The experiential tradition of group relations does not lend itself easily to the discipline of the written word.

It is one of the successes of the Belgirate series that it has given opportunities to struggle with that inhibition – the oppressive demand that we have to get it right. The book is addressed primarily to the ‘global group relations network’- those who were at the conference and those who were not –  and it is also of interest to anyone who wants to look at this network in play…This is an open system looking in at itself.

The American psychoanalyst Tom Ogden has said that the reader becomes the silent co-author of the text. This is the challenge to us. This is not so much a book about group relations as a book of group relations, and we can experience for ourselves the relatedness of the different voices. It is not a reference book or a monument to past achievement, but a living document to work with, to taste the desire and look to our own thirst.

Reading this chapter or that, we may hear a wise interpretation of the system or simply a beating heart. Read the book and see a community restless with itself. In this restlessness is the encouragement to new life.

(taken from the foreword by Dr Tim Dartington).

The book includes contributions from international Group Relations practitioners, including a chapter by the TIHR Professional Development Coordinator Rachel Kelly, who shines a timely spotlight on the potential of the Administrative function in organisations- a role which is sometimes overlooked, undervalued and/or marginalised. The Institute’s CEO, Eliat Aram, has given one of two key note addresses at the conference which is now the first chapter in the book. She is one of the editors – a role she has shared for the second time with Bob Baxter of AK Rice (USA) and Avi Nutkevitch of OFEK (Israel).

The book can be purchased through Karnac Books and a preview can be seen here.