A band of brothers at nursery: an account of male group dynamics in a preschool setting

Abstract

This paper discusses some of the themes emerging during the observation of a three-year-old boy, Jack, in a nursery. The paper focuses on the group dynamics in a small group of boys of whom Jack was one. The author argues that the group serves as a base from which Jack and the other boys negotiated the wider world outside the family. The boys’ shared capacity to manage in the wider world seemed to have been based partly on projecting their infantile anxiety and hostility into others; girls were generally perceived as weak and more like vulnerable babies with the boys’ denied infantile feelings located in them, while adult men seemed to be critical or threatening, since the boys identified themselves with a particular version of men, borrowing certain characteristics and unconsciously fearing that this would result in persecution. The author refers to Freud's early writing on groups and also to Klein and Bion in relation to splitting, projection and their impact on group dynamics and to Williams on the potential for groups to become gangs.

Keywords:

• masculine identity
• nursery
• group dynamics
• young child observation
• male observer

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Deborah Marks, at the Northern School of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy (NSCAP), for her support and encouragement.