First published in English in 1982 and based on more than five years of experience with therapy groups in the author’s own practice, this book aims to introduce the reader to psychoanalytic group therapy. Assuming little previous knowledge, it presents the subject in a progressive and illustrative way, and gives a central place to case material that was otherwise rarely published. Theory remains in the background and serves only to direct light on to problems which arise in practice, such as working through the early mother child relationship and the Oedipus complex in the group situation, the theory of the group process, and the various forms of transference, including the group conductor’s counter-transference.
The book’s special value consists in its practical non-dogmatic orientation, in its integration of a variety of conceptions about groups, in its vividly illustrative case presentations, and in the open discussion of the problem of counter-transference. Written in non-technical language, it gives a lively picture of how ‘the business of psychoanalytic group therapy’ is managed, and will be of value to group analysts in practice and in training, as well as those interested in a more general way in psychoanalytic group therapy and what it is all about.