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EFFORTS TO CLASSIFY the psychotherapies have been in part prompted by the need for a more scientific approach to therapeutic assignment than is now the case. A. H. Maslow comments on this problem:
One way of summarising my impression of these therapeutic groups in relationship to individual psychotherapy is to come back to the old conclusion that many have come to that it's senseless arguing about group therapy versus individual therapy. For one thing, there are many kinds of each serving different purposes, different kinds of people, and so on. Secondly, they do have different functions in certain respects, and so our question then transforms itself into for what problems, under what kinds of circumstances, for what kind of people, for what kinds of goals, should we use what kind of group therapy or what kind of individual therapy, and in what combination or alternation (MASLOW 21, p. 178).
Clinical literature is indeed reflecting a growing sophistication with regard to group composition, modifications of specific therapies for specific diagnostic categories, and the problems of personality type as it relates to client-counsellor interaction. Yet, there is no systematic approach to therapeutic assignment that covers the issues summarised above by Maslow. The problem is one of more than academic interest as many failures in psychotherapy are directly related to inappropriate therapeutic assignment.
In my own clinical practice and research, it has become apparent to me that C. G. Jung's psychotypology offers a viable means by which the psychotherapies may be classified and given the perspective needed for their more effective application. Justifiable criticism may be made of Jung's and any other typology on the grounds that ‘no pure type exists’. Jung himself decried the use of his typology for merely classifying individuals (ADLER 1, p. 550). He was concerned mainly with providing a means for communicating about the dynamics of ego orientation and what happens when an