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In this excellent book John Schlaporbersky shares his wisdom gleaned from many years of group analytic practice. From the Couch to the Circle explores the changes in theory and technique needed to move from therapy with individual patients (couch) to working with a group of patients (circle) while staying within a psychoanalytic model. Schlaporbersky also successfully tackles the challenge of drawing together Foulkes' original discoveries into a practical textbook of group analysis as a method for the treatment of mental distress and the transformation of personal unhappiness. The book communicates his wide-ranging understanding of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
The book is clearly divided into three sections: 1. Foundations; 2. The Group Analytic Model; 3. Dynamics of Change.
In Section 1 (which is around half of the book), Schlaporbersky introduces the reader to psychotherapy in general. This is no small task as not only does he have to draw comparisons between theories of the individual and theories of the group, but he also has to take account of the changing focus in both fields. Finding correspondence between individual theories with their early roots in drive theory and an intra-psychic focus, and group theories that rely on interaction between individuals and relational patterns that develop is challenging. However, the author is clearly someone who grasps similarities between ideas. The development of a relational model of psychoanalysis over the last 30 years has also helped bridge the theories of individual and group methods of psychotherapy (Tubert-Oklander, 2014).
No one who knows the author's clinical work would be surprised to find that there is a strong emphasis on the role and characteristics of communication in the psychotherapeutic process.
In Chapter 4, ‘The Language of the Group’ he reminds us of his important linking of forms of speech: monologue, dialogue and discourse with psychological forms, that is, one-person psychology, two-person psychology