Permission to Narrate: Explorations in Group Analysis, Psychoanalysis, Culture

by Martin Weegmann

Overview

Permission to Narrate develops exciting new theory and explorations for group analysis. They are diverse in range and, from differing bases in theory and research, aim to cast light on how clients find voice and speak out in groups and the importance of rhetoric in the understanding of communication. It addresses the ways in which silenced, submerged and less confident voices emerge, finding permission and narration, often against the odds. Positioning and dialogical theory is used to show how such voices are caught up in and defined by discourses, and also how we can transcend the definitions and positions into which we are thrown. Accessible clinical and historical examples bring theory to life. Permission to Narrate also uses applied group analytic theory to consider the cultural role and rhetoric of monsters, and what these representations tell us about the position in which human beings conceive themselves. Also explored, using applied group theory, are the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Quakers, both serving as remarkable examples of different, alternative group formations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782203629
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/04/2016
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Martin Weegmann is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Group Analyst, with thirty years NHS experience. He is a well-known trainer, delivering workshops and lectures throughout the UK to a variety of psychology and psychotherapy organizations. Martin has co-edited two books, Psychodynamics of Addiction and Group Psychotherapy and Addiction, and published many book chapters and papers in a range of journals.

Table of Contents

Foreword , Introduction , The rhetorical ground of group analysis , Taking position: what groups do we bring? , Remembering monsters , Naught but a story to tell*: Alcoholics Anonymous , Revolutionary subjects, bodies, and crowds , Psychoanalytic fascinations: my seven Freuds ... . , Discipline anxiety—time for paradigm change in group analysis? , Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

"This beautifully written book is dizzyingly wide-ranging, its span including narrative and dialogical psychology, group analysis, rhetoric, literature, historical and political analysis, and even an excursion into the world of monsters, as well as the author's own clinical and personal experiences. We should be grateful to Martin Weegmann for giving himself the permission to narrate so broadly because the result is not just an invitation for a paradigm change in group analysis but a fine and evocative demonstration of the power of words."

University of Hertfordshire - David Winter

"Martin Weegmann further develops his acute understanding of analogy, rhetoric, metaphor and symbolism and the ways in which group and individual narratives interweave and influence each other, including novel insights into the formation and lure of psychoanalysis."

Alistair D. Sweet

This book is a fascinating account through a series of essays, made more interesting still by its courageous self-disclosures and glimpses into the author's own history."

Harvard Medical School - Professor Edward Khantzian

"Very original, imaginative and striking - a different point of view on what we do."

Liesel Hearst

"These excellent and elegant essays extend the frontiers of group analysis, adding further depth and breadth, not to mention innovation, to our discipline and researches."

Malcolm Pines