Various reasons lead me to add a glossary. The first is to provide a synthetic formulation of some original notions suggested in the book; see for example the words: "Emergent state of the group" and "commuting" The second is to specify the sense of some words which are used with a meaning that is different either from that of daily life or from that which is usual in a psychological and psychiatric environment. Prototypes are the words "Institution" which I use according to the definition of W.R. Bion, and "Immaterial similarity" which is a specific reference to the thought of W. Benjamin. The third reason is a general one. It is easier for me to explain it through an image. In a wood, no plant could live without the presence and the proximity of the innumerable vegetable and animal species which form its habitat; similarly ideas need to interact with other thoughts, concepts, images. The glossary is an attempt to form the richest possible habitat for the ideas contained in the book. It is a collection of words which correspond to all those terms, concepts and notions the presence of which in the book seemed to me essential, even if for various reasons I could not explain them in the text. Every entry in the Glossary, as will be seen, is accompanied by a synthetic bibliographical indication. When I prepared these indications I preferred books to articles appearing in specialised reviews. The reason is a practical one: for anyone wishing to study in greater detail the themes dealt with in the glossary, books are easier to obtain. I wish to add that the bibliographical indications appearing in the glossary include those shown in the text of the book and in the general bibliography.

ADHESIVE IDENTIFICATION (E. BICK)

If the containing function is not adequately carried out by the mother, or is damaged by the destructive phantasy attacks of the baby itself, it is not introjected; the normal introjection is replaced by the continual use of pathological projective identification which causes confusion of identity.

States of "non-integration" persist. The baby frantically seeks an object - light, voice, odour etc. - which will let it maintain a unifying attention to the parts of its body, and thus let it have, at least temporarily, the experience of keeping together the parts of the Self, It also keeps itself together through the relationship with these objects, and especially by "adhering", "being stuck" to the mother.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Character armour, Ego-skin, Mental skin.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Bick E (1968) The Experience of the Skin in Early Object-relations. Tavistock Publications, London.

AFFECTIVE HERITAGE OF THE GROUP

A series of elements invested with affects form part of the "affective heritage of the group": the completeness of the group, the continuity of the sessions, the history of the group, the good functioning of the group and its good name. An essential characteristic of the "Affective heritage of the group" is the bi-directionality of the affective currents. The members invest affects in the group; on the other hand the group makes a relevant contribution to the identity and well-being of the members. This aspect of the function of the Affective heritage of the group is in a direct relationship

with its function as Self-object.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Original mythical contract, Group as Self-object, World of It, Nomos.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Searles H.F. (1960). The Non-human Environment. Karnac Books, London.

ANALYSIS IN GROUPS

See under Group analytical psychotherapy in the Glossary

ANALYTIC SPACE

Analytic space, according to Viderman (1970) "is at the same time a place in the physical world and an imaginary place [...] where the analytic process will find all its strength and develop all its possibilities".

Corrao (1977 and 1982) describes it as: "a changeable context able to produce cognitive constructions in expansion carried by expressive plans or projects [...] which are structured either in speech or in interpretation [...]".

In this book, the "analytic space" is considered as a dimension of the "common space" of the small analytic group.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Semiosphere, Common space of the group.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Lucas P. (1985). L'espace analytique des groupes thérapeutiques. Revue de psychothérapie psycho-analytique. 1-2, 119-1 33. Viderman S. (1970) La construction de l'espace analytique. Gallimard, Paris, 1982

ANIMATION

Animation is the process through which, in the course of group therapy, some capacities of a person, which up to that moment had remained potential, take on consistency. Animation is produced by the meeting of two factors: the great intensity of the emotional participation which distinguishes group life, and the presence within it of ways of thinking very different from those which are proper to the family and the world from which the person comes.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Initiation

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Pasolini P.P. (1956) Le ceneri di Gramsci. Einaudi, Turin.

ANOMIE (E. DURKHEIM)

E, Durkheim (1897) designates by this term the absence of values due to the collapse of the stable social and family norms in the contemporary metropolis. This concept brings out, by opposition, the individual's need for structural relationships, objects of identification, roles which enable him to see that he is within a comprehensible frame of reference and consequently to realise that he is safe.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Seriality.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Durkheim E. (1897). Suicide: a Study in Sociology. Kegan Paul, London, 1952

ANTI-GROUP

The exotic, which was an important category of the nineteenth century bourgeois mentality, corresponded in a very limited way to the conditions of life of the populations which were indicated as exotic. Similarly the anti-group of the small analytic group is not an enemy, friendly or alien group. It is essentially an aspect of the identity of the group which is experienced by attributing its characteristics to another group.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Self-representation, Boundaries of the group.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Lotman, J.M. (1978) Testo e Contesto. Laterza, Bari, 1980.

ARTIFICIAL MASSES (S. FREUD)

Freud distinguishes between "primitive masses" and "artificial masses" (for example, the army and the church) The latter are more stable and are preserved from disintegration by the presence of a chief, by their internal articulation and also by a certain degree of constriction which is exerted on the persons who compose them because they cannot detach themselves from them. Freud's distinction shows that the mass psycho- logical condition may be, not a transitory condition, but rather a stable form of social organisation.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Mass, Totalitarian mass.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Freud S. (1921) Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. SE XVIII.

ATTACHMENT (J. BOWLBY)

Bowlby defines attachment as the condition in which the individual is emotionally linked with another person who is perceived as stronger and wiser than himself. The proof of the existence of a relationship of attachment is the seeking of proximity between the two persons and the phenomenon of the "secure base". When he is certain of having a "secure base" the weaker and smaller person is able to explore the environment. Another proof of the existence of the bond of attachment is the protest expressed upon separation.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Self-object.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Bowlby J. (1969) Attachment and Loss. Vol I, Attachment. Hogarth Press, London, 1982; Bowlby J. (1988) A Secure Base. Clinical Applications of the Attachment Theory, Routledge, London; Holmes J. (1993) John Bowlby, An Attachment Theory. Routledge, London.

ATTUNEMENT

See the note on p. 107

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Resonance

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Correale A (1991) Il campo istituzionale. Borla, Rome.

BACKGROUND TONE (F.REDL)

See the entry Group Atmosphere in the Glossary

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS (W.R. BION)

The "group mentality" is the common, unanimous and anonymous opinion of the group at a given moment. The concept of basic assumption tells us something about the content of the above "group mentality". Basic assumption of dependence: the group has the secret and unconscious conviction of being reunited, so that someone on whom the group depends absolutely may satisfy all its needs and desires. Basic assumption of fight-flight: the dominant phantasy is that an enemy exists who has to be attacked or from whom flight is necessary. Basic assumption of pairing: there is an unconscious collective belief that, whatever the present problems and needs of the group may be, they will be solved by a future event: the birth of a child not yet conceived who will be the saviour of the group.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Function-experience and function-institution.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Bion W.R. (1961) Experiences in Groups. Karnac Books London, 1968.

BELONGING

An individual's belonging to a group, at a primitive level, depends on the fact that he has located in the group some strongly undifferentiated and scarcely representable aspects of himself (cf. A. Correale 1992). Belonging corresponds also, more realistically, to the confidence which the individual acquires that he has a right to exist within the group, and the conviction that the confirmation of this right is given by the behaviour of the other members (cf. J. Goodall, 1991; S. Scheidlinger 1964).

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Animation, Genius loci

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Lewin K,(1948) Resolving Social Conflicts. Harper and Row, New York.

BI-PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS PHANTASY (M. and W. BARANGER)

Bi-personal unconscious phantasy constitutes the innermost structure of the "bi-personal field" and consists of a precipitate of the interplay of mutual projective identifications which involves to a varying extent both the patient and the analyst.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Field, Emotional-phantasy constellation, ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Baranger M., Baranger W. (1961-62). La situación analitica como campo dinámico. Revista Uraguaya de Psicoanalisis, 4,1, 3-54.

CANNIBALISTIC MEAL (S. FREUD)

In a famous passage Freud describes the killing of the father-chief of the Horde and the cannibal banquet, which starts off the process which leads to the birth of the Community of brothers, through a complex series of passages including the incorporation of the slain father, the emergence of guilt, the institution of prohibitions, the deification of the father. Freud tells us that one day the sons together took the upper hand, and after killing the father, who was at the same time their ideal enemy, ate his mortal remains together. After this criminal act none of them could take up the paternal heritage, since each prevented the other from doing it. From the sudden loss and remorse for the crime committed the sons learned to bear with each other and unite in a fraternal clan born of the prescriptions of totemism, which guaranteed that the same would never happen again; they agreed to give up the possession of women, as they had killed the father because of them. They could now marry only women outside the clan. This is the origin of exogamy and its intimate connection with totemism.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Community of brothers, nomos, Stage of the Community of brothers.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Freud S, (1912-1913) Totem and Taboo. SE XIII

CHARACTER ARMOUR (W. REICH)

The poor functioning of the "mental skin" may lead the baby to the formation of a substitute (muscular) prosthesis, which replaces the normal dependence on the containing object with a pseudo-independence. These phenomena have been partly described in different terminology by W. Reich (1933) who speaks of the "muscular armour of the character".

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Adhesive identification, Ego-skin, Mental skin.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Reich W. (1933) Character Analysis. Vision, London, 1950.

COHESION (I.D. YALOM)

According to Yalom cohesion represents one of the principal therapeutic factors of the group. He defines it generically as the end result of all the forces which act to keep each member within the group or also the attraction exerted by a group on its components. Yalom also specifies that cohesion is not synonymous with acceptance and understanding.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Fusion, Interdependence, Solidarity.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Yalom I.D. (1985) The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, 4th edition, Basic Books, New York, 1995.

COINONIA (P. FORNARI)

Fornari (1987, p.137) gives the following definition: "The group is a psychic reality which is born of an experience of space-time sharing (coinonia) by several individuals communicating among themselves in view of a large variety of goals, realistic or imaginary, self-centred or hetero-centred".

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Group, common space of the group.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Trentini et al (1987). Il Cerchio Magico. Angeli, Milan.

COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS (C.G. JUNG)

"Images, ideas, formulations and laws are somehow stored in a social structure [...]. "These elements, according to Jung, play, in socially determined memory, exactly the same role as that assigned by the traditional theory of memory to the "traces" left by individual experiences" (F.C. Bartlett 1936).

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Historical field and actual field, Group phantasy.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Jung C.G (1928) Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious. Collected Works, vol.5. Routledge, London.

COMMON SPACE OF THE GROUP

The "Common space of the group" is a "functional place", invested with affects, which is considered a space in which the interaction and life of the group take place. In the small analytic group, it becomes progressively an attractor of sensations. phantasies and thoughts. In this book the terms "Analytic space", "Common space of the group", "Field" and "Semiosphere" are used as largely interchangeable because they refer to different aspects of the same phenomenology.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Limits of the group, Proxemics.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Whorf B.L. (1956) Language, Thought and Reality. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

COMMUTING

Referring to group analysis, this term denotes the oscillating motion from the individual dimension to that of the group, and vice versa. An intentional and particularly creative way of commuting is "effective narration". A second way of commuting, non-intentional and unconscious, is "transpersonal propagation".

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Configuration, Trans-personal diffusion, Explicitation, Effective narration.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Corrao F (1954) Duale Gruppale. In G. Di Chiara and C. Neri (editors) Psicoanalisi Futura, Borla, Rome.

COMMUNITY OF BROTHERS

The Community of brothers (or fraternal clan) has various functions. Among these is the function of supporting the analyst in the regulation of the possession of a common "affective heritage"; in symbolic terms, in the regulation of the possession of women. This function is part of a triangular relationship (analyst, Community of brothers, affective heritage of the group) which is based on a "nomos" or fundamental right, which is not part of the rules of the setting and is not present at the beginning of the therapy, but which comes into being at the moment when the members become conscious of being a group (Community of brothers) and begin to operate as such, becoming a "collective subject" (cf. M.C. Gear, E.C. Liendo 1979).

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: The group as collective subject, Nomos, Affective heritage of the group, Stage of the Community of brothers.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Freud S. (1912-13), Totem and Taboo, SE XIII.

CONDENSATION (S.H. FOULKES)

One of the functional mechanisms of the group described by Foulkes is condensation. He attributes to the term a different meaning from the one which Freud gives it. To be more precise, Foulkes says: It almost seems that the collective unconscious operates as a condenser which first stores in secret the strong emotional charges generated by the group, then discharges them in the form of typical shared group events (S.H. Foulkes and E.J. Anthony 1957, p.151)

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Historical field and present field, Model scene.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Foulkes S.H. and Anthony E.J. (1957) Group Psychotherapy: the Psychoanalytic Approach. Heinemann, London, reprinted, Karnac Books, London, 1984.

CONFIGURATION (S.H. FOULKES)

Foulkes and Anthony (1957, p.237) describe the notion thus: "Every single event in the group, even if it seems to involve only one or two members, has a certain configuration which involves the group as a whole".

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Commuting.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Foulkes S.H. and Anthony E.J. (1957). Group Psychotherapy: the Psychoanalytical Approach. Karnac Books, London 1989.

CONTAINER AND CONTAINED (W.R. BION)

See the entry "Interaction between and" in the Glossary.

CROWD (G. LE BON)

According to Le Bon (1895), individuals when they are in a crowd, behaving according to the impulses of the crowd, independently of their type of life, their occupations, their temperament or intelligence, acquire a sort of collective mind through the single factor of being transformed into a crowd. This mind makes them feel, think, act in a way completely different from the way each of them would feel, think, act as an isolated individual. The psychological crowd, according to Le Bon, is a temporary thing composed of heterogeneous elements joined together for an instant.

ASSOCIATED NOTIONS: Group soul, Mass.

ESSENTIAL BIBL.: Le Bon G.(1895). The Crowd. A Study of the Popular Mind. Fisher Unwin, London 1921.