Group Psychotherapy - History of Group Psychotherapy

History of Group Psychotherapy

The founders of group psychotherapy in the USA were Joseph H. Pratt, Trigant Burrow and Paul Schilder. All three of them were active and working at the East Coast in the first half of the 20th century. After World War II, group psychotherapy was further developed by Jacob L. Moreno, Samuel Slavson, Hyman Spotnitz, Irvin Yalom, and Lou Ormont. Yalom's approach to group therapy has been very influential not only in the USA but across the world, through his classic text "The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy". An early development in group therapy the T-group or training group (sometimes also referred to as sensitivity-training group, human relations training group or encounter group) is a form of group psychotherapy where participants themselves (typically, between eight and 15 people) learn about themselves (and about small group processes in general) through their interaction with each other. They use feedback, problem solving, and role play to gain insights into themselves, others, and groups. It was pioneered in the mid 1940s by Kurt Lewin and Carl Rogers and his colleagues as a method of learning about human behavior in what became The National Training Laboratories (now NTL Institute) that was created by the Office of Naval Research and the National Education Association in Bethel, Maine, in 1947 Moreno developed a specific and highly structured form of group therapy known as Psychodrama. Another recent development in the theory and method of group psychotherapy based on an integration of systems thinking is Yvonne Agazarian's "systems-Centered" approach (SCT), which sees groups functioning within the principles of system dynamics. Her method of "functional subgrouping" introduces a method of organizing group communication so it is less likely to react counterproductively to differences. SCT also emphasizes the need to recognize the phases of group development and the defenses related to each phase in order to best make sense and influence group dynamics.

In the United Kingdom group psychotherapy initially developed independently, with pioneers S. H. Foulkes and Wilfred Bion using group therapy as an approach to treating combat fatigue in the Second World War. Foulkes and Bion were psychoanalysts and incorporated psychoanalysis into group therapy by recognising that transference can arise not only between group members and the therapist but also among group members. Furthermore the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious was extended with a recognition of a group unconscious, in which the unconscious processes of group members could be acted out in the form of irrational processes in group sessions. Foulkes developed the model known as Group Analysis and the Institute of Group Analysis, while Bion was influential in the development of group therapy at the Tavistock Clinic. Bion has been criticised, for example by Yalom, for his technical approach which had an exclusive focus on analysis of whole-group processes to the exclusion of any exploration of individual group members' issues. Despite this, his recognition of group defences in the "Basic Assumption Group", has been highly influential.

Bion's approach is comparable to Social Therapy, first developed in the United States in the late 1970s by Lois Holzman and Fred Newman, which is a group therapy in which practitioners relate to the group, not its individuals, as the fundamental unit of development. The task of the group is to "build the group" rather than focus on problem solving or "fixing" individuals.