Consultation, Please
December 2000/January 2001

Dear Consultant:
I was the co-leader of a training group for professionals in a group program. We met once a week for an ongoing process group. There were eight members: three Caucasian males, one African American woman, and four Caucasian women. The African American woman and one of the Caucasian women, who is Jewish, are in a homosexual relationship. My male co-leader is of Irish Italian descent, and I am a Jewish woman. Six months into the program, a fight erupted between the homosexual couple. The Jewish woman became very angry because she felt that the African American woman had stolen some of her ideas to finish one of her projects. During the verbal fight, the members and the leaders became paralyzed. The leaders felt a sense of excitement watching how well they fought and a sense of frustration for feeling out of control and unable to intervene. After this session, we lost the African American woman from the program. In my countertransference, I became paralyzed, frustrated, and excited. How could I have used my experience and role to intervene in the fight? What happened to the group?

Sincerely,
Paralyzed Therapist

Dear Paralyzed Therapist:
In considering diversity, issues around both color and competition usually emerge. Which comes first: competition or anxiety around color differences? What is the pressing group agenda if the group projects its hostility and aggression towards the member who appears to look the most different? It appears that the group was unable to communicate the unconscious process around the transference that led to an anti-group phenomenon: aggression against the group. What part did the group play in this couple’s fight? What were they avoiding? I always keep in mind that members bring aspects of their family of origin to the group.

For the purpose of my response, I will focus on skin color. Skin color is one of the most difficult areas of diversity to process because it touches anxiety at both pre-oedipal and oedipal levels. I think that what makes communication so difficult concerning skin color is that the differences remind us of the primitive wish to merge with the mother before there was clear differentiation. If the early experience was too disruptive, then the experience of difference results in denigration and hostility instead of knowledge and curiosity. The member who is the most different in the group, in this case the African American woman, runs the risk of becoming the scapegoat before she/he can bring her/his own individual dynamic into the group as a whole.

The anti-group phenomenon appears to have erupted in this group as the group organized around the homosexual couple; they appear different in terms of skin color, yet they are the same gender. It appears that the group did not feel safe enough to work through their feelings of hostility and competition with the leaders. When left alone by the paralyses of the therapists, they turned to the pre-oedipal mothers, where envy became the most powerful feeling, subsequently scapegoating the minority member. 

How could the co-leaders have worked through the anti-group transference? First, both co-leaders needed to be knowledgeable about the dynamics of skin color and the anxiety of the group. Secondly the co-leader couple needed to able to redirect the aggression, containing it without defensiveness and sub-grouping to protect the minority member and safely facilitate the communication around fear of the other and how this may have resonated with the members’ internal group.

Maria Ross, LICSW-C
Bethesda, Maryland

Dear Paralyzed Therapist:
The differences between training and therapy groups should be considered when responding to your question. In training groups,

• Members are often involuntary participants who face considerable penalties for exiting the group;
• No pre-screening usually occurs;
• Members may fear that disclosed information will be used when evaluating their professional competence in a way that is detrimental;
• Confidentiality is not assured to the extent that it can be in therapy groups;
• It is unlikely that a social history or assessment was completed;
• Leaders may function in a dual relationship.

The described group was probably functioning under these conditions. Other factors may have contributed to the conflict, including professional competition, displaced hostility, lack of knowledge about constructive confrontation, and conditions not established for managing conflict. 

Unsubstantiated accusations fueled the attack, and unconscious collusion by the co-therapists and other members resulted in paralysis, non-intervention, and considerable narcissistic wounding. The outcome for the group was the loss of a member, which will impact her professional training and career.

The target (the African American woman) could be the container for the group’s displaced aggression and hostility. It may have been safer to engage this member in conflict than it would have been to open conflict with other members and/or the co-leaders. Since the leaders did not block or redirect the charge, the attacking member may have perceived the absence of intervention as agreement with her. The co-leaders felt paralyzed, frustrated, excited, and out of control. It is likely that the group members had a similar experience. The clinician asks how her experience and role could have been used to intervene. One suggestion is for the leader to block attacking behavior and to help the member better understand her need to act out hostile feelings. This intervention can prevent unnecessary wounding. Another strategy is to try to empathize with both the attacker and the target. Responding to each with understanding can help defuse and redirect the behavior in more productive directions. It is also helpful to group members to teach the basics of constructive confrontation so that expressing one’s perception of the other is not an attack and can be heard and understood in constructive ways.

The other question was “what happened to the group?” The group did not have sufficient safety and trust established to deal effectively with the conflict. Members responded to the co-leaders’ modeling of paralysis, frustration, and excitement. By saying nothing, members’ feelings of insecurity and uncertainty were intensified. 

Nina Brown, EdD
Virginia Beach, Virginia

This Consultation, Please column appeared in the December 2000/January 2001 issue of The Group Circle.