Koinonia: From Hate through Dialogue to Culture in the Larger Group

289 Pages·1991·6.426 MB·English

by  Patrick De Mare, Sheila Thompson, Robin Piper (eds.)

K O I N O N IA

From Hate, through Dialogue,

to Culture in the Large Group

Patrick de Mare Robin Piper

Sheila Thompson

K A R N AC BOOKS
KOINONIA
From Hate, through Dialogue, to Culture
in the Large Group
Sheila Thompson, Patrick de Mare, Robin Piper
Photo by Hanne Maier
KOINONIA

From Hate,
through Dialogue,
to Culture
in the Large Group
Patrick de Mare

Robin Piper

Sheila Thompson

Karnac Books
London 1991 New York
First published in 1991 by
H. Karnac (Books) Ltd,
118 Finchley Road,
London NW3 5HT
Distributed in the United States of America by
Brunner/Mazel, Inc.
19 Union Square West
New York, NY 10003
Copyright© 1991
by Patrick de Mare
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
in any form, by any process or technique,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
De Mare, Patrick B.
Koinonia: from hate through dialogue to culture in the
larger group.
1. Medicine. Psychoanalysis. Group therapy
I. Title
616.8917
ISBN 978-0-946439-82-9
Printed in Great Britain by BPC Wheatons Ltd, Exeter
/ have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world;
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet Fll hammer it out.
My brain Til prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world,
In humours like the people of this world.
For no thought is contented.
Shakespeare, Richard the Second, Act V, Scene 5

CONTENTS
THE AUTHORS ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xii

FOREWORD BY PAMELA STEINER xiii

Koinonia 1

Introduction 3

CHAPTER ONE
The story of the larger group approach 9

CHAPTER TWO
The median group 23

CHAPTER THREE
Dialogue 41

vii
Vlll CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Culture and Koinonia
CHAPTER FIVE
Object relations theory.
Systems thinking and structuralism
CHAPTER SIX
Ecological perspectives
Postscript
APPENDICES
Spiral course of introjected, projected,
reintrojected and reprojected objects
via the larger groups matrix
The psychoanalytic, the small-group,
and the large-group settings
The three cultures
The Large Group Section brochure
The large group diary
REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
THE AUTHORS
D
R P ATRICK DE MA R£ was born in London in 1916,
of Swedish parentage. He was educated at Well­
ington, Cambridge, and St George's Hospital. He
qualified as a doctor in 1941 and enlisted in the RAMC in
1942, when he was trained for Army psychiatry by Rick­
man and Bion at Northfield Hospital. He ran an Exhaus­
tion Centre throughout the European campaign, at the end
of which he returned to Northfield, where he joined
Foulkes and Main in the Northfield experiment.
After the war he became a Consultant Psychotherapist
at St George's Hospital; in 1952 he set up the Group Ana­
lytic Society with Foulkes, and later he participated in set­
ting up the Institute of Group Analysis and the Group
Analytic Practice. He also worked with Benaim and Lionel
Kreeger at Halliwick Hospital, the short-lived therapeutic
community.
In 1972 he published Perspectives in Group Psycho­
therapy (Allen & Unwin) and in 1974 Lionel Kreeger and
ix