The Large Group Re Visited The Herd, Primal Horde, Crowds

and Masses

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First published in the United Kingdom in 2003

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd
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 For
Adele, our children and grandchildren
Martha for being my soul-mate
 Contents
FOREWORD 9
Malcolm Pines, Institute of Group Analysis, London

Introduction: Background, Structure and Dynamics

of the Large Group 13
Haim Weinberg, Tel Aviv University and Stanley Schneider,
Hebrew University and Michlalah, Jerusalem

Part I The Large Group: Theory and Technique

1 A Consultant’s Journey into the Large Group Unconscious:
Principles and Techniques 29
Lamis K. Jarrar, Howard University Counseling Service,
Washington, D.C.

2 Large Groups and Culture 44

Malcolm Pines

3 Aspects of Aggression in Large Groups Characterised

by (ba) I:A/M 58
Earl Hopper, Institute of Group Analysis, London

4 The Mystical and the Spiritual in the Large Group 73

Stanley Schneider

5 Chaos and Order in the Large Group 86

Gerhard Wilke, Institute of Group Analysis, London

6 Experiences in Large Groups: Bion’s Influence 98

Robert M. Lipgar, University of Chicago
 7 The Power of Projective Processes in Large Groups 112
Joseph H. Berke, Arbours Crisis Centre, London

Part II The Large Group: Application to Society

8 Socially Sanctioned Violence: The Large Group as Society 125
Otto F. Kernberg, Personality Disorders Institute, New York

9 The Large Group and Political Process 150

Josef Shaked, Austrian Group Analytic Society, Vienna

10 The Large Group and the Organization 162

Joseph Triest, Tel Aviv University

11 The In-patient Large Group Meeting 175

Rolf Schmidts, German Academy of Psychoanalysis, Munich

12 The Large Group in a Virtual Environment 188

Haim Weinberg

13 The Large Group and Leadership Challenges

in a Group Analytic Training Community 201
Thor Kristian Island, Institute of Group Analysis, Oslo

Epilogue
The Larger Group as a Meeting of Mi nds:
A Philosophical Understanding 214
Patrick de Maré, Institute of Group Analysis, London, and Roberto
Schöllberger, Institute for Psychoanalysis, Zurich
THE CONTRIBUTORS 224

SUBJECT INDEX 228

NAME INDEX 237

 Foreword

As I write this in April 2003 the media are full of the war in Iraq, the
downfall of the cities, the breakdown of civil society, the fear of
continuing chaos and anarchy. Since the first large group book appeared in
1975, we have witnessed or participated in huge political and social
changes such as the fall of the Iron Curtain, the disintegration of former
Yugoslavia, the overthrow of tyrannical regimes in the Balkan countries.
Political scientists have used the insights of psychoanalysts and group
analysts to grasp more deeply the nature of these conflicts, to see how
some repair work can be done as the map of the world is ripped up and
new geographies are formed.
The Large Group Re-Visited: The Herd, Primal Horde, Crowds and Masses
refers back to Large Group, which Kreeger edited in 1975. That pioneering
book had a direct historical link to therapeutic community rehabilitation
pioneered during World War II: Bion, Foulkes, Main, Bridger and de Maré
were cited. The flow of ideas from war-time psychiatry led to reforms in
large psychiatric institutions: the dawning awareness of the exploratory
power of large groups was pioneered by British and American psychiatrists
and significant thoughtful exploration of this work appeared in Kreeger’s
Large Group. Since then, the median and large group movement has rippled
out across much of the world, principally Western Europe, the United
States and parts of the former Soviet Union. In my own contribution, I
report some traveller’s tales from the many parts of the world that I have
visited and where I have taken part in large group experiences.
During a lengthy career in psychiatry, psychoanalysis and group
analysis, I have met and worked with the great majority of contributors to
this new book. Having looked for some years for editors of a new large
group book, I was pleased and fortunate that two Israeli group analysts,

9
10 THE LARGE GROUP RE-VISITED

Haim Weinberg and Stanley Schneider, picked up the baton and ran with
it efficiently, so that this book has been completed in good time. I will
allow myself to celebrate my connection with Tom Main, with whom I
worked for more than a decade at the Cassel Hospital, Lamis Jarrar, who I
first met at the Washington School of Psychiatry and then saw at work in
the large group meeting in Jerusalem at the International Congress of
Group Psychotherapy, with Earl Hopper, whose two books appear in this
series, with the editors, whom I have met both in Israel and at international
conferences, with Gerhard Wilke, who trained with us at the Institute of
Group Analysis in London, with Robert Lipgar, with whom I have toiled
fruitfully to produce the two Bion monographs in this series, with Jo Berke
whose work at the Arbours Foundation I have known and admired for
many years.
I was privileged to be invited as a visitor and consultant to Otto
Kernberg’s hospital in White Plains, New York, where Howard Kibel was
introducing and coordinating small and large group work. I well
remember an occasion when I was chairing the final plenary session of the
International Congress of Group Psychotherapy in Copenhagen, 1980,
when a political movement broke through the container of the large group,
threatening to subvert the meeting for its own ends. I well remember
telling the plenary that I would use the authority that had been bestowed
upon me as the Chair of that meeting to bring it back to its work task, with
Otto sitting beside me and I think very much supporting my leadership.
His deeply thought-through contribution to this volume is vital to our
understanding of the phenomenon of terrorism, its ideology and the
terribly dangerous splits it causes in society. This is a theme that Earl
Hopper has also clarified for us and I empathise with and appreciate what
he writes about character-assassination and attacks on leadership. When
such situations arise, it is helpful to see them not only on the surface, but
explore them in depth.
I was glad to be able to introduce Rolf Schmidt’s work to the editors,
having accepted an invitation to a meeting in Munich extended to me by
the members of Gunther Ammon’s enterprising movement. Ammon had
brought back from his years at Menninger ideas that initiated significant
changes in German psychiatry and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The
only contributor to this book who I have not met or sat with in a large
 FOREWORD 11

group is Joseph Triest, and I have appreciated meeting him through the
pages of this book.
Finally, I come to two people whom I feel personally enriched by
through my work with them over many years. S. H. Foulkes was my own
analyst, though he should not have to take responsibility for all that I have
done since that experience of 50 years ago. Foulkes gave us a theoretical
framework upon which our work stands, a matrix of thought and practice.
We still know too little about some aspects of Foulkes’s mentality and per-
sonality and Gerhard Wilke sheds some interesting light upon these areas.
Next, to Pat de Maré, always a man ahead of his times. Pat is a man of great
psychological, social and philosophical vision: so often what I regarded in
him as a too narrowly focused perspective has turned out to be illumi-
nating a pathway that, years later, we find ourselves following. His
thoughts and practice with median and large groups make possible this
volume. In the 1930s, de Maré was a frontrunner in thinking deeply about
social, political and psychological issues. He was enthusiastic about the
economic ideas of Major Douglas, the originator of the Social Credit
movement that had some considerable following and practical success in
Canada. Only very recently did I see in a current journal that there was a
revival of interest in the ideas of Social Credit. Group analytic theory and
some aspects of economic theory have begun to be interwoven, as exem-
plified by the European Symposium of 2002 in Bologna entitled ‘The
Economy of the Group’.
I warmly congratulate the editors for bringing together this most sig-
nificant volume.

Malcolm Pines,
Institute of Group Analysis, London
 INTRODUCTION

Background, Structure and

Dynamics of the Large Group
Haim Weinberg and Stanley Schneider

Historical background
The impetus for this book arose out of the burgeoning interest in recent
years in the large group. In the early 1970s, studying the large group
became part of the educational curriculum in some training programs in
group analysis. But it was only in 1972 that the Institute of Group Analysis
and the Group Analytic Society (London) formally included the large
group experience as an experiential part of their conferences. Many inter-
national and local group conferences (e.g. those run by the American
Group Psychotherapy Association, the International Group Psychotherapy
Association, the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Association, Israel Group
Psychotherapy Association, and others) followed suit and now include the
large group experience as part of their programs. In addition, therapeutic
communities and psychiatric facilities make use of the large group in unit
and ward meetings. A collection of papers on the large group (Kreeger
1975) and a special issue of the journal Group appeared in order to meet
the need for understanding of large group processes; however, what is still
lacking is a clear exposition and description of the theoretical, technical
and practical aspects of technique with regard to the large group. This
book attempts to fill that vacuum.
What we should be noting now is the date or period of time that large
groups have been in vogue, but we find it is very difficult to pinpoint a time

13
14 THE LARGE GROUP RE-VISITED

period when group psychotherapists began to focus on the dynamics and

theoretical underpinnings of the large group.
We could look at Le Bon’s (1952; originally published in 1896) classic
work, The Crowd, as a philosophical beginning in studying the psychology
of large numbers of people who come together – or, as Le Bon subtitled his
work: ‘A Study of the Popular Mind.’ Le Bon felt that individuals who join
a crowd subjugate their individual self, unique personality traits and moral
values in order to be part of a large amorphous whole and this releases the
‘wild’ part of one’s personality. The individual in the crowd operates on a
lower ethical and personality level, losing individuality and revealing
‘quasi-psychopathic leanings’ with weaker superego functions and with
reduced feelings of guilt and anxiety. The reason for the behavioral change
is due to the fact that the crowd gives to the individual a feeling of power
while at the same time diffusing power and responsibility – which para-
doxically transforms the individual from part of a crowd to an anonymous
individual within the crowd. The crowd has tremendous power over the
individual and has a contagious effect. We only have to look at political
and sporting events around the world in order to be able to see the effects
of a crowd.
Or possibly we should look to Bion’s (1961) book Experiences in
Groups as a starting point since this work serves as a basic guideline for
Tavistock, A. K. Rice Group Relations Conferences and the Leicester Con-
ferences; Bion led groups at Tavistock, and Rice was one of his group
members (cf. Rioch 1981). As an aside, it’s important to note that Rice
(1965) viewed the large group in leader-centered terms, and even called
his text Learning for Leadership. While this is not exactly what we have in
mind with regard to large group dynamics, we can nonetheless see how
influential large group theory can be with regard to practical applications.
The concept of the large group was applied in another direction by
Main (1946), who began to view the therapeutic institution, in this case
the psychiatric hospital, as a large therapeutic group. Main’s experience
came from the Second Northfield Experiment where a cadre of pioneering
intellectuals advanced the idea of a therapeutic community and therapeutic
milieu (Harrison 2000). However, the real pioneer in advancing the
concept of the large group to the sphere of therapeutic communities was
Maxwell Jones (1953). For the first time, psychiatry became cognizant of
 INTRODUCTION 15

the importance of social factors in treating larger numbers of patients

(Schneider 1978).
From a theoretical vantage point, Marshall Edelson (1970) was instru-
mental in applying large group theory and principles in understanding
how socio-therapy can deal with inter- and intra-group tensions. While
Edelson viewed therapeutic community meetings as task-oriented (shades
of Bion’s concepts), Foulkes (1964, 1975) utilized group analytic
principles with larger groups that were not necessarily task-oriented.
With this as a backdrop, de Maré (1972, 1985, 1989, de Maré et al.
1991) entered the fray. De Maré‚ coined the phrase ‘the larger group,’ to
refer to groups that had numbers above the usual and traditional amount.
For the first time we had a theoretical framework that distinguished
between small groups, ‘regular’ groups, median groups and large groups.
De Maré feels that ‘the capacity for change in the large group is immense’
(Whiteley and Gordon 1979, p.128). We now began to appreciate the
importance of larger groups in terms of a capacity for change, as well as for
understanding culture and society.
In 1975 Kreeger edited a volume entitled The Large Group: Dynamics
and Therapy. For the first time, a collection of papers centering around the
theme of the large group attempted to quantify and qualify the concept.
Some of the original papers (by Foulkes, Main, Turquet, de Maré, Hopper
and Weyman, and Pines) have become classics. This book appears over 25
years later, and shows how large group theory has evolved and helps
explain culture, institutions, organizations and…even individuals. We
have experts, clinicians and theoreticians from seven countries (Austria,
Germany, Israel, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United
States) who, in 14 papers, guide us through the intricate web of large
group theory and practice.

Definition of terms
We now need to define our terms. What should be the size of a group, and
what constitutes a large group? As de Maré‚ (1972) writes: ‘The problem
for the member of the small group is how to feel spontaneously…whereas
for the large group it is primarily how to think’ (p.106). Small groups
optimally have between 7 and 12 members, with some theoreticians
allowing for up to 15. Gosling (1981) even writes about very small groups
16 THE LARGE GROUP RE-VISITED

of five members. The median group, as defined by de Maré et al. (1991),

note ‘that the figure of 18–20 members appears to be the appropriate size
for…median groups’ (p.16). Others (Storck 2002) note the more accepted
standard of 15–30. In order to obviate the need for a precise categoriza-
tion, de Maré’s terms: ‘the larger group’ (1991, p.15) and ‘the
larger-sized-group approach’ (1990, p.115), counts 20 and upwards. We
generally count large group membership as anything above 30–35.
Turquet (1975) addresses himself to large groups of 40–80 (p.87).
However, large groups can include many hundreds of participants, or even
more if we include societal groups: ethnic, cultural, political, etc. (Volkan
2001).
Not only do numbers change the physical characteristics of a group,
but the dynamics and character of the group also change with the numbers
of group members. As Turquet (1975) notes: ‘…with such numbers the
group can no longer be face to face’ (p.88). This, in effect, categorizes the
dynamic understanding of the large group: such large numbers do not
allow for intimacy but rather can engender feelings of difference and
alienation. This raises a technical issue that has psychological importance:
how to plan the seating arrangements. Having only one large circle doesn’t
allow the conductor(s) to recognize those sitting at the other end of a large
room. It creates a feeling of a large cavernous body without the ability to
contain; metaphorically a womb that is unable to be fertile. What has
proved to be more efficacious (although not without drawbacks) are ‘three
to five concentric circles’ (Turquet 1975, p.88) that enable group partici-
pants to be closer to one another. However, this gives rise to a situation
where some participants are facing the backs of others and this can foster
paranoid thoughts, as well as a dizzy, convoluted feeling. Add to this the
common practice that more seasoned veterans of large group experiences
usually sit within the ‘inner’ circle and/or close to the conductor(s), and we
de facto awaken feelings of superiority and inferiority.

Purpose
What is the purpose of the large group? This can be viewed as a ‘trick’
question because large groups, as societal, educational and political
structures, exist anyhow. But we do artificially create large group settings
in order for participants to learn experientially what large group processes
 INTRODUCTION 17

actually are. In general the consensus holds that large group experiences
are not, in or of themselves, psychotherapy. A notable exception is
Springmann (1975), who discusses the large ward meeting on a psychi-
atric ward. Today, we would refer to this type of ‘psychotherapy’ more as a
large therapeutic community, and not psychotherapy proper.
We utilize the large group experience as a laboratory in which to study
large group processes, both conscious and unconscious, as a way of under-
standing their impact and influence upon social, organizational and
systemic thinking, feelings and actions. The large group is not capable of
dealing with the specific feelings and pains of the individual and can often
intensify feelings of aloneness. It cannot function as a form or type of psy-
chotherapy, although, in some participants, it may engender feelings of
containment. The large group is, however, an important tool in under-
standing social interactive processes and interrelationships within society.
As de Maré writes: ‘The large group…offers us a context and a possible
tool for exploring the interface between the polarised and split areas of
psychotherapy and sociotherapy. This is the area of the inter-group and of
the transdisciplinary…’ (1975, p.146).
Foulkes (1964) delineated multiple dimensions that operate within the
group. He wrote that we could discern four levels ‘from surface to deeper
and hidden aspects’ (p.114). The last level, ‘the primordial level’ (p.115),
corresponds to the deepest unconscious level of Freud and the collective
unconscious level of Jung. Powell (1994, p.16) wonders (‘wishful
thinking’) how Foulkes attributed primordial images to Freud. In Foulkes’
own words: ‘it is always the transpersonal network which is sensitized and
gives utterance, or responds. In this sense we can postulate the existence of
a group “mind”…’ (1964, p.118). We can see from the spiralic trans-
vergencies that arise within the large group the parallelisms that occur
within the social interactional environment known as the societal
microcosm. The large group reflects not only what is occurring in the
here-and-now, but also relates on a transferential level what is occurring in
the organization, conference, political climate, etc.
The participant in the large group learns how to be a good ‘citizen’ in
the group and/or society. As de Maré et al. note: ‘large groups are tilted
towards socio-cultural awareness. Citizenship is only adequately
observable in a larger setting…’ (1991, p.11). As a citizen one learns how
to influence others and also how impotent we all may be. The large group
18 THE LARGE GROUP RE-VISITED

participant develops connections and feelings of belonging to society –

the large whole – and not to a specific subgroup. This enables participants
to take a more active role (emotionally if not actually physically) and to
‘take in other people’s points of view’ (James 1994, p.60). This is
‘important to the development of citizenship’ (James 1994, p.60).
The large group helps in role differentiation and integration in
developing both individual and group identity. These identities can
include gender, political, religious, ethnic, etc. As these individual identity
traits emerge, they are always in the context of the large group: for
comparison, to accentuate difference, or to imitate.
The large group is an ideal venue for investigating issues of leadership
and authority. The Tavistock Conferences explore these issues within
clearly defined boundaries, which is often perceived as engendering
feelings of alienation and loneliness. In organizational consultation, the
large group is also used in order to explore conflicts and tensions within
organizational structures. As de Maré et al. (1991) write: ‘large groups
provide a setting in which we can explore our social myths (the social
unconscious) and where we can begin to bridge the gap between ourselves
and our socio-cultural environment…’ (p.10).
The large group participant is the ‘individual’ within the ‘crowd.’ This
is, generally, an uncomfortable feeling. The individual feels like a cog in a
wheel, losing part of his individuality and being pulled by regressive large
group dynamics. One feels in limbo between conscious and unconscious
dynamics, with the collective unconscious adding its weight to the
regressive phenomena. And there is a regressive pull in the area of
separation–individuation, between self and other. On the one hand there
is the need to belong and feel part of and contained, and on the other hand,
an opposing pull towards separation and individuation. It’s very hard to
maintain one’s sense of self against the onslaught of large group/crowd
dynamics.

Dynamic processes
The dynamic processes, specifically the projective processes, are different
in the large group from what we find in other, smaller group constellations.
The large group awakens feelings of anxiety much sooner than we find in
smaller groups. This is probably due to the weaker container function of