1. Group

A group is a number of individuals organized to fulfill a common purpose or purposes. Thus, as Wilfred Bion has commented, a crowd of sunbathers lying on a beach is not yet a group. If, though, they are aroused by the cries of a girl who is drowning and begin to cooperate in her rescue, they become a rudimentary group. All groups have purpose, structure, and dynamics. Their complexity lies in the variability and interaction of these aspects.

A group’s purposes may be few or many. They may also be explicit or tacit, conscious or unc…