Liminal Space and Transformative Change in Group Training in Guatemala: A Group Analytic Perspective

Resumen

This paper was given as a keynote lecture at the Second African Regional Conference, ‘Groups crossing boundaries: co-creating spaces for transformative change’. Giving this paper allowed me to explain some of my Guatemalan experiences and to demonstrate the potential of group analysis as a powerful tool of transformation for individuals as well as for groups, for organizations and for societies as well. I describe a group analytic supervision training in a post-war society that turned out to be a challenge on a personal, theoretical and procedural level. Described is not only the political context of the training, but also difficulties and conflicts that arose in the training group, mirroring unconscious cultural defences and anxieties. Focusing on the group’s disturbing transgression of boundaries it was finally possible to understand these acts as manifestations of a hidden psychosocial trauma in the group. On the basis of this slowly growing process of understanding, the group managed to open up for new theoretical perspectives and unknown methodological approaches. Participants of the training finally dared to apply their newly acquired knowledge and capacities as supervisors in one of the most sensitive political institutions of the country, and as the evaluation showed, did so most successfully.