Therapeutic Group Analysis

Abstract

This is an excellent, clearly conceptualized, and well-written book on group therapy. Dr. Foulkes is a well-trained psychoanalyst, who has maintained his analytic identity. Though an expert on groups, he continues to support the value of individual analysis in transference neuroses. He compares and contrasts individual and group analysis in an unusually clear, accurate, and enlightening fashion. He maintains that the group situation is the most powerful therapeutic agency available, and that group analysis can be as intensive as individual analysis. In group therapy supportive, socializing factors are predominant unless analytic means are specifically used. In group analysis the transference is central, but has a "here and now" emphasis, rather than the focus on repetition of childhood reactions which characterizes individual analysis. The important group analytic processes called mirror reactions (in which one sees parts of himself in others), role playing, and dramatization are emphasized. Group analytic therapy is described