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The author of this book is concerned to put over a new method of treatment, sufficiently logical and distinctive to be worth a permanent place in the field of psychotherapy, and, perhaps ultimately more important, apparently capable of yielding new insight and fresh knowledge in the whole field of psycho-dynamics. It is a truism that man is a social animal, and that he is moulded by environmental influences. And it has been shown that in psycho-analytic treatment we are concerned with a specialized and highly artificial dynamic situation between two individuals, the development of which can be controlled to the patients' advantage. But so far, little has been done to explore the possibilities of using the dynamic situation as it develops in a small regularily meeting group in precisely the same conscious and positive manner as in an individual psycho-analysis; that is to say with the express purpose of so directing it that the gradual and progressive growth of insight and understanding in the individual members shall ensue, and be sufficiently deep to ensure permanent and positive benefit. It is this gap which group-analysis would appear to fill.
To get down to practical details, the author has found that the most useful size for a group is about seven, meetings are usually weekly, and the spontaneous utterances of the members take the place of free association. The group analyst, also referred to as the leader or conductor, has a difficult rôle to play, for he must be one of the group, not too rigidly separated from the others as by a table in front of him or by a position apart, and yet remain sufficiently emotionally detached to identify the dynamic factors at work and to direct without too obvious a leadership unless in times of crisis. The reviewer is reminded of the family situation, in some ways ideal, in which the children in a large family do so much to bring each other up. Thus they learn home truths from each other without any serious loss of self-r