Group Analysis training as a clinical training can offer new understanding and practice for psychotherapists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, occupational therapists and a range of other health professionals, members of voluntary and statutory agencies.
Group analysis as a theory and a form of group work practice offers leaders, teams and organisational development experts new understanding by applying group analytic concepts to analysis of unconscious processes in groups and organisations.
This 5-year course is part of a 6 year Pathway Programme which includes the Graduate Certificate in Group Analytic Studies (XA24) and culminates in the Professional Masters in Group Analytic Psychotherapy (XA21).
In years 1-2 of the Professional Masters, through participation in group work supervision, skills seminars, theory discussion groups and an experiential group analytic therapy group, students have an opportunity to reflect on group interactions, relationships, leadership phenomena. Students will also, through the establishment of a short term group, learn about the unconcious dynamics in establishing and facilitating a group. Students also will explore their own style of relating within a group.
In years 3-5 of the Professional Masters, students actively begin to work clinically through the establishment of a training group. They also continue to benefit from supervision, skills seminars, theory discussion groups and an experiential group analytic therapy group.
The Professional Masters in Group Analytic Psychotherapy is a five-year part-time postgraduate course.
Group Analysis focuses on the relationship between the individual and the group, emphasising the essentially social nature of human experience. As a therapeutic tool, Group Analysis aims to strengthen the relationship between the individual and the group to achieve a healthier integration of the individual in his or her communal network.
The ethos of Group Analysis as proposed by Foulkes (1975) gives weight and value to the experiential nature of learning in a group. As a result, group analytic training privileges group participation, and attendance and willingness to engage are therefore fundamental to an optimal group experience at every level of the training.
The main characteristics of this course are:
- An emphasis on clinical training which is informed by the privileging of the conscious and unconscious processes at work in groups.
- A commitment to experiential learning where an emphasis is given to the experience of group analytic therapy.
- An emphasis on working with the individual and the group and the individual in the group.
- A commitment to a learning experience which includes personal therapy in a group, theory and skills, supervised practice and clinical based inquiry & research.