Subjective Experiences During a 3-Layer Method 4-Year Project on Existential Maturation

This paper examines the rich and multifaceted experiences of eight psychoanalysts on a collaborative journey to investigate “existential maturation” by systematic study of clinical experiences of mortality. Working together taught us much more than the specific study findings; it impacted each analyst personally, including by creating a group dynamic, shaping and reshaping our thoughts and feelings about mortality and its meanings. We structured our inquiry using the Three-Level Model (3-LM) method, a qualitative approach where a group systematically examines clinical material through three lenses: the patient’s narrative, the analyst–patient interaction, and inferences about underlying psychological change. As the project progressed, our relationship to the project’s structure became a revealing part of our own group dynamic. Considering our personal and group processes part of the project, toward the end of the 4-year project each analyst wrote about their personal experience of the group. In this paper, we use these writings to help describe our personal developments and responses and our group processes, including our reactions to the 3-LM process, and the termination process at the conclusion of the project.