In this interactive talk, Dr Yossi Triest speaks about psychoanalysis and Group Relations – the ambivalence towards psychoanalysis in society and in our present Group Relations (GR) community, claiming equivalence with the ‘traditional’ ambivalence towards groups (in general) in society and within some psychoanalytic societies. Although perhaps this is changing?
Yossi ponders on:
1. What is the source of this ‘historical’ ambivalence?
2. Has psychoanalysis still anything to contribute to present day Group Relations theory and practice – and vice versa? (a spoiler: Yes!)
He focuses on the exploration of the unconscious – which psychoanalysis and GR share in common and find necessary for understanding human behaviour and experience.
He examines the historical way the exploration of the unconscious leads psychoanalysis (inevitably) from the individual (Freud) through the dyad (Klein, Bion) and the threesome, to the group – (Freud, Bion) and beyond – to the ‘matrix’ (Foulks) – and again back to the individual but on a different level (like tracking a Mobius strip – a surface with only one side and only one boundary. It has the mathematical property of being unorientable).
Recording of the talk
Josef (Yossi) Triest (PhD) is a Training Psychoanalyst (IPS; IPA), Senior Clinical Psychologist and Organizational consultant. He is a lecturer and supervisor in Tel-Aviv University, the Israel Psychoanalytic Institute and several Psychotherapy schools.
In 1985 he co-founded the ‘Triest – Sarig Clinic’ which serves as an authorized Training Institute for clinical psychologists (nowadays about 70) in different stages of their training. The clinic works with children (many of them in boarding houses) adults, couples, families and Groups – and offers a variety of multi-cultural psychotherapy and consultancy services to a relatively wide range of communities.
His engagement in the Group Relations field started about 20 years ago in a Leicester conference and was highly meaningful for his later career. Since than Triest has taken up several roles – including director and associate director roles – in OFEK conferences in Israel and around the world.
He has been a board-member of OFEK and serves today as OFEK’s representative to the MAT (Management and Administration Team) of the Belgirate meetings (a 3-yearly meta-hub for Group Relations staff). Triest is the author of several papers and chapters as well as co-editor of the last Belgirate book.
Between 2014-2017 he served as the president of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society (IPS). In this role, he introduced group work and organizational thinking into this society. Overcoming the traditional ‘split’ between ‘psychoanalysis of the individual’ and ‘psychoanalysis of the group’ has become one of his recent theoretical and practical challenges following this experience.
Lastly, he co-founded (together with Avi Nutkevitch) the Center for Research of the Psychoanalytic – Systemic approach – which integrates theoretical research activity together with the Israeli ‘program for organizational consultation and development’ (POCD) and its alumni.
