From the Couch to the Circle (PDF)

Recipient of the 2017 Anne Alonso Award for Excellence in Psychodynamic Group Therapy, conferred by the Group Foundation for Advancing Mental Health, part of the American Group Psychotherapy Association.

From the Couch to the Circle: Group-Analytic Psychotherapy in Practice is a handbook of group therapy and a guide to the group-analytic model - the prevailing form of group therapy in Europe. The book draws on both John Schlapobersky's engagement as a practitioner and the words and experience of people in groups as they face psychotherapy's key challenges - understanding and change.

This book provides a manual of practice for therapists' use that includes detailed descriptions of groups at work; accounts of therapists' own experience and the issues they face in themselves and in their groups. The book is devoted to the Group-Analytic model but the other principally psychodynamic models of group therapy - the Tavistock, Interpersonal, Psychodynamic, Modern Analytic and Structural/Systemic models - are brought into a comparative discussion and drawn upon to create an integrated and coherent approach.

The book is divided into three sections:

Foundations - aimed at practitioners using groups of any kind and working at every level, including those providing supportive psychotherapy and providing groups for psychosis, trauma, the elderly, people at risk, the elderly and children;

The Group-Analytic Model - defines the group-analytic model at a basic and advanced level;

The Dynamics of Change - aimed at group analysts, psychotherapists and psychologists providing short-term psychotherapy and long-term group analysis

The book is illustrated with clinical vignettes including incisive, instructive commentaries to explain the concepts in use. It is intended for those seeking psychotherapy, whether to resolve personal problems or to find new sources of meaning in their lives. It is also intended for policy-makers in mental health, students of different models of psychotherapy and the psychosocial field. The comparative discussion running through the text about methods and models of practice will likely be of interest to the wider mental health and psychotherapy fields.

The author draws together the inherited wisdom of group analysis since Foulkes' time and makes his own lasting contribution. From the Couch to the Circle will be an invaluable, accessible resource for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, family therapists, academics, psychologists, mental health practitioners, academics and teachers in psychotherapy.