Response to ‘The body in group analysis’ by Bracha Hadar

Bracha Hadar is one of the few group analysts emphasizing the importance of the body in group analysis. This article continues to express her voice, steadily highlighting the centrality of bodily and sexual concerns in the group. She has done this for some years through publications and workshops in a variety of conferences and training events. Her prior training as a bio-energetic therapist has undoubtedly influenced her perspective and helps to give strength and credibility to her arguments. In this article, she develops her notion of the body as the site of shame, an observation that applies not only to people who have suffered physical or sexual abuse but also to the ‘ordinary’ person trying to reconcile bodily pleasure with the constraints of a culture that, for all its apparent openness, is still ambivalent about our animal corporeality. Not surprisingly, I appreciate her contribution because in various ways she affirms the views I expressed in my own publication The Group as an Object of Desire: exploring sexuality in group psychotherapy (Nitsun, 2006), in which I argue for a much greater engagement with the body, sexuality and desire in group analysis. Here, I argue that the emphasis on social ‘mind’ processes in the group has to a degree marginalized sexuality and the body. She describes my book as a ‘breakthrough’ but goes on to observe a situation in which not much has changed since my publication. In my own clinical work with colleagues, teaching and supervision, I note a continuing tendency to minimize the body and to refer sporadically and inconsistently to sexuality. Accepting the invitation to explore the body in 864495 GAQ0010.1177/0533316419864495Group AnalysisNitsun: Response to Hadar research-article2019