< Go Back

Work group (W)

Mentioned in Bion's Object Relations Theory

As opposed to basic assumption group (B).

Compared to Freudian oedipal level:

the work group, functioning through cooperation and identification, can be compared to the Freudian ego (an apparatus for reality testing and perception-consciousness) and has an Oedipal structure (and is therefore prone to neurotic disturbances),

Vermote, Rudi. Reading Bion (New Library of Psychoanalysis Teaching Series) (p. 61). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

In some groups that I have taken, what I have been calling the ‘sophisticated group’ has been spontaneously called the ‘work group’. The name is short, and expresses well an important aspect of the phenomena I wish to describe, so that in future I shall use it instead of ‘sophisticated group’. When a group meets, it meets for a specific task, and in most human activities today co-operation has to be achieved by sophisticated means.

Bion, W. R. (1961) Experiences in Groups (p. 98). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Every group, however casual, however idle it may appear to be, meets to 'do' something. In this activity, according to the capacity of the individual, they co-operate. This co-operation is voluntary and dependent on some degree of sophisticated skill in the individual. Participation in this activity is a product of years of training, experience, and individual mental development. Since this activity is associated with the performance of a task it is related to reality, its methods are rational and therefore, in however embryonic a form, scientific. It follows that its characteristics are similar to those attributed by Freud to the Ego. This aspect of group mental activity I have called the Work Group (W).

Bion W. R. (1952). Group dynamics: a review. The International journal of psycho-analysis, 33(2), 235–247.

  • Bion W. R. (1952). Group dynamics: a review. The International journal of psycho-analysis, 33(2), 235–247.
  • Bion, W.R. (1961). Experiences in Groups: and Other Papers (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203359075
AboutStudying and learning psychoanalysis