UKCP-registered Group Analyst, full member of the Institute of Group Analysis and a Training Group Analyst.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now