Decolonizing the Curriculum of Group Analysis

Decolonizing group analysis is not about group analysis analysing colonialism, but about addressing colonial dynamics in group analysis. The evaluative findings of the ‘Decolonizing the Curriculum of Group Analysis Project’ Report Nayak, 2023 call for critical reflection on existing frameworks leading to a thoroughgoing evaluation and re-design of practice. Five principles emerged as recurrent themes in the research data and anchor the recommendations. These principles offer a blueprint for decolonial re-design of group-analytic training and practice including a decolonial lexicon for decolonizing. Material shifts in power, privilege and position in the constitution of group-analytic knowledge mean questioning the who, what and why of knowledge production. Structures, mechanisms and decision-making processes are integral to the apparatus of knowledge production, including economies of money, ideology and representation. Approaches relying on the disproportionate labour of those with intersectional subjugated identities to drive decolonization do not represent an embedded systemic institutional commitment. Sustaining the shared task of decolonization requires reciprocity, sitting with discomfort and spaces for decolonial dialogue. Power, privilege and position shape different journeys in understanding and applying intersectional decolonization. The strategic future of the IGA, the viability of group-analytic trainings and the creative potential of group analysis will stand or fall on transforming inevitable intersectional racist colonial power relations