Book Review: The Portuguese School of Group Analysis. Towards a Unified and Integrated Approach to Theory Research and Clinical Work

The concept of the matrix, pattern and groupanalytic process constitutes a specificity of the groupanalytic theory and technique of the Portuguese school of groupanalysis. For Cortesão (1989) the theoretical dimensions (mainly metapsychology and the object-relationship theory) and the technical dimensions (matrix, pattern, levels of experience, and of interpretation) converge towards the analytic objective, which is the installation and resolution of the group transference neurosis. This perspective constitutes the essence of Portuguese groupanalysis and confers on it a markedly psychoanalytic nature.