Martin Weegmann

Help in understanding group life can come from unexpected quarters. This paper explores writer Virginia Woolf, who demonstrated unique insights into how human beings think, revise, and envision themselves, not as singular beings but as multiple subjects in the confluence of others who do the same, throughout life; we live without closure up to our death. More widely, literary models and metaphors are valuable for group analysis but lie beyond the usual sources on which we draw.

The following interview began with a conversation in a café in September 2025. Fresh from a Large Group weekend with Group Analysis India facilitated by Teresa, I was eager to learn more. Happily, Teresa was keen on the idea and so began a slow interview which, as it happens, ended with another conversation in a café, in November 2025. It was good to take our time. It was in the second café, surrounded by beautiful plants, that the photograph was taken.

The European Reformation saw a dramatic rise of new confessional groups, sects and schisms, accompanied by widespread group hostility and violence. In a critical discussion of Elias’ ‘civilizing process’, the key changes ushered by the Reformation, from the government of state, church, and souls, are considered. As society sought to expunge its ‘ultimate enemies’, the era of reform was a time of widespread witchcraft trials, trials that are examples of horrific social disfiguration, with continued relevance to understanding modern social and group violence. Several examples of the latter are considered.

I conducted an interview with Liesel Hearst at her home in April 2004. It was subsequently lost in a house move, rediscovered in 2016, when we met again to edit and review the interview. It gives a valuable account of Liesel’s formation as a group analyst and glimpses into the early history of our discipline. She spoke with characteristic clarity, spirit and demonstrated an open-mindedness that was engaging. I took the photograph at the same time—how I love her impish smile!