On the Unplanned Technique of Enactments: Holding Liminality in Group Therapy

The essence of the enactment comes from the group therapist's early adaptions and how they obscure an objective view of the group members' needs. The construct of liminality is explored for its clinical and theoretical use in this between-zone of being, sensing, and consciously intervening. Language as an expressive vehicle is considered alongside other tools for therapeutically functioning in liminality. A liminal frame of mind may grant accessibility to these enactments as abstractly prefigured, so that when the enactment comes to center stage, the clinician can coparticipate therapeutically. Enactments as a tool of therapeutic intervention occur unintentionally; the technique discussed here is planning for the unplanned.