The Group Analyst’s Role when Facing the Group

Abstract

This article presents a brief review of the conductor’s role towards the group, since the initial definitions provided by S.H. Foulkes and E.J. Anthony (1957 [1984]). Meanwhile E.L. Cortesão (1967; 1979; 1988; 1989 [2008]; 1991) tackled the initial conceptualizations of matrix and group processes, believing they were not sufficiently developed to explain the technique or any other meta-theory in group analysis. So he developed a complementary point of view, the concept of ‘pattern’, which would embrace all the phenomena related to the matrix and simultaneously be more aware of the conductor’s presence and influence through his personal and general characteristics, his specific postures and his attitudes when he holds and sustains the group process within the matrix. He proposed this concept of pattern as a kind of imprint brought by the conductor into the group’s matrix, which conveys and sustains the matrix when he promotes and develops a group-analytic process.