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This volume reports a six-year study carried out at Children's Village, a residential center for neglected and delinquent boys, in order to evaluate the applicability of group therapy in such a residential setting. One of the analytic groups that lasted two years provided the data for a study in depth of its members and constitutes the central focus of the report. This group of seven boys aged thirteen to fifteen were an average sample of the resident population and met weekly for one and a half hours with a group therapist. They were selected primarily because they had not been amenable to any type of individual counselling. Slavson, the author, directed the over-all study and supervised the group therapists.
The first section of the book provides an overview and theoretic formulation in psychoanalytic and group dynamic terms of the entire study. The second section presents the clinical data in rich detail: the seven case histories, the protocols of the seventy-five sessions of the group, and periodic progress reports on the individual boys. The third section sets forth conclusions and recommendations.
The task of the study was twofold: to define the unconscious determinants for the deviant values and behavior of the delinquent and to test a method by which these unconscious factors could be used to reclaim such boys for a constructive life. This type of delinquent does not experience conscious guilt or anxiety because of his socially deviant behavior. Typically he uses projection, externalization, and aggressive action to block all awareness of his inner life—which poses a major resistance to treatment. Traditional analytic techniques are ineffective and require modifications or parameters; these modifications are termed 'para-analytic'. Slavson believes that such attitudes are best tackled in a group where confrontation is by peers and not by the therapist. Resistances as such are gradually overcome, the group's interest shifts from the externals to th