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Drs. Foulkes and Anthony have co-operated to produce this very lucid survey of the whole field of group therapy. A very considerable amount of clinical experience, observation, as well as imaginative thinking and theory is therefore condensed into this small Pelican book. In my view, too much. This series is intended for the lay public, whereas this book is readily intelligible to only those members of the lay public who are already experienced and familiar with problems of psychology in general, and perhaps psychoanalytic concepts in particular.
The whole book is divided into three sections. The first is concerned with a survey of the knowledge and history gained in recent years of group dynamics in a therapeutic setting—along with an extremely compressed version of Freudian theory and some sociological adaptations of it. Recognition is paid to the contribution of the Gestalt psychologists, and the later chapters in this section are concerned with defining what the authors mean by the phrase “group-analytic group”, and the relation between this specialized therapeutic group and other types of human groups. They discuss the patients and their clinical symptomatology, the process and development occurring in group-analytic therapy, as well as details of the practical techniques involved.
The second section is entirely devoted to a variety of clinical illustrations, some of which are of particular interest, since one of the authors was able to appoint a group “historian”. This patient, a professional writer, undertook a recording of sessions as well as describing her own participation and reactions, both private and public (group). The first two chapters of the last sections are devoted to the natural history of groups and the phenomenology of groups. These contain further illustrations chiefly from children's groups of different ages: nursery phase, latency phase, and adolescence, and will be of particular interest to child psychiatrists and analysts.
The final two chap