1975-1981 Juan Campos and S. H. Foulkes

The entry of Juan Campos into the world of grouptherapists and their associations is marked by two losses. S. H Foulkes had entrusted him with the Spanish translation of his last book, Method and Principles, to be published for the VI Congress of the IAGP in 1976. The latter was to be celebrated in Madrid but was cancelled for various reasons. Unfortunately, Foulkes dies this same year, an event which influences in a decisive way Juan’s relationship with his work and person. Ever since he trained with Foulkes at the end of the fifties, the contact between them continued throughout the years.

The Spanish edition of Method and Principles, finally published in 1981, is introduced by “Comments on a posthumous prologue”[1] by Juan Campos. Obviously, this translation is dedicated to Spanish and South American grouptherapists facilitating them an approximation to the work and person of Foulkes[2]. In the introduction Juan comments the observations Foulkes had made in an extensive correspondence about his relationship with authors of the Spanish-speaking world, Anglo-Saxon authors and also authors of other disciplines which he considered influential in the development of his work. Juan underlines particularly the theoretical importance of chapter six and the parts related to the conductor as groupanalyst. In this sense he rescues what could be Foulkes’ last paper on “Qualification as a psychoanalyst, an asset as well as a hindrance for the future group analyst?[3] in which he considers this qualification a resistance and a defence in front of group psychotherapies. If the jump from psychoanalysis to the groupanalytic situation implies a paradigmatic break, more of a threat is the split related with the socio-professional context of psychoanalysis. According to Juan, the principal merit of Foulkes resides in the analytic attitude he was able to develop and his conviction that “all what occurs within a context, all, without exception, is there to be analyzed”. It is in these “Comments on a posthumous prologue” that Juan uses for the first time his own concept of professional plexus when he states that the three legs of the groupanalytic theory are constituted by the network theory of neurosis, the group matrix, and the professional plexus.

To prepare the Spanish edition of “Method and Principles” takes Juan to venture deep into the work of the author. In 1979 he writes “The groupanalytic orientation in training: The teachings of S. H. Foulkes”[4], a profound and extensive paper in which he makes a critical review of his ideas on education and his work as a teacher. Already then Juan underlines the ideas which later he himself will take some steps further.

In Spain in the late seventies something else occurred that was important in the professional life of Juan Campos. Argentinean psychoanalysts immigrated to Spain fleeing from dictatorship in their country. Some had had wide experience in groupwork. The encounter of seven Spanish and Argentinean grouptherapists led to writing, discussing and publishing a collective volume under the title of Psicoterapia Dinámica Grupal (Dynamic Group Psychotherapy). The chapter of Juan Campos “Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysts and Group Psychotherapies”[5]  is his first major paper dealing with the development of group psychotherapies from their origin in psychoanalysis to the influence this origin has in their development and the resistances of the psychoanalytic institution and the majority of its members in taking them on board. It also deals with how in this complex context three pioneers —Burrow, Bion and Foulkes—managed in spite of everything to create new frames of reference and practices for groupwork.

The aforementioned encounter also led Juan Campos to write and publish in 1980 “Reading S. H. Foulkes with the hope of understanding him”[6] changing it later to “understanding ourselves”, where he analyzes the hidden ideological struggle and institutional repression that caused the development of group analysis to occur extramuros of organized psychoanalysis. For the first time, Juan contemplates the ideological, social and socio-professional changes necessary for giving the step from individual to group analysis. He also emphasizes that Foulkes’ Group Analysis, without renouncing any of the psychoanalytical principles in reference to individual psychogenesis and psychopathology, differentiates a series of factors which dynamically are specific to the group situation.