Group Analytic Society International (GASI)

Learned Society and no-profit organization

London

1 Daleham Gardens, London NW3 5BY

United Kingdom

Werner Knauss

673

18-90

Group Analysts and professionals working with groups from many disciplines and fields such as psychology, psychiatry, sociology, medicine, nursing, counselling, social work, forensic and prison services, anthropology, clergy, architecture, industry, management and organizational consultancy, and education.

10

30-80

Despite the Group Analytic Society is not a training association, many members of the Society are trainers in the Institutes of Group Analysis of their countries.

The Group Analytic Society (GAS) was established in 1952 in London by S.H. Foulkes, Elizabeth Marx, James Antony, Patrick De Mare, W.H.R. Iliffe, M.L.J. Abercrombie and Norbert Elias. GAS was found as a learned society to promote the development of Group Analysis. During that period, its aims were to provide a context for discussion also about teaching and training in group analysis, enhance research in the field, and organize workshops and other scientific events.
In 2011, GAS change into Group Analytic Society International (GASi). As learned society and no-profit organization, the society organizes regular scientific meetings e.g. the annual Autumn/Winter Workshop and S.H. Foulkes’ Lecture, the last held in London since 1977, every May. The lecturers are international distinguished colleagues in the field of group analysis, their lectures are published in the Journal of the society; Group Analysis - the International Journal of Group-Analytic Psychotherapy. The journal was first published in 1967 as Group Analysis, edited by S.H. Foulkes, the founder of group analysis’ theory and practice. The triennial GASi Symposium is held in various European countries reaching between 300-500 participants from all over the world. In 2020, the Barcelona GASi Symposium was held online, due to Covid-19 pandemic, with about 300 participants.
A member of the Group Analytic Society International has free access to the Journal Group Analysis and the Group Analytic Contexts, the online Newsletter of the Society. Members can also participate to the GASi forum, an online discussion group with worldwide participation.
The Group Analytic Society International (GASi) is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (Charity registration Number: 281387). The aim of the Society is to promote discussion, research and open reflections about Group Analytic Theory and Practice in various fields and different settings. Group Analytic theory while recognizing the social nature of people, attempts to achieve more understanding of the emotional, psychological, cultural, and socio-political experiences of individuals and groups. The purpose of the Society is to include people of any background, offering meeting places for open reflection on the ways people include or exclude others.

The core of Group Analysis is the conception of people as fundamentally social beings, living in a network of social relations. The roots of the difficulties in the personal, professional or social life have to be explored across time referring to the groups in which a person develops and grows up, e.g. the family, friendship groups etc. In the 1950s, H.S. Foulkes, the founder of Group Analysis, understood that an individual that exists apart from and outside the social.
During these times where many catastrophes, natural and manmade are happening, it is more and more evident that there is need to help people to re-develop or reconstruct the social network they lost during the disaster or the traumatic situation. Many decades ago, in the context of the II World War, Foulkes argued that while one’s difficulties arise in a group context, in a group context can be explored and understood more in order to be changed.
The Group Analytic Society International can amplify and add a more social understanding of the outcomes of a disaster, its influences on a larger scale in different group and community settings, offering space for dialogue and thinking how to overcome a traumatising event with a group intervention.