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On Group Analysis and Beyond: Group Analysis as Meta-Theory, Clinical Social Practice, and Art

In On Group Analysis and Beyond, Anastassios Koukis reformulates Bionian, Freudian, Foulkesian, and Lacanian conceptualizations and aims to develop a new theory and meta-theory for group analysis. He provides clinical material in support of these. Overall, it is worth a read, although the theoretical part disappoints. His theoretical elaborations draw on theoretical models and on philosophical and social theories, which are based on different premises. This incompatible postmodern remix neither evades the primacy of psychoanalysis in group analysis nor escapes archaic paternalistic conceptualizations. For example, Koukis acknowledges the pre-oedipal mother and tries a balancing act of the sexes, but ultimately for Koukis, there must be an Oedipal resolution. Without it, we remain in a state of pseudosociality and possibly prone to psychosis. With the primacy of the Law of the Father, which trumps the role of the pre-oedipal mother, Koukis draws heavily on Lacan and the symbolic. He fails to acknowledge that the symbolic roles of the mother and father are historical, political, ideological, and cultural constructs, and only have meaning in heterosexual systems built on white, Western, masculine, and capitalist foundations. Sadly, what we are left with is a reproduction of the European Law of the Father dressed in maternal group analytic disguise. The book makes up for the disappointing first part through its clinical illustrations, case discussions, and a single case study. The book comes alive in parts 2 and 3. Entering Koukis’s consulting room and beyond (Greek society) as readers, we become part of moving group interactions and clinical scenarios, which touch our International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 68: 477–478, 2018 Copyright © The American Group Psychotherapy Association, Inc. ISSN: 0020-7284 print/1943-2836 online DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207284.2018.1456803