Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction (PDF)

Learn what it's like to be a member of an addiction recovery group!

Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction: Carrying the Message is NOT a self-help book. Instead, it's a rare opportunity to sit in on a virtual therapy group and take part in a virtual Twelve Step meeting. The book's unique perspective lets you compare and contrast the experience of participating in a psychotherapy group and a Twelve Step group, including an examination of the Twelve Steps and The Twelve Traditions. The book demystifies the process of recovery, demonstrating all the important elements of the group process, including free association, resistance, transference, re-enactment, boundary management, interpretation, and confrontation.

Rather than relate shared stories of addicts in recovery or present abstract formulations on the group experience, Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction takes you inside the experiential process of recovery that can't be achieved in isolation. Your experience as a group “member” will help solve the mystery of the group process and provide you with insight into the scientific elements of recovery as the book builds a bridge between the Twelve Step programs and a psychoanalytic model of group functioning.

Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction examines:

• how the group carries the message of recovery
• the higher power of the group as a symbol of authority
• the development of prayer and meditation as group analytic functions
• addiction as a family disease
• making amends as an export process
• powerlessness and free association
• unmanageability and resistance
• surrender and transference
• inventory and re-enactments
• humility and working through
• The Twelve Steps and The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous
• and much more!

Group Psychotherapy and Recovery from Addiction: Carrying the Message is a unique resource for group therapists, addiction treatment professionals, and anyone else interested in group therapy—especially those who have personal experience with Twelve Step recovery.