UNSTRUCTURED GROUP THERAPY:

creating contact

choosing relationship

Richard C. Page, Ph.D. & Daniel N. Berkow, Ph.D.

2005

PCCS Books, Ross-on-Wye, UK

 

Much of the recent literature surrounding group therapy has focused on structured interactions.  Yet because individuals bring their unique histories and qualities to a group, structured interactions can sometimes constrain the potential intimacy and learning that can occur in less structured settings.  This book explores how the dynamics of unstructured groups can help achieve therapeutic objectives, foster human growth, and create meaningful relationships.

In Unstructured Group Therapy: Creating Contact, Choosing Relationship, Richard Page and Daniel Berkow offer a framework for enhancing the benefit participants can gain from engaging in interactions that are not structured according to predetermined patterns.  They outline ideas for working toward two essential goals of the therapeutic process: working on personal problems and learning how to develop mutually satisfying relationships.  And they reveal how professionals can improve their recognition of themes such as love, power, and self-actualization in others.

   They offer insights into incorporating both therapists’ and group members’ inherent capacity for creativity and self-direction into group interaction-and they reveal how this can enhance the change process.  Page and Berkow also show how to use feedback to enhance authenticity, and offer insights for overcoming the problems created by denial in group settings.

   The authors provide an innovative, ethically oriented therapeutic approach that can be applied in diverse settings by a variety of mental health practitioners-including psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and therapists in private practice.  Applying existential and psychodynamic concepts, the authors show how development can occur through both interpersonal interactions and perceptual processes within individuals, and they show how unstructured groups can enhance both of these facets of human development.

   Page and Berkow demonstrate how their approach can help practitioners better interpret interactions that occur within the context of relationship as well as within the group as a whole.  They provide guidelines for contending with potential conflicts of values between practitioners and institutions and offer insights into the political, social and cultural aspects of implementing this theory in practice.

Unstructured Group Therapy is a unique compendium of history, theory and practice, melded with the authors’ clinical experience. ‘Love, power, and justice’ linked with ‘awareness, freedom, and responsibility’ form a gestalt that infuse unstructured groups with organization and meaning. As a welcomed contrast to standardized manuals on clinical ‘methods’, this text is a thought provoking resource for anyone seeking to understand and facilitate individual growth through group interactions.

Eric K. Millner, M.D. Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and former Director of Psychotherapy     Education, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.

                                                                                *****

This is a rare book. The authors have offered a mixture of timeless philosophical constructs and practical advice about unstructured groups. The universal themes of love, power, and justice are considered and central concepts in the relationship processes that form the ‘heart and soul’ of unstructured group therapy.

Jerold D Bozarth, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, University of Georgia.