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"On what epistemological bases should group psychoanalytic work be based in psychoanalysis?This question poses a problem, as all the extensions of the practice and theory of psychoanalysis have done hitherto. These extensions have made it evident that the modifications of the setting characteristic of the method of psychoanalysis lead to transformations in the conception of the unconscious, of its formations and its processes, and in its effects of subjectivity. As soon as the setting of psychoanalytic work is opened up to several people united under the same fundamental rule with one or several analysts, the dimension of the nature of the extension changes: in fact, the practice, the setting, the theory, the technique of psychoanalysis, and thus the training of psychoanalysts, were not conceived and constructed for this type of psychoanalytic work.There are certainly several approaches and several ways of answering this question; but in all cases, the arguments must be documented and backed up rigorously.The specific objective of this historical and critical epistemological research concerns first and foremost the qualification of the group psychic space, of that of the ties between the subjects in the group, and that of the subjects considered in their singularity as subjects of the unconscious in the group. But this objective is a precondition for considering what is fundamentally in question, namely, the construction of a general metapsychology of psychoanalysis to which all its applications contribute. Thus included in our investigation is the following question: what does group psychoanalytic work contribute to the conception of the subject of the unconscious? It is included in the conception of a metapyschology of the third type, the main axes of which the author sets out in this paper."