According to social psychology, a group is defined by the ‘glue’ that holds it together.  This could range from simply sharing a common fate (like passengers on a high-jacked airliner) to those joining together for a common goal based on a group ideal.

Since your self-worth and personal identity is intimately bound up with group membership, it isn’t surprising that you function better within groups where you consciously identity with group goals and ideals.  Of course the group imposes norms or standards (allowing for predictability and order) with which you are expected to conform.   You can’t always be yourself in a group.  There’s much evidence that groups have ‘minds’ of their own.

There’s also the suggestion that predominantly unconscious patterns underlie the functionality of a group.  Group dynamics put you in touch with the unconscious bits of yourself.  Whether or not you like it, you play the role of energy you bring into the pattern.  In other words, you ‘plug in’ to the group energy in a way that suggests that more than interpersonal synergy is at work.

How one measures this is up for grabs.  There’s a suggestion that harmonic patterns formed by groups gives insight as to which planetary energies it ‘pulls’ from any given group member.  This can be quite different depending on the particular harmonic involved (there can be several for a group).   If you’re not in touch with a particular energy in your chart, it could come out in the group – with a bang.

Groups form important vessels allowing you to learn more about yourself.  After all, you can only see yourself through the mirror of others.  What better mirror could you find than a group of like-minded ‘selves’?

According to Bernadette Brady, life is more about ‘patterns’ than ‘aspects’.  So if you want to look beyond traditional synergy aspects between individuals, then group dynamics is for you.  Remember that it’s the empty or unfinished point in the group pattern that’s key – it’s hungry and looking for someone to fill it.

If you’re that someone, then pay attention.  The way you interact within that group tells you much more about ‘you’ than it does about ‘them’.

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