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Members of the Institute for Group Analysis and the Group-Analytic Practice in London have treated patients and candidates, trained students, and written for many decades about the ideas derived from S. H. Foulkes' efforts to apply psychoanalytic thinking to group-dynamic treatment. This book provides a practical summary of what they have learned. The American reader might be somewhat confused by the title, which suggests that the book is about how group analysis is "practiced." In fact, the book is about the "practice": how the private group practice is set up—its management.
It takes a lot of management to develop a private group practice for group psychotherapy. A referral system must be developed, administrative structures elaborated, and enough of a tradition established so that a reputation can be developed and standards preserved. It takes more to develop a successful practice of group analytic psychotherapy, particularly when the analytic standard requires the existence of long-term twice-weekly groups. The Group Analytic Practice in London described in this book manages to sustain 23 of these, as well as 29 once-weekly groups containing a total of approximately 350 patients; it is unique. The theoretical and clinical writings of members of this school are used by group therapists around the world. Though such a practice might be impossible to duplicate without an analytically sophisticated city like London or a charismatic founder like S. H. Foulkes, this group remains an important model for others.
The editors of this volume have put together a generous and occasionally folksy "how-to" book, describing the history, theory, development, practice, and structures of the Group-Analytic Practice from its Foulkesian beginnings. The student who knows of or has trained in this tradition will find the book a meaningful history; the reader interested in developing a similar kind of collegial practice of intensive dynamic group psychotherapy will find it h