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This book is fashionable. It attempts an eclectic view of group and family therapy together, asking purists of each persuasion to learn from the other in two very up-to-the-minute fields. The group therapist is offered the chance to learn about cybernetics and the use of positive and negative feedback techniques, while the family therapist is urged to examine how general systems theory can also be used to facilitate the transformation of the personality sub-system of family members as well as the family system itself, and finally the multi-family group supra-system. It celebrates the recent death of the multi-family group therapist, Peter Laqueur, and devotes several chapters to his life and work.
The eighth in a series begun in the States in 1973, it has two editors and 33 chapters by different authors, varying in originality and readability from ‘not very’ to ‘moderately’. The looseness of structure is exacerbated by the lack of any binding framework or editorial viewpoint. We are given a long preface which outlines the whole book in considerable detail and each chapter is preceded by a summary, perhaps intended to convey an encyclopaedic tone, though this would imply more comprehensiveness and representativeness than the book can possibly achieve. It has, however, an excellent subject and names index and list of contributors and many of the chapters have impressive bibliographies.
The style is technical in the American or German sense, and at times treats at length and with seriousness seemingly obvious, naive or mildly comic-sounding angles on the therapy described, such as Yorburg's ‘Hug therapy’ for alienated families. British readers will probably have to struggle with these features, as well as with a sentimental tendency at times towards big human meeting points and unremitting success stories. On the other hand, there are some very serious and worthwhile pieces of work described in the book, which have been carefully documented and reported, with interesting