S. H. Foulkes

The work of Kurt Lewin (1951) in the United States and of S.H. Foulkes (1948) in England provided transatlantic parallel frameworks for an extraordinary expansion of research, training and psychotherapy based on the group-as-a-whole. It may be recalled that Lewin strenuously eschewed the psychoanalytic emphasis on the past, arguing that the sum total of the forces acting on the individual in the group were in the here-and-now, while Foulkes accepted the insights of psychoanalysis in the realm of the individual, but hoped that group analysis would take on its own separate character, reflecting the distinct nature of group dynamics over and above that of the individual.

The capacity groups have to reflect has been emphasized by Foulkes, who adapted Freud's notion of free association of the individual to the equivalent idea of free-floating discussion in the group (Foulkes, 1964). The communication between members of the group gradually, he observed, developed patterns within a particular group into which the members slowly settle. They may then sustain, on the whole, a congenial attitude towards one another and towards exploring their own feelings. Various phenomena of a specifically group kind grew out of his observations on free group discussion-resonance, mirroring and the idea of a network of communication among the individual group members, which he called the 'matrix'. The key concept in Foulkes's approach is that of a communications network or 'group matrix' which evolves in the group and takes on varied traits and characteristics over time (cf. de Maré, 1972). Each communication and transaction alters the overall matrix as well as what happens between particular individuals. The individual is seen as a 'nodal point' within the matrix, a social psychological view which contrasts sharply with the conventional idea that the group is the aggregate of the persons who compose it.… (plus d'informations)

In Taking the Group Seriously (1998), Dalal has teased apart two contradictory strands in Foulkes' thinking about the therapy group. The first strand is drawn from Freudian psychoanalytic theory, which focuses attention on the individual and understands individual psychology in terms of innate drives. Groups are thought of as being formed by individuals and so are to be understood in terms of individual psychology. Groups then act back on individuals to shape individual psyches in the clash between drive discharge and social constraints. The other strand in Foulkesian thought is derived from the process sociology of Elias ([1939] 2000, 1991), which fundamentally contests the notion of innate behaviors, holding that the manner in which individuals experience themselves is formed by social/group processes that they simultaneously form. For Elias, individual mind and social relations are simply two aspects of the same process. Foulkes reflects Elias when he claims that 'the individual is social to the core.'… (plus d'informations)

At the beginning of his long professional career Foulkes practised for many years only as a Viennese-trained psychoanalyst. This was firstly in Frankfurt am Main, where he was the director of the Clinic of the newly formed Institute of Psychoanalysis, then in London in 1933, and finally in Exeter, where he moved in 1940. After the War he resumed his psychoanalytic practice and was recognized as a training analyst by the Freudian B Group at the London Institute and continued his dual practice in individual psychoanalysis and group analysis until his retirement.

Foulkes had a deep interest in social history and sociology that he shared with his close friend Robert Wälder and with Norbert Elias, the distinguished sociologist. The psychoanalyst Wälder belonged to Foulkes' Viennese circle and Elias to the circle in Frankfurt where psychoanalysts and sociologists of the Frankfurt School worked in fruitful collaboration. In his two long reviews of Elias' work Foulkes tried to interest and to impress the psychoanalytical community with the great power of social forces which are as important as those the psychoanalysts attributed to the id, the reservoir of the basic drives.… (plus d'informations)