ABSTRACT
Foulkes wrote little on his philosophy, and what there is dispersed and suggestive rather than systematic (Cohn, 1996). This is consistent with a man who travelled light regarding theory and whose pragmatic approach resulted in his keeping a distance from any overarching viewpoint. Dahlin (1991) contends that, “Foulkes might have not felt the need for a covering metatheory. Consequently, he never composed one and left the problem to his followers” (p. 28). Is this a weakness, the consequence of an absence of theory, or a strength, a refusal to be bound by the omnipotence of “one” theory? This chapter favours the latter view, seeing it as advantageous that Foulkes did not anchor group analysis to a master perspective or any single foundation, but by the same token, group analysis cannot be a theoretical and nor can it afford complacency about its existence and need for development (Weegmann, 2004b). Unfortunately, perhaps, group analysis moved rather slowly away from its parent discipline, psychoanalysis, in its quest to develop new models of understanding and languages with which to characterise group life. Foulkes’ loyalty to psychoanalysis, even “loss of nerve”, may have inhibited attempts to draw upon other potential models or to exploit them more fully (Dalal, 1998; Stacey, 2003). If group analysis stands in need of new developments and ways 38of conceptualising and researching its practice, then philosophical perspectives are one way of prompting this.
