Back to the rough ground: From predictability to radical uncertainty

Abstract

In this article I will begin by thinking about how schools of psychotherapy come to be created, and argue that this is a political process rather than a ‘scientific’, technical or rational one. I describe ways in which practice can at times be unhelpfully rigidified into techniques which are used to build borders between schools. I follow this by a description of how Eliasian gossip is used to reinforce methodological silos. Finally I consider group analysis’ relationship to psychoanalysis, science and the medical model in order to try to shed light on the question ‘one group analysis or many?’.