Group relations, innovation, and the production of nostalgia

Abstract

This article explores the concept of nostalgia from both phenomenal and interpreta-tive perspectives as experienced within and generated by group relations confer-ences and other group activities like sport, drama, or music. It posits that nostalgia inevitably emerges in group relations conferences to sustain primitive fantasies and the work of mourning necessary for psychic growth. The article then reflects on the dual purpose of conference titles as setting objectives to the exploration as well as protection from wild thoughts, enactments, and thus the unmitigated brutality of the experience of the unconscious in groups. It calls attention to how the intention to apply conference learning arises from (and contributes to) an overdetermined ambivalent relationship of group relations with psychoanalysis.