The Turvey Centre for Group Therapy offers therapeutic services to members of the public, both group and individual. It also delivers an Foundation Course in Group Analysis which is accredited by the Institute of Group Analysis.
The Turvey Centre is based at Turvey Abbey which is located in the tranquil and attractive village of Turvey, near Bedford. Both training and therapy take place here.
Group Analysis is an approach to the understanding of human relations that combines the insights of psychoanalysis with a profound appreciation of the social nature of human beings and the importance of the socialisation process in the development of personality. It has its origins in both psychoanalysis and sociology and is based on a holistic philosophy that views individuals and their social networks as inextricably bound up with one another. It has links with systems theory, developmental psychology and social psychology. Group-analytic psychotherapy considers the group to be the ideal medium for therapeutic change based on the reciprocal and determining relationship between the individual and the group. The work of group-analytic psychotherapists with both individuals and groups, emphasises the location of the individual within the social matrix.
The founder of group analysis was S.H. Foulkes who began to put these ideas into practice in the 1940s, thus giving rise to a new approach to psychotherapy. Foulkes himself was a psychoanalyst but he was also deeply influenced by the ideas of sociology, in particular the work of Norbert Elias. In 1971 he founded the Institute of Group Analysis in London. There are now similar institutes in many parts of the world.
The principles of group analysis have many different applications. They have, for example, been applied to understanding organisations, in management consultancy, in education, to work in prisons, to staff groups and to working with specific groups such as children and families, older people, immigrants, survivors of trauma and abuse and to people suffering from eating problems and addictions.