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In the introduction to this excellent but limited volume, the authors enumerate all the features that a textbook on group psychotherapy of children
should contain. They amply discuss areas which a standard work for students and practitioners would be expected to include: principles of child development and psychotherapy with chidren, concepts of group therapy and dynamics, practical matters of selection criteria, composition and settings for the groups, the therapist's role, and related matters. Herein lies both the strength and weakness of this text. When the reader completes the last page, he has a full and complete concept of a Slavson-Schiffer-type group. Aspects of each type of group discussed — activity groups, activity groups in a residential center, transitional groups, activity-interview groups, play groups, and therapeutic play groups in elementary schools — are well delineated and abundantly depicted by vignettes, protocols, and descriptive comments.
But the knowledgeable reader senses, even as he feels comfortably sated with consuming a fine work, that something seems to be missing. This feeling can be traced back to such blanket statements as, “In no type of true therapy group can norms be imposed…,” and to the offhand manner in which the authors pass off other forms of group therapy for children as “subsumed in what are known as encounter groups.” Such a classification is perhaps inappropriate given the commonly held conception of the term “encounter group” and the designation of such groups by Drs. Slavson and Schiffer as “basically authoritarian.” They state that “We attempt a detailed presentation of theories and practices, especially the latter, of group psychotherapy with children….” But their failure to make reference to other types of psychoanalytic group therapy for children and to groups utilizing the principles of behavior modification and learning theory, as well as to groups for treating psychotic and severely disturbed preschool and grade