Panel Presentation:
• The Large Group as Healer. Culture, Trauma and Shared Meaning
Panelists: Stavros Charalambides (organizer) & Konstantinos Dritsoulas & Konstantinos D. Mouchalos & Daphne Venetsanou
(120 min)

Abstract:

The panel entitled “The Large Group as Healer. Culture, Trauma and Shared Meaning” brings together four interrelated psychoanalytic perspectives on the Large Group as a critical site for understanding and working through collective, institutional, and transgenerational trauma. Drawing on a series of eight Large Groups conducted both online and in vivo during an international symposium, the panel conceptualizes the Large Group not as an auxiliary conference activity but as a living analytic field in which the social and institutional unconscious becomes experientially accessible.

Across all four presentations, trauma is approached not primarily as an individual memory but as a structuring force embedded in group life, institutions, and ideologies. The Large Group is understood as a social and psychic space where history, power, and affect converge, shaping belonging, obedience, exclusion, and meaning. Rather than focusing on symptom relief or consensus, the panel emphasizes the Large Group’s capacity to reveal unconscious processes that organize collective life and to open possibilities for symbolic transformation.

One presentation introduces the concept of the institutional unconscious, examining how power colonizes the psyche through norms, silences, and implicit loyalties that carry unresolved historical trauma. Institutions are conceptualized as psychic objects that regulate belonging and exclusion long before these processes are consciously recognized. Within the Large Groups, institutional dynamics emerged through enactments of hierarchy, moral certainty, fragmentation, and resistance to thinking. The presentation argues that without institutional literacy, psychoanalytic communities risk reproducing the very forms of violence and exclusion they aim to address clinically.

Another contribution approaches the Large Group as a political body, focusing on how anxiety organizes collective behavior through obedience, projection, and enemy formation. Under pressure, the group repeatedly sought safety through splitting and moral certainty, transforming difference into threat. These processes mirrored broader sociopolitical dynamics, revealing how fear becomes ideology and how obedience replaces responsibility when symbolic capacity collapses. The Large Group is thus understood not as a reflection of politics but as a site where political subjectivities are actively produced.

A third presentation conceptualizes trauma as ideology, highlighting how unworked historical trauma inhabits the group mind and perpetuates repetition across generations and institutions. Trauma appears not as narrative memory but as rigid systems of meaning that foreclose thinking and mourning. In the Large Groups, history returned through enactment rather than recollection, manifesting as polarization, moral absolutism, and unconscious allegiance to the past. Without mourning, groups remain captured by repetition and vulnerability to ideological certainty.

The panel concludes with a presentation on the transformative potential of the Large Group, focusing on the movement from submission and reenactment toward symbolization. It examines the conditions under which collective trauma can be integrated into shared meaning rather than compulsively repeated. When the group tolerates uncertainty, conflict, and breakdown without premature closure, enactment can give way to thought, agency, and relational responsibility.

Taken together, the panel positions the Large Group as a political and psychic laboratory where trauma, power, and history can be encountered, thought, and partially transformed. It affirms the Large Group as an essential practice for psychoanalytic communities committed to ethical responsibility, symbolic thinking, and collective life beyond repetition.

Keywords: collective trauma, institutional unconscious, large group, psychoanalysis, psychohistory, social unconscious, symbolic transformation, transgenerational trauma

Panel Presentation 1:

Trauma as Ideology: How History Repeats Itself Through the Group Mind

By Konstantinos Dritsoulas

Abstract:

This presentation focuses on trauma as ideology, examining how unresolved historical trauma inhabits the group mind and perpetuates repetition across generations and institutions. Drawing on material from eight Large Groups conducted during an international symposium, the presentation explores how trauma often appears not as narrative memory but as rigid systems of meaning that foreclose thought, a formulation closely aligned with the concept of the social unconscious as articulated by Earl Hopper (2007).

Within the Large Groups, history repeatedly returned through enactment rather than recollection. Polarization, moral absolutism, and resistance to mourning emerged as dominant modes of relating. These dynamics were understood as expressions of ideological trauma, where inherited meanings replace lived experience and protect the group from confronting loss, guilt, and ambivalence.

Trauma as ideology functions defensively, offering coherence at the cost of complexity. It organizes group identity around certainty and loyalty, while rendering alternative perspectives intolerable. In this sense, the group mind becomes possessed by history, repeating it unconsciously rather than symbolizing it — an enactment of social and historical forces that remain unmetallized.

The Large Group provided a setting in which these processes became visible and emotionally charged. Participants found themselves speaking positions that felt larger than personal experience, as if history were speaking through them. This phenomenon resonates with contemporary relational group perspectives that conceptualize analytic and institutional spaces as Large Group processes, in which subjectivities function as representatives of wider group and historical fields, as proposed by Stavros Charalambides (2024).

This presentation argues that psychoanalytic work with Large Groups must address trauma at the level of ideology, not only affect. Without the possibility of mourning historical loss, groups remain captured by repetition, vulnerability to polarization, and the transformation of trauma into moral certainty. The Large Group offers a fragile but essential space where history can be encountered as history rather than destiny and where thinking may begin again.

Keywords: ideological trauma, large group, mourning, polarization, psychoanalysis, psychohistory, social unconscious, transgenerational trauma

Short Bio:

Konstantinos Dritsoulas is a psychologist (BSc) licensed to practice and maintains a private office in the Neos Kosmos area of Athens. He is a graduate of Canterbury Christ Church University and completed his postgraduate studies in Clinical Psychology (MSc) at the University of Essex. He trained and held a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Skills in Relational Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from the Greek Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy. Since 2022, he has been in training in group analysis, family therapy, and couple therapy at the Hellenic Society for Group and Family Therapy.

In addition to his private practice, he is also a clinical associate at Psychopleusi, where he conducts individual psychotherapy sessions with adults and facilitates adult psychotherapy groups. He has been continuously engaged in both individual and group therapy since 2014. At the same time, he is in individual supervision for his one-on-one clinical work and in group supervision for the groups he facilitates. He actively participates in conferences, symposiums, and professional events both in Greece and abroad. Finally, he is a member of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP) and the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA). He can be reached at .

Panel Presentation 2:

From Submission to Symbolization: The Large Group Against Reenactment

By Konstantinos D. Mouchalos

Abstract:

This presentation explores the transformative potential of the Large Group as a psychic and social space capable of moving from submission and reenactment toward symbolization and shared meaning. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study of eight Large Groups conducted during an international symposium, the paper examines the conditions under which collective trauma can be integrated into shared meaning rather than compulsively repeated.

In states of heightened anxiety, the Large Group repeatedly gravitates toward submission, silence, or action without thought. These movements are understood as defensive responses to overwhelming affect, marked by a collapse of differentiation and a retreat from complexity. Enactment displaces reflection, and power is experienced as an external force to submit to rather than as a relational dynamic open to thought. This process is consistent with descriptions of Large Group regression and basic assumption functioning in the presence of unprocessed collective trauma (Hopper, 2003, 2011), as well as with clinical accounts of how authority and freedom become paradoxically negotiated under pressure in group psychotherapy (Mouchalos, 2025).

By contrast, when the group is able to tolerate uncertainty and remain affectively engaged without resorting to premature closure, a different process begins to emerge. Speech slows, affect becomes more thinkable, and previously rigid or polarized positions soften. Symbolization gradually replaces action, allowing traumatic experience to be held, articulated, and shared rather than discharged through reenactment. In these moments, meaning is co-constructed relationally, opening the possibility for agency and liberty to emerge within the group process (Tsiorou, 2025).

Crucially, this shift does not occur through reassurance, interpretation imposed from authority, or the restoration of order. Instead, it emerges through sustained relational containment and the group’s capacity to remain present to conflict without foreclosing it. Rupture is no longer treated solely as a threat but becomes an opportunity for psychic work, enabling the Large Group to function as a transitional space in which collective experience can be transformed into symbolic form.

This perspective is informed by contemporary relational, and group psychoanalytic work developed within the clinical and training context of the Institute of Relational and Group Psychotherapy, where enactment, failure, and breakdown are approached as central elements of analytic work rather than deviations to be corrected. From this standpoint, staying with difficulty constitutes an ethical and clinical position that allows agency and responsibility to emerge within the group rather than being imposed upon it. This stance resonates with Charalampidis’ emphasis on trauma, envy, and the defensive pull toward submission as a means of avoiding psychic pain (Charalambides, 2022).

The presentation argues that the value of the Large Group lies precisely in its exposure to tension, failure, and breakdown. When reenactment is not avoided but thought about, submission can give way to agency, responsibility, and shared authorship of meaning. In this sense, the Large Group becomes not merely a mirror of collective trauma, but a living site where new symbolic possibilities for collective life can emerge.

Keywords: agency, collective trauma, large group, psychoanalysis, psychohistory, reenactment, submission, symbolization

Short Bio:

Konstantinos D. Mouchalos is a relational psychoanalytic and group psychotherapist based in Athens. He studied Psychology at Deree – The American College of Greece and trained in Cognitive Analytic Therapy, later specializing in Relational Psychoanalysis and Yalomian Group Psychotherapy. He furthered his education at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) in Medical Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Couples Counseling, and completed additional training in Psychological First Aid at Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, and Duke University. Since 2016, he has maintained a private practice in Glyfada and is the founder and director of the Hellenic Institute for Mental Health and Psychotherapy. He is a faculty member of the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy (ISOPS), a member of several international psychoanalytic and psychotherapy associations, and currently serves as Co-Chair of the IARPP Candidates’ Committee. His clinical and theoretical work focuses on authority, freedom, enactment, and symbolization in group and large group psychotherapy. His article “Unthought Known: Navigating Perceptions of Tyranny and Democracy in Group Psychotherapy” was published in the journal Group (Vol. 49, No. 1, 2025). He can be reached at .

Panel Presentation 3:

The Institutional Unconscious. How Power Colonizes the Psyche and Trauma Governs Belonging

By Stavros Charalambides

Abstract:

This presentation explores the concept of the institutional unconscious as it emerged through a series of eight Large Groups conducted online and in vivo during the Third International Symposium of the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy. Institutions are approached not merely as organizational structures but as psychic objects that carry unprocessed historical trauma, unconscious power relations, and implicit moral orders. These elements shape belonging, obedience, silence, and exclusion long before they become conscious or articulated.

Drawing on relational psychoanalysis and large group theory, the presentation examines how power colonizes the psyche through institutional norms that appear neutral but operate as carriers of trauma. Within the Large Groups, participants repeatedly enacted institutional roles without explicit awareness, reproducing hierarchies, loyalties, and prohibitions that mirrored broader professional and sociopolitical fields. Trauma did not present itself primarily as memory but as structure, embedded in rules, expectations, and the fear of exclusion.

The Large Group functioned as a revelatory space where the institutional unconscious became visible through affective intensity, fragmentation, moral certainty, and resistance to thinking. Moments of silence, sudden polarization, and the idealization or demonization of authority figures were understood as expressions of institutional trauma rather than individual pathology.

This presentation argues that without institutional literacy, psychoanalytic communities risk reenacting the very forms of violence and exclusion they aim to treat clinically. The Large Group offers a rare opportunity to observe these dynamics in real time and to begin transforming institutional trauma into institutional responsibility. By naming the institutional unconscious, the possibility emerges for institutions that can think, mourn, and contain difference rather than govern through fear and repetition.

Keywords: exclusion, institutional literacy, institutional trauma, institutional unconscious, large group, power, psychohistory, relational psychoanalysis

Short Bio:

Stavros Charalambides is a writer, theatrical producer and playwright, a supervising and training relational psychoanalyst and group psychotherapist. He has been an elected Board Member of the IARPP since 2018, and since February 2024, also serves as an elected Board Member of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA). Together with Gila Ofer, he co-chairs the IARPP Special Interest Group on Couples, Families, and Groups. He is the founder and director of the Greek Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy (established in 2016), where he has also developed and currently oversees four specialized training programs in relational psychoanalysis and group psychotherapy. Charalambides works extensively with individuals, couples, siblings, small and large groups, and institutional systems. His main clinical and theoretical interests focus on sibling dynamics, envy, mourning and hatred in the transference and countertransference across different analytic and group settings — from the dyad to the multicultural social field. His first individual book, The Envy Executioner, was published in Greek in 2022 (Disigma Publications). His second book, The Enraged Slaves, came out in March 2025, also by Disigma Publications. He is the editor of the first and second collective Greek volumes on Relational Psychoanalysis and Group Dynamics, published in July 2023 and September 2024, respectively. He is currently editing the third collective volume, scheduled for publication shortly. Additionally, his third individual book is also forthcoming. He can be reached at .

Panel Presentation 4:

The Large Group as Political Body: Anxiety, Obedience, and the Production of Enemies

By Daphne Venetsanou

Abstract:

This presentation examines the Large Group as a political body, focusing on how anxiety organizes collective behavior through obedience, projection, and the construction of enemies. Based on observations from eight Large Groups conducted during an international psychoanalytic symposium, the presentation explores how sociopolitical dynamics enter the group not as topics but as lived emotional realities.

Under conditions of heightened anxiety, the Large Group repeatedly demonstrated a tendency to simplify complexity through splitting. Difference became dangerous, ambiguity intolerable, and dissent experienced as threat. In these moments, obedience emerged as a defense against chaos, offering temporary cohesion at the cost of critical thinking. The group unconsciously sought safety through moral certainty and alignment with imagined authority, reproducing familiar political dynamics.

Enemy formation played a central role in regulating group anxiety. Individuals or subgroups became carriers of projected fear, anger, or disavowed vulnerability. These processes mirrored broader sociopolitical mechanisms through which communities manage insecurity by externalizing threat. The Large Group thus revealed itself as a site where political subjectivities are actively produced, not merely reflected.

Rather than interpreting these dynamics as failures of containment, this presentation approaches them as meaningful manifestations of the group’s political unconscious. The Large Group provides a unique space to observe how power, fear, and ideology are emotionally organized and how obedience can replace responsibility when anxiety overwhelms symbolic capacity.

The presentation argues that working psychoanalytically with Large Groups requires tolerating political discomfort and resisting the temptation to restore premature harmony. Only by remaining with anxiety, difference, and conflict can the group move from reactive obedience toward reflective political agency.

Keywords: anxiety, large group, obedience, political unconscious, projection, psychohistory, splitting, subjectivity

Short Bio:

Daphne Venetsanou is a licensed psychotherapist in Greece, based in Athens. She earned her degrees in Psychology from the University of Athens (UoA) and Deree — The American College of Greece, graduating with Honors, and is currently completing her master’s degree in Psychotherapy at UoA. She has completed the certified educational program in eating disorders at the University of Athens (UoA), as well as the Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Skills Based on Relational Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy.

She provides psychotherapy to adults through her internship, private practice, and collaboration with the psychotherapy center Psychoplefsi. Her professional experience also includes voluntary involvement in sexual abuse prevention research. Committed to continuous learning, she regularly attends seminars, particularly in relational psychoanalysis and group psychotherapy, and presents her work at national and international conferences.

Her work includes the publication titled “A Candidate Contemplating Institutionally Set Boundaries” by the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society in GROUP (2025), as well as co-authorship in the third collective Greek volume on relational psychoanalysis and group dynamics, published in 2025. She is a member of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP) and the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA). She can be reached at .