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IAGP WEBINAR: WHAT IS THE LARGE GROUP ANYHOW? “DISINTEGRATION OR DIALOGUE? THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LARGE GROUP IN CONTEXT

September 21, 2025 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm UTC

IAGP WEBINAR: WHAT IS THE LARGE GROUP ANYHOW? “DISINTEGRATION OR DIALOGUE? THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LARGE GROUP IN CONTEXT

By Thor Kristian Island

In the recent years there has been a growing attention and interest in the Large Group as an object to understand societal processes. While the small group to some extent reflects the family, dealing with the dynamic unconscious of the individual and the group, the Large Group is considered to be a reflection of the society, culture and organization we are part of. It offers us a possibility to study and understand conscious and unconscious processes in the society and their impact and influence upon social, organizational and systemic thinking feeling and actions (Weinberg and Schneider 2003).
In the group analytic Large Group, the social unconscious can come to the surface through stories, myths, fantasies, dreams, anxieties, metaphors that the individual participants share. The task of the conductor of the group is to bring to attention the possible deep unconscious roots, which connect these dreams and stories. Themes that reach beyond the individual or specific group, pointing towards the larger context of the society.
The individual contribution of the members in the Large Group, the sharing of dreams, fantasies etc. could be understood as an expression of something beyond the specific person or group, as an expression of processes in the larger society as such, and even deeper layers of the unconscious of the society. Each individual in the Large Group is carrying aspects of the social unconscious through their dreams, fantasies, myths, stories and associations.
In the webinar we will discuss the application of Large Groups in different contexts.

SEPTEMBER 21st – 7PM CET –
The regestration link is: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/nJ5N_dfSSXOboZAr8l8-Tw

Thor Kristian Island
Thor-Kristian Island M.D. is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and group analyst from Oslo, Norway.
He is co-founder and previous director of Institute of Group Analysis (Norway). He was also co- founder of the Norwegian Group Psychotherapy Association (NGPF), where he is now honorary member. He has been training group analyst, supervisor and theory lecturer, as well as one of the large group conductors at the group analytic training program in Norway for more than 25 years. He is honorary member of the European Group Analytic Training Institutions Network (EGATIN), and he has been member of the management committee of Group Analytic Society international (GASi). He has been the IGA, Norway delegate to EFPP. He was member of the Board of Directors of International Association for Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes (IAGP) from 2000- 2009, and from 2016-2022. He is editor of the IAGP Globeletter. He has also been involved in the IAGP group psychotherapy training project in Ramallah, Palestine. He is current teacher and trainer at the Chinese-Norwegian advanced training program in psychoanalytic and group analytic psychotherapy in Beijing, China.
He has published papers on Large Groups and on group analytic training. He has conducted large groups at numerous international conferences.

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