The Group and the Group Analyst's Pregnancies

Abstract

This paper describes the experience of working as a pregnant group analyst through two pregnancies. It deals with the practical aspects of conducting a group while pregnant, such as letting the patients know, employing a locum and passing the group on to a new conductor. It suggests that the group's response to the pregnancy parallels what happens in a family and details some of the primitive material to do with sexuality, envy and loss stirred up by the pregnancy. The paper also looks at the technical difficulties for the group analyst. The task of the group analyst is to hold the projections so that the patients can deal, through free-floating discussion, with the intrusion of the group analyst's real baby into the group. However, the group analyst loses some of her protection when the boundaries between fantasy and reality become blurred. It becomes both more essential and more difficult to monitor the transference and counter-transference at a time when the group analyst is moving into previously uncharted waters and is full of feelings of her own.