1980-1998 From Groupanalysis to Group of Analysis (Grup d’Anàlisi) 5

1988-1998 Juan Campos and Alfreda Galt. Four stages of Correspondence

January 88-December 90

First stage of the correspondence between Juan Campos and Alfreda S. Galt

Already in this first stage becomes evident the ample agreement in the conception of group analysis and the priorities of interests between Alfreda Galt and Juan Campos, as well as the link with Max Rosenbaum, well versed in and with a profound understanding of the work of Trigant Burrow, and colleague of Juan’s on the Board of Directors of IAGP. Juan acquires access to the complete bibliography and information on Burrow and the Lifwynn Foundation, and spaces of mutual professional interchange open up: Alfreda writes about the Lifwynn Foundation in Clínica y Análisis Grupal and Juan writes in Lifwynn Correspondence.

Also, already then the economic problem of the Lifwynn Foundation becomes evident. The members feel that the Foundation will close down when the ones who knew Burrow and worked with him will not be able to continue. However, the contact with Juan coincides with the circumstance that in 1988 some few friends show interest in that the foundation continue as a centre of Social Self-Inquiry, just as it was originally conceived of and conducted (1995 T. Burrow Definition GA and SSI bilingual document). In 1988 a young sociologist and university professor on a fellowship, Jack Wikse, joins the group as a director of research and in June 1989 he projects to construct ‘a dialogue between the extensive group of correspondents with which Alfreda Galt interchanges letters during  many years’ and, says Alfreda in letter to Juan, “between those of which you have been an inspiriting member”. This letter (Correspondence First Stage, pp. 23) includes A Proposal by The Lifwynn Foundation, which in 1990 leads to the organization of a Conference on Addiction to which Juan is invited and which he finds most stimulating. What encourages him most is that this visit to the United States implies the possibility of visiting the Lifwynn Foundation in Westport, Connecticut, the place where Trigant Burrow carried out his groupanalytic investigations together with a group of his collaborators. In one of the following trips Juan is accompanied by Hanne and his intimate friend Sheldon Waxenberg of New York, with whom he had trained in analytic group therapy twenty-five years back at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health in New York and with whom together he had carried out his diploma group project of “The living room”. Without doubt, in Juan’s mind the precursor of the Lifwynn Correspondence, LifCor, is the correspondence initiated in the spring of 1948 by Trigant Burrow himself in relation to the “Neurosis of Man”, and also the one initiated by S. H. Foulkes in 1967 after retiring from the Maudsley Hospital. Comments Juan to Alfreda: “With … GAIPAC, I have had a lot of experience… and perhaps I can be of some help”.

In the same letter he says to her: “… also thanks to the correspondence we maintain, the spirit of Group Analysis becomes more and more familiar to me… But, we poor human beings, how can we cure ourselves from our ‘social neurosis’? I will tell you how I do it. I shall follow with my readings and writings and will experiment with myself and with the group with which I work in the type of group work we do. In this direction just now we finished to constitute legally Grup d’Anàlisi Barcelona…” Alfreda celebrates the leaflet of Gd’AB (1989 Gd’AB presentation): “I appreciated specially… the clear and comprehensive historical summary at the beginning of the leaflet… The work of ‘Grup d’Anàlisi Barcelona’ is really progressive and very little common and it is a satisfaction to be able to read from it” (Correspondence First Stage, pp. 34). And as is stated in the same letter, the texts of the leaflet of Grup d’Anàlisi Barcelona are widely quoted in the first number of Lifwynn Correspondence. Jack Wikse says to Juan: “Your way of characterizing the work of Burrow as the first psychoanalytic investigation of the principle of authority, is very important! (Correspondence First Stage, pp. 32). In effect, the contact with the life and work of Burrow motivates Juan still more in his study of the life and work of Freud in relation to the social functioning of the human being and as the direct and indirect founder of professional groups, associations and organizations. From 1988 onwards, without a doubt, Burrow and his work leave for always the most profound imprint on the work of Juan Campos and of the people who collaborate with him, and the impulse to legalize Grup d’Anàlisi— the inspiration, according to the correspondence, dates from the middle of the seventies— stems from the contact with Burrow’s work.

The rest of the correspondence of this first stage refers to the preparation and the posterior dialogue of the Conference on Addiction celebrated from 8 to 12 October of 1990, and a first preparation of a symposium on Trigant Burrow to be celebrated during the International Congress of IAGP in Montreal in 1992.

The Conference on Addiction was an attempt to recover the practice of Social Self-Inquiry—the groupanalytic method in actual practice— in the analysis of what is considered an actual symptom of our social neurosis. After the Conference a dialogue in writing is established (example: Correspondence First Stage, pp. 53) in view of concluding the experience. From this dialogue emerges in turn an attempt of creating a space of Social Self -Inquiry (1995 T. Burrow Definition GA and SSI bilingual document) with an agenda of monthly presencial meetings on the part of the persons geographically more near to New York.  There follow diverse stages of this project of Social Self-Inquiry until well into the new millennium. The Report of the Conference is published in the following stage of the correspondence (Correspondence Second Stage II, pp. 16).

 1991-1992

Second stage of correspondence between Juan Campos and Alfreda S. Galt

The subjects which occupy this second stage – (Correspondence Second Stage I & Correspondence Second Stage II(Feb. 1991-Nov 1992) are linked by various common threads of the group method of analysis; this is to say the life and work of Trigant Burrow. However, upon passing from the first to the second stage of Juan’s groupanalytic projects, threads are inserted from the proposals he makes in his place on the Board of Directors of IAGP, to which he belongs since 1983. The main subject corresponds to the aforementioned point 3: the proposal of a “Specialized Analytic Section in Group Analysis” in the IAGP as a transdisciplinary space of investigation for anyone interested in the group method of analysis as a reference in his work. The promotion of such a Section in the years 1991-92 is accepted under the name of Study Group in Group Analysis, the specific trajectory of which is presented correspondingly.

Lifwynn Correspondence a publication of The Lifwynn Foundation, the first number of which is published in the spring of 1990, for Juan Campos, the same than GAIPAC, signifies the written link between a continuous groupanalytic dialogue that alternates with presencial meetings. He conceives it as a transdisciplinary and transnational space. The first number of LifCor, beyond the correspondents of the Lifwynn Foundation, is sent with an explanatory letter of Juan Campos to the member organizations of the IAGP, to the individual members who identify themselves in the membership directory as groupanalysts or related professional ambits, and to the members who signed the petition to promote a section of groupanalysis in the Association (Correspondence Second Stage II, pp. 2). Some months later this letter is also sent to the members of the Executive and the Board of Directors of the IAGP (Correspondence Second Stage II, pp. 3) together with a Report of the Committee of the Study Group of Group Analysis  in preparation of the following meeting in Lisbon of this Committee[1].
The network of contacts with the Lifwynn Foundation is interwoven by other threads with projects promoted in the IAGP. This second stage of correspondence also refers to a Symposium on Trigant Burrow during the Montreal Congress of the IAGP (Correspondence Second Stage II, pp. 17 to 37).

In June 1992, a couple of months before the Congress, Juan Campos, as Chairman of the Study Group in Group Analysis informs the members of the Committee of the days and hours of the Symposium and also the meeting of the same Study Group following immediately after the Symposium (Correspondence Second Stage II, pp. 38). The letter post-Congress of Alfreda Galt of September 17, 1992 (Correspondence Second Stage II, pp. 39) gives a general idea of the development of these projects and her presentation. The number 2.2 of LifCor in turn is dedicated almost exclusively to the Symposium “Beyond Dicotomy: The orientation of Trigant Burrow”, celebrated during the XI Congress in August 1992 and the papers presented by Juan Campos, as chairman, Max Rosenbaum, Alfreda S. Galt, Lloyd Guilden and John R. Wikse (Correspondence Second Stage II, pp. 41).

This epoch coincides also with the effort to achieve that the Lifwynn Foundation become an organizational member of the IAGP. Juan considered imperative that the precursor of all groupanalytic associations and therapeutic communities occupy a place in the assembly of associations and societies dedicated to the practice and investigation of groups. The more specific moments are:

Presentation of the intention of the Lifwynn Foundation of becoming a member on the part of Juan Campos to the Board of Directors Meeting in Lisboa en September 1991 (Correspondence Second Stage I, pp. 2); application of the Lifwynn Foundation to be a member of the IAGP on the part of Alfreda Galt, then president en funciones of the Foundation (Correspondence Second Stage I, pp. 3 to 5); and communication of the Organizational Committee Chair informing of the acceptance of the Lifwynn Foundation as organizational member of the IAGP (Correspondence Second Stage I, pp. 6 to 7). As Juan Campos explains in different documents, it was a question of a symbolic act, necessary and transcendental, but the truth is that three years later the Lifwynn Foundation did not have any more the money required for continuing its adhesion, and it would have been expected that the IAGP offered it an honorary organizational membership.

The extraordinary of these adventures is that Alfreda Galt with eighty years and a day, many pains and difficulties in walking, maintains the interest and the motivation for attending the IAGP Congress in Montreal and actively creatively participates. Moreover, three months before that Congress dies Hans Syz, the previous president and the last companion left to her from the times of the origins of the Lifwynn Foundation. But Alfreda Galt was an admirable person, kind and always disposed to put her grain of sand right to the last days of her life more than five years later. Juan promoted, just as he did with other colleagues, that she use all the possible new technologies. He gave her an Intel-Satisfaxtion Modem-Fax-Board which sometimes functioned and sometimes not, but her good will of communicating by this medium was unsurpassable. At the end of a letter of May she wrote with great joy: “I am learning to use the computer!”

 1993-1994

Third stage of correspondence between Juan Campos and Alfreda S. Galt

This third stage (January 1993-Dic1994: Correspondence Third Stage) could be summed up in some questions: Where did the projects taken ahead these last years lead to? Which was the response to the Symposium on Trigant Burrow and a possible study of the work of this author in the Study Group in Group Analysis?, but also in the continuous effort of making explicit what the authors understand as groupanalysis.

In February of 1993 Alfreda writes to Juan: “Here is the new number of Lifwynn Correspondence (already mentioned at the end of the earlier stage: Correspondence Second Stage (1), pp. 41), for the record of our pains and efforts of last summer, of which you were in great part the guiding spark.” In the same letter she suggests the idea of sending this number of LifCor with the five presentations of the Symposium to the 124 members of IAGP that had been informed before the Congress, adding the Report you wrote about the meeting of the Study Group in Group Analysis… People asked themselves on how to read Burrow, and perhaps a list of adequate readings should be prepared” (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 2). Consequently a shipment in this sense is prepared for the members of the Study Group and other members of the IAGP (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 4).

The correspondence of this stage is also related to the contacts of the Lifwynn Foundation in the United States and in Europe and with the proposals of translation and the study of certain works of Trigant Burrow (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 8 to 15). It includes an interesting dialogue on questions of Alfreda about Bion to which Juan responds as follows (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 13) “I never met Bion. Hanne yes, on an occasion in the Tavistock, and thinks that he is a real guru, a real shaman of the Kleinian clan. But, I know his work well and have passed many hours reading his Experiences in Groups and the rest of his writings. His method of managing himself in groups, however, I think it comes from Hadfield, an eclectic psychoanalyst of the Tavistock who was his first analyst. This is normally not mentioned since, after a short analysis with John Rickman, when he started analysis with Melanie Klein, he had to choose between groups and schizophrenia, and his choice was the latter. I think I wrote something some place… Foulkes definitely was much more holistic in his conception. He included himself in the group, something Bion did not do. However, this approach Foulkes learnt it from the organismic psychology of Kurt Goldstein, with who he worked more than two years, and the Gestalt psychologists like Ademar Gelb who also worked with Goldstein. I doubt very much that Bion ever had knowledge of the writings of Burrow, since he was too much interested in his own ideas…· Alfreda comes back with the following reflections (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 16): “It calls my attention your conclusion that ‘more I try to sell Trigant Burrow, more convinced I am that he is not on sale…’ Considering the type of commitment Burrow demands of his readers, it is not surprising that he was maintained apart, ignored, misrepresented —the social I-person presents so many attractive alternatives that don’t require the concentration and challenge inherent to phyloanalysis. I have been very interested in getting to know the writings of Bion with his emphasis in the pathological dynamics of the group. I think that in our own work in social self-inquiry we concentrate too much on the individual reactions –in changing them through the recourse of feeling the tensional pattern around the eyes. Indeed, these are valuable observations (separately I will send you a short note I recently wrote en relation to an experiment I recently made en solitario). But we can start to amplify our focus to include our reactions as members of the wider group, to be able to detect, as did Bion without a doubt in the therapeutic groups, the operations of the social neurosis in a wider context. Do you have any opportunity for this type of work —for example, with the impulse that you and I share of “selling” Trigant Burrow?”

And Alfreda goes on in her reflections: “It is interesting that the Symposium [of the SEPTG] of Valencia was on therapeutic communities —will you contribute with a presentation? It seems to me that the Lifwynn experience adjusts well to this subject. As to your question in relation to the project Burrow of the Study Group in Group Analysis, you are right, I have not had any feedback to the letter we sent in March. Evidently, the project will not come out the way we thought —I think that we were well advised in putting the food before them and if they are not hungry, what can we do?”…

In another message (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 20) Alfreda —who is the only person in the world who not only understands the proposals of Juan but moreover has the experience and the motivation to take them on board—sends a proposal for the Study Group in Group Analysis which they had commented over the phone:

• “It has the form of a memorandum addressed to you and can be passed on to the Study Group if you consider it adequate…”
• The content of the memorandum gives an idea of the atmosphere in those spaces of the Congress: “Surely you remember that Max Rosenbaum, in his presentation of the symposium on Burrow in the meetings of the IAGP in Montreal, quoted the commentaries of Malcolm Pines in the Plenary Session of the morning: “He asked us to think… why [as professionals of groups] we were not called in relation to trying to understand the terrible tragedies that are occurring in our world”.
• “And Max went on, “It comes to be ironic that here we have a conference on Love and Hate and, however, we are not called upon to investigate why a nation splits up why people kill one another and why children die in Somalia. Somewhere we fail and I think it is this that Burrow asked us to explore.”
• In line with our recent telephone conversations, I take the liberty of proposing to the Study Group in Group Analysis to gather these questions as a principal preoccupation and that efforts are addressed to the organization of a symposium on them during the meeting of Buenos Aires in 1995.
• With all certainty, a study of the role which group analysis and the IAGP can play in the global arena is justified, and I feel that the Study Group in Group Analysis, as a collaborative networking project, finds itself in a privileged position to carry it out. I hope that the suggestion can be considered by my co-members of the Study Group when it meets in Heidelberg.”

The conception of a transdisciplinary and transnational groupanalysis is the corner stone on which the thought, attitude and vision of Alfreda Galt as well as Juan Campos is based. The suggestions of projects are continuous. There also is a Sociotherapy Project proposed in this last letter:

• “This project is suggested by Jack Wikse and proposed by us to Pat de Maré and David Bohm in December 1991″.
• “The idea was to conduct a dialogue between these and myself (AG) on the subject of ‘What is sociotherapy?’ this is to say, ‘What would constitute a therapy of society in general? We supposed that the term sociotherapy was introduced by Pat de Maré and that it was being used with different meaning by different people”

Both showed interest in following this project and tentatively it was considered with David a little before his death for celebrating a meeting in England in June 1993. The plan was to record the dialogue and afterwards circulate significant extracts to a wide circle of students and investigators asking them for commentaries… Having in mind to realize the feminine perspectives o the conference, Mary Catherine Bateson was contacted, an anthropologist/educator… With the death of David Bohm, the project was abandoned… Could the symposium of Buenos Aires be constructed around the idea of a preliminary dialogue between six or seven participants widely distributed and which could serve as a base of the discourse in the meeting of Buenos Aires? Or would this mean that this inhibit the discussion and should be diverse and include a myriad of perspectives?

• “When I mentioned this plan to Marvin Skolnick of the A. K. Rice Institute and a member of the IAGP, he commented the interest of his organization ‘to reveal not to correct’, quoting a colleague who speaks about ‘a policy of revelation, not a policy of salvation’. Perhaps the project I propose in the memorandum should simply be a questionnaire in view of responding to the questions of Malcolm and Max in Montreal.”

Another suggestion of Alfreda is: “Could we address the Postgraduate Center [institution in which Juan followed his psychoanalytic and groupanalytic training] to sound them out about the possibility of them inviting Pat de Maré to New York”, followed by the subjects which could serve the program of such an invitation.

Alfreda Galt finishes this letter with nine “questions for preliminary consideration” each and every one of great interest, as for example: “Would it be feasible to try to conceive, imagine, “a system” of therapy or the latter creates itself through the observation of the  ‘patient’, as is exemplified by the investigation of the social neurosis throughout thirty years by Trigant Burrow and by the observation of the cultural microcosm of the median and large groups by Dr. De Maré?… Is it possible to help a ‘patient’ who has not arrived at recognizing his illness? Has there started to develop such awareness in the community en general?”

As commented, Alfreda is the only person who understands the trajectory Juan makes and she has it in mind when she writes to him. In answer to his important document “group analysis, it roots and destiny” she comments to him in November of that year (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 25): “It impresses me of how consistent you have been throughout the years in your vision of the essential nature of group analysis and the direction it should take. I still don’t know what happened in the General Assembly of the GAS which was postponed until Heidelberg (1993 GAS Constitutional_Reform_Heidelberg), but I hope that the time and effort you have dedicated to revise the corresponding documents for your colleagues had their reward in an attentive consideration… Someone showed interest in revising the constitutions and bye-laws you put into the Appendix? (1993 GAS Constitutional Change) I enjoyed diving into these, but I don’t have the responsibility of taking decisions in relation to the organization of London…”

In the following message (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 29 to 36) once again Alfreda touches another subject dear to Juan: “I have a suggestion for you. Have you noticed that in our last Lifwynn Correpondence we suggested the possibility to conduct a social self-inquiry in the publication itself?… This proposal of ours really was developed  from one of your suggestions in one of our telephone conversations that we should try that our subscribers take a more active part in the publication… On reading tu history of group analysis and of the GAS London, I had the feeling that Foulkes thought in [similar] terms…”

Commenting the Editorial of Vol. 3, No.2 of LifCor on the possibility that the publication itself serve for conducting a social self-inquiry Alfreda says in the letter: “SSI is a type of auto-observation, introspection, in which one becomes conscious, one questions reactions. If I become aware of a feeling or conscious of an authoritarian impulse, it is not enough only to become aware of it. This is a point difficult to make understand. We don’t simply say ‘mea culpa’ We take note of the dysfunction and somehow we share this, or we question it—this is the word which keeps on appearing— we question and I don’t think that the majority of people understand it. It is not a question of justifying; it is a question of observing it for observing it and perhaps to go on reflecting…”

The letter of February 1, 1994 of Alfreda is for Pat de Maré (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 37) but it is included here as a part of this process of group analysis, of this group analysis in operation of this correspondence. Juan had sent Alfreda the bilingual history of the large group of Pat and there had been some correspondence between them (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 29 to 36). Finally there appears the opportunity to participate in a workshop which Pat conducts in Massachusetts and Alfreda in relation to a possible collaboration comments to him: “…I like very much the idea of collaborating… but I feel that first I need to have an experience of your work and clarify the relation between the two areas of group analysis in which the two we have forced ourselves to work.” Pat sends her two notes of his on “Kith, Kin and Koinonia” (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 33) which he had sent to the editors of Dialogue, the Newsletter of IGA, to which Alfreda responds to him: “Your letter to the editors of the IGA Newsletter had great interest for me. All the group with which I have been associated in my life have shown similar divisions, except when we have been working against some other human beings —the Nazis o whoever. The fact that the dis-union occurs even in an institute dedicated to group analysis seems to confirm the diagnostic of Burrow of a shared disorder in which we are all involved. I was impressed by your analysis of kith and kin, of assassination and mortality, and your recommendation that the organization move itself towards Koinonia. The Institute seems to me has an unique opportunity and I hope that eventually I hear how everything develops.

In response to the contribution of Juan, Alfreda writes to him (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 42): It is good that you have written this long article for the next number of LifCor. I like the cheerful tone and I think it will lighten the section of Social Self-Inquiry. It hits hard in parts but I think that the publication can stand up to it well. And it should be interesting for some of our readers… I want to ask you about the last paragraph in relation to the decision of the GAS to celebrate a symposium in Buenos Aires on the relevance of the work of Burrow in relation to the human problems of today. You are referring to the discussion of Montreal? The subject I suggested for the meeting of Heidelberg was related to what the members of the IAGP do, individually and collectively, to alleviate social problems such as ethnic conflict, etc… Keep me informed.”

In the correspondence of September (Correspondence Third Stage, pp. 48) Juan informs Alfreda that the Section of Group Analysis of the IAGP has definitely been established, and that he and Malcolm Pines will be the co-chairmen. He also informs her that “Malcolm and I will write a book for Routledge on Foulkes and the history of Group Analysis. Naturally, the chapter on Trigant Burrow will be my responsibility. And as you can imagine, I will check the chapter with you before sending it to Malcolm Pines.” (1992 Correspondence JC-MP ).

 1995-1998

Fourth stage of correspondence between Juan Campos and Alfreda Galt

This fourth stage (Feb 1995-July 1998, Correspondence Fourth Stage) could carry a title in line with “Group analysis as life, Lifwynn, source of life”. During all this time the interchange is by Fax, and during the first months Juan puts his pinch of humour with his CoverPages (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 2 a 7). One of the subjects at that moment is the theatre piece which Burrow had written together with his wife during the stage dedicated to psychoanalytic practice upon return from his analysis with Jung. Juan would have liked to translate it into Spanish and find amateur actors to represent it during the Congress of Buenos Aires. Although Juan gets a copy from the Burrow Archives of Yale University, Alfreda felt that it distracted from the central message of the work of the author. Juan says to her (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 3): I am well aware of your reluctance in this respect. Also I am conscious that the piece does not do any favour to the construction of the public image of Burrow. But this is as far as he could go with six years of auto-analysis, one with jung and the one Freud refused to analyze him together with his wife.” [an ironic dart which Juan sends Freud, who in the case of Foulkes refers the latter to analyse himself with Helene Deutsch, who in turn and at the same time takes his wife into analysis!]. Juan with his Cover Page “To err is human… to forgive is good business” tells Alfreda that he did not want to offend her and that only Hanne and himself had read “The dream interpreter” and the the piece would not be represented.

In October 1994, Alfreda had participated in the NSGP workshop of five days on “Dialogue in the Median Group” conducted by Pat de Maré. Afterwards the participants were asked to send their commentaries. We include Alfreda Galt’s since they are of interest in as much that they show how she listens and participates from a groupanalytic burrownian point of view and how she evaluates the question of power and attempts to come nearer to the sentiment of Koinonia from that point of reference. Once again appears the expression “to question one’s own sentiments” and how this type of becoming conscious has been changing between the years sixty and ninety (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 8).

Responding to a question about the congress of Buenos Aires, Juan comments in September 1995 (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 19): “The Congress has gone as well as could be expected —the habitual Vanity Fair. The “Section” has gone too well to be true, and the success led to the failure. About 150 people and more than ten organizations registered and 52 regular members of the Association came to the stipulated meeting. It is clear, this is something difficult to accept by somebody like G. E. Hopper [the incoming president of the Association] who designated a committee to supervise what I and Malcolm were doing with the Section. The ‘I-Person’ is riding again; so that we are at a standstill; letting go rope so that the dictator hangs himself. The problem, as I see it, is not so much what it implies for the Association or the Section but more what it is as the symptom of the “neurotic situation” of our times. Honestly, once more I see the world sinking into a pre-Fascist situation.”

In January 1996, Alfreda Galt as the president sends Juan Campos as member of the Consulting Committee of the Lifwynn Foundation her report of 1994-1995; together with the one of Lloyd Guilden as Research Associate and Director of the Lifwynn Laboratory at Queens College —who will have an important role in the development  of investigation as well as the introduction of the new technologies; and the Report and the budget of Maureen Cotter as chairman of the Finance Committee (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 22). 1995 is the year that sees published Alfreda’s important paper on Trigant Burrow and the Laboratory of the ‘I’ in the journal The Humanist Psychologist. Malcolm Pines encourages Alfreda to go on writing and converting it into a book since he considers that it is an excellent entry for people who want to read Burrow. The Report also includes the sad notice that in 1995 it will be possible to only publish one number of LifCor and that the following number, due to the financial situation of the Foundation, will be the last one.

There are interchanges in relation to computers, e-mail addresses and how to adapt the objectives of group analysis or SSI to the possibilities of a Web page and Internet. But: December 19, 1996 comes very bad news (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 44). Alfreda communicates to us: “… The news I have to give you are not good in reference to my health. In October virtually from one day to the other an incapacitating neuropathology hit me in my hands and feet and I had to spend five weeks in hospital and rehabilitation centres. Since then I have been almost totally confined to my apartment, except visits to the doctors. I am very handicapped in the habitual tasks —I cannot drive any more, prepare my meals or do the shopping, and have great difficulties in getting dressed. Medicare has provided me with domiciliary health care and I shall have this for some weeks more. Afterwards I hope I can find the help of people when it will be necessary. The doctors think that this is related to the rheumatoid arthritis which I have been suffering for some years—during the summer in July due to an allergic reaction I had to stop the powerful medication which maintained it under control for the last five years. Recently I have again taken the medication and slowly I am coming up to a dose which possibly relieves the neuropathology. Naturally, I hope that this will be possible but I am not very optimistic. I don’t feel that the very same doctors are not very sure that this will help.” Even so, she encourages Juan: “You will be happy to know that some progress is being made to get the Foundation into Internet. Lloyd Gilden collaborates with the person who occupies this function in Queens College, getting together ideas about how to present the Foundation and organize our material…” Our answer is from Christmas eve (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 46). On the 6th of January 1997 arrives Alfreda’s answer between others announcing the posting of the reports of the year to the members of the Directory (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 47) and commenting “that you will be happy to know that one of the activities that everybody wants to carry forward is the one of taking the Foundation into Internet.

In the response of April 4 (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 48), Juan warns Alfreda not to have many expectations with the publication offered by Malcolm Pines: “I am somewhat disheartened with his promises. He dumped without discussion his much announced project on Foulkes with me and he neither has much interest in the Section [of Group Analysis of the IAGP]. This is confidential, but I hope that this can be clarified in July when he comes to Barcelona for the International Congress of Psychoanalysis” [something which did not occur].The Fax coming back (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 50)  from Alfreda brings between others the following response: “It made me sad to read what you wrote in reference to Malcolm. He is such an occupied man, so constantly on the go to meetings and conferences that I ask myself if he has any time for other things. It must have been a shock that he dropped your work in common”.

“What happened to our correspondence?” starts Alfreda’s Fax of December 15 (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 53).  Of course… “Our last message for you (of Maureen and myself) was about developing a website and in fact I contact you to tell you that we have gone ahead with it and we are now in Internet. Our address is Liwynnfoundation.org “It is interesting when she explains that: “We discovered when we were drafting the Introduction that we did not agree between us in what precisely is the work of the Foundation. So we undertook the writing of such a declaration as a group project of SSI and spent four whole sessions in a collaborative explanation which we all could sign [Is the first declaration of The Lifwynn Foundation in Internet (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 56)]. We are interested in knowing your reaction to it… In relation to the book, I have to talk about the constant problems of health I have been having—the most recent a compression fracture due to the Rheumatoid Arthritis and the many steroids which I have taken throughout the years for alleviating it. RA is a very painful and incapacitating handicap and in this moment I am not sure to be able to finish the book. Possibly somebody will be able to it for me or the chapters could be published as a series of articles. We will see.”

Although the situation is painful and difficult, Alfreda goes on telling Juan about what she knows interests him: “Eventually se hope to include the old numbers of LifCor in the website… Also we contemplate the possibility of a next number, as you suggested, in electronic form… We focus on the theme of ‘communal body’ or ‘species organism’…”

The last interchanges which now follow in English (Correspondence Fourth Stage, pp. 53 to 70) were translated into Spanish for the Spanish part of this Blog since, as Juan said, they are

 Also because they show the comprehension and dialogue there has been

in a groupanalytic conception of our work and our world

between Grup d’Anàlisi Barcelona and The Lifwynn Foundation