中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: The psychoanalyst Bion regards groups as a whole. He constructed his group theory around 3 basic-assumption groups, which can be seen as the mentalities or the core dynamics of groups. Subsequently, other scholars have advocated the existence of additional basic assumptions and emphasized aspects that Bion did not fully address. However, there are theoretical discrepancies among these proposals, and no researcher has tried to integrate them, which has restricted the explanatory capacity of basic assumptions with regard to group phenomenon. I try to provide a theoretical integration of all the basic assumptions in order to develop a systematic explanation of group dynamics and processes. Methods: From February 2018 to January 2019, by searching with the keyword basic assumption group(s) in online library 'Psychoanalytic electronic publishing', only articles with new proposals about basic assumption were considered. After this literature review, I compared and integrated 6 basic assumptions. Results: After the analysis I identified 4 main basic assumptions, and built a preliminary framework to indicate a new perspective for changes in group dynamics and intervention methods for the three aspects of groups: individual, interpersonal, group-as- a-whole. Conclusions: I suggest replacing the distinctions between group developmental stages with a co-existenting spectrum of group mentalities in order to highlight the influence of the leader on changes in group dynamics, and to highlight the most appropriate leadership stance by identifying which basic assumptions dominate. Finally, I propose a focus on psychoanalytic theory and practice in groups as an important topic for future research.