Kaës' Internal Groups and Actual Groups: A Relational Perspective.

Rene Kaës (2007), an influential French psychoanalyst relatively unknown to English-speaking readers, extends the field of psychoanalytic investigation and practice to groups. Building on Klein, Anzeiu, Bion, and Lacan, Kaës presents a dual-axes theory in which early oedipal and complexes structure unconscious dynamics of . According to Kaës, analytic group psychotherapy provides access to the phantasies, affects, and action tendencies contained within internal groups that would be otherwise inaccessible.

Opening Laplanche's Window: Transference-Countertransference in Psychoanalytic Group Psychotherapy.

Comparing analytic activity to a spaceship launching, Laplanche (1999, pp. 231-232) suggested that there are "windows;" opportune interpretative moments. Laplanche emphasized the enduring impact of intergenerational "enigmatic messages," such that all individuals cope with an essential "alterity" (otherness to oneself).

Attention-Getting Mechanisms (AGMs): A Personal Journey.

All relationships could be described in terms of the coordinations and conflicts between competing needs for attention and the mechanisms utilized to seek this goal. In this article, I introduce the initialism AGM (Attention-getting Mechanism) to refer to an interpersonal style or particular behavior or constellation of behaviors that one adopts and displays publicly that is unhealthy, repetitively counterproductive and ultimately harmful to self and/or others. Delineated from socially- and personally- productive modes of seeking attention, self-defeating AGMs categorize across varied spectra, from subtle and seemingly inhibited, to blatant, excessive, or frankly pathological.

Witnessing: The Axis of Group.

We enter the group and, to some degree make choices in what we observe and focus on, and how we participate and make our presence known. Unavoidably, and with limited control, we are thrust into a public position of witness and witnessed. Witnessing deals with the impact of embracing experience beyond observing and participating-the uncertain consequence of coming to know and becoming known.

Doing Our Work: Words, Deeds, and Presence.

Group leadership is an art, with relational tools of words, deeds, and presence. We aim to take our groups to creative places that they-and we ourselves-have never been before. Something needs to happen, fresh experience needs to emerge that becomes relevant to the growth of the members, including the therapist.