Resonance among Members and its Therapeutic Value in Group Psychotherapy

“ Resonance ” is one of the basic concepts in group analysis which represents a psycho dynamic perspective of group therapy. Based mainly on psychoanalytic theory and practice, group analysis explores the matrix of communication between people, which may be transformed into therapeutic contribution. Resonance is a primal unconscious and spontaneous communication between people in which all - human themes inspire each other, forming an interpersonal group mind and common emotional experience. In psychotherapy, “ Resonance ” is an acoustic metaphor for human interaction, which draws on the phenomenon in which “ a sound is reinforced by refl ection or specifi cally by synchronous vibration ” (Oxford English Dictionary). The sound (vibration) of one string may evoke a different sound from another nearby string of the same pitch (frequency). In group analysis the term “ Resonance ” was suggested by Foulkes (1977) as he noticed some spontaneous unconscious, verbal or non - verbal interaction between members in the group that resembled for him strings that vibrate and reinforce each other. “ The individual resonates in the key to which he is attuned, in which his specifi c personality structure is set. . . . the term resonance underlines that this happens quite instinctively and inevitably. Each individual member picks out from the common pool what is relevant to him ” (Foulkes, 1977 : pp. 298 – 299). According to Foulkes (1977) , resonance always takes into account the unconscious meaning and the “ wavelength of the stimulating event, ” faithfully and correctly. In the analytic group individuals not only resonate on a large scale to each other, simultaneously and reciprocally, but also to the group as a whole and particularly to the group conductor, who in turn is infl uenced by his own resonance. Under the conditions which we create in these groups, that which is deeply individual material is also shared in the group itself. Thus what is unknown and unknowable to each individual member is nevertheless activated by this common process and is in this way also fed back into the common matrix.