How to Do Groups

This book is for clinicians who are new to the practice of group therapy as well as for experienced group therapists who would like to review critical aspects of their work. It is a road map guiding the clinician through the details of starting a group, including such important issues as how to get a patient who has come seeking individual therapy to accept referral for group therapy. This common problem, seldom discussed in the group therapy literature, is dealt with in detail. Guidelines are provided for doing screening interviews and for conducting the initial session of a new group. The therapist is guided toward what to pay attention to during a group therapy session, how to formulate therapeutic interventions, and when to express them. Theory is introduced only after a discussion of the practical issues involved in getting a group started. For clinicians who feel the pressure to perform and the urgent need for skill acquisition, the facilitative role of theory in enhancing technical skill is explained. A chapter on Freud's theory of groups, which differs from psychodynamic theories of group psychotherapy, helps bridge the gap between personality theory and the realities of client behavior during group therapy sessions. Most group therapists intuitively grasp the idea that the client's discovery that others are in the same boat is itself therapeutic, as is self-disclosure. There are at least eight other factors that have been demonstrated to be therapeutic. The therapist is shown how to focus on these factors and how to employ them during group interactions. Group-therapy is an interpersonal context, the purpose of which is the facilitation of change in interpersonal behavior. Thisbook presents an interpersonal theory of group psychotherapy that defines psychopathology in interpersonal terms and links intrapsychic events, interpersonal behaviors, and the outcomes of interpersonal interactions in ways that have direct relevance to the conduct of group ther