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ABSTRACT
Rebellion is a strategy of social action: to overthrow the group's status quo or to adamantly oppose its revision. Rebellion occurs when other avenues of influence seem futile or unattractive-a judgment that depends on the group's genuine receptivity to discussion and change, and equally, on the state of mind of the rebel. There are different pathways of rebellion: defiance, secession/exile, anarchy, or revolution. Although rebellion represents an individual's mental attitude toward a group, it is useful to think of group process and rebellion as an attempt to move the group in a different direction. Similar to other group members, the therapist has rebellious feelings and thoughts, and may take on the multiple roles of defiant instigator, exiled outcast, anarchist, and revolutionary.
I am concerned with the topic of rebellion; specifically, when a faction rebels, how the group responds to the conflict, and how the conflict is resolved. In groups, the best and worst in human nature are elicited: revolt may occur against either potential. In this article I describe different pathways of rebellion, differentiated by their processes and outcomes: defiance, secession/exile, anarchy, or revolution.
Rebellion denotes a strategy adopted by a faction, when other avenues of influence seem futile or unattractive-a judgment that depends on the group's genuine receptivity to discussion and change, and equally, on the state of mind of the rebel. Although rebellion represents an individual's mental attitude toward a group, it is useful to think of group process and rebellion as an attempt to move the group in a different direction. Rebellion is a strategy of social action: to overthrow the group's status quo or to adamantly oppose its revision.
Greenson (1967) maintained that the concept of resistance implies a rebellion against psychoanalytic principles and procedures, thereby linking rebellion to dynamics of transference and pathology. Others have written of the negative therapeutic reaction and patients who are "difficult," in large part, because of their rebellious enactments (Roth, Stone, & Kibel, 1990). Relational psychoanalysis has challenged such assumptions of clinical authority and certainty, and has reassessed traditional oppositions between words and acts, transference and countertransference, enactment and insight, resistance and legitimate challenge (Aron, 1996). Thus, the conflict of therapeutic assumptions and values leading to rebellion may exist quite apart from unconscious...