Dealing with Masochistic Behavior in Group Therapy from the Perspective of the Self

The self psychological understanding of masochism differs from traditional views in that it perceives masochistic behaviors as maladaptive attempts to experience vitalization, greater self-esteem and self-cohesiveness. Motivational systems theory may be especially useful in understanding the purposes served by masochistic behavior. Masochistic behavior in interpersonal relations is of particular importance to group therapy. Such behavior serves to maintain a relationship with the object as well as to gain selfobject experiences. Exhibitionism appears to be a prominent aspect of the behavior of individuals acting masochistically in group therapy. The group leader has the responsibility of establishing and maintaining an empathic atmosphere among the group members so that the individual engaging in self destructive behavior, as well as other members, can hear and understand their own and each other's subjective experiences.     

Therapist Self Disclosure in Group Psychotherapy from an Intersubjective and Self Psychological Standpoint

The history of therapist self disclosure is traced from the early struggles of Ferenczi and Burrow to its valued, yet still ambivalent, contemporary status. The symmetry of self disclosure by therapist and group members is differentiated from the parity of their different roles and responsibilities. Using a case example, the process is discussed through which a therapist's self disclosure fosters task-appropriate satisfaction of selfobject needs as it also helps group members articulate and loosen archaic selfobject binds. The therapy group is described as a transitional space within which a therapist's disclosure offers members an intersubjective bridge to the therapist as well as a model for members' own active participation in the group's work.     

The Rod of Discipline: Masochism, Sadism, and the Judeo-Christian Religion

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, the scenario where a person, often a child, is being beaten by a parent, an authority figure, or even God, is often found. This essay searches for an explanation for this phenomenon by combining Sigmund Freud's thoughts on the masochism of the Oedipus complex and Martin Bergmann's belief that Western religion was impacted by the sadism of the Laius and Jocasta Complexes. The paper argues that, within the section of the Judeo-Christian tradition that sanctions the physical abuse of children, sadism and masochism find the perfect marriage.     

Therapist Role in Narrative Group Psychotherapy

With its assumptions about the interpersonal origins of individual learning, narrative theory suggests certain leadership functions for group therapists: providing a perspective on how multiple meanings may be constructed about experience; leading the process of deconstructing individual narratives through careful questioning to distinguish persons from problems; enlisting participants in active awareness and engagement with group dynamics and group process; and enabling the co-creation of a group narrative through the development of a new community of conversations.     

Group Psychotherapy in the Context of Cultural Diversity

The authors review the salient issues involved in therapy with culturally diverse populations. They present a framework where group therapy addresses those issues. Clinical vignettes from each of the authors serve to illustrate the power of group therapy with ethnocultural populations.     

Chaos, Group Psychotherapy, and the Future of Uncertainty and Uniqueness

This paper explores the application of chaos theory, a new non-linear dynamical theory, to the understanding of psychotherapy groups. Two features of psychotherapy groups that have been insufficiently described or explained, uncertainty and uniqueness, are considered in the light of the chaos theory notion that groups proceed through periods of order and disorder. The recommendation is made that chaos theory be explored further as the field moves into the millennium and a hundred years of its own existence.     

Aggression Observation Scale for Group Psychotherapy

An observational scale to record aggressive behaviors, defenses, and interventions that occur during a psychotherapy group has been developed. Content and process items were included. The content items focus on the spoken material and are on a continuum of increasing group members' awareness of and responsibility for their anger. The process items are directed to underlying psychodynamic issues on a continuum from avoiding anger, to indirect and then expression of anger. Leader interventions (responses) are also included. The development of the scale, the Aggression Observation Scale for Group Psychotherapy (AOSGP), is described including pilot testing and reliability and validity findings.     

The Future of Training and Credentialing in Group Psychotherapy

High-quality group psychotherapy training is seen as more important than ever in the current health care environment. The training opportunities available at present are assessed. It is argued that there is a body of knowledge about generic group psychotherapy that can and should be taught, and that there are appropriate people to teach it. Credentialing is discussed, and it is suggested that the assessment of actual work in clinical situations must be emphasized if such efforts are to be meaningful.     

Raising Fees in Group Therapy: Some Ethical and Clinical Implications

Of all money matters in group psychotherapy, one of the most neglected in the literature is the issue of raising the fees. The premise of this paper is that there are ethical and clinical considerations to group fee increases. One consequence of the lack of attention to the subject of raising of fees is that many neophyte group leaders do not learn about its complexity. It will be argued that the raising of fees is not merely a straightforward matter of informing groups about an impending change in the amount of money that they will pay but rather, it is a knotty, emotionally charged issue with both realistic and subjective components for members and leaders alike. Further, it will be argued that the issue of raising fees in group therapy is dissimilar, in significant ways, from raising fees in individual treatment. When leaders use subjective criterion to decide an increase, then the group process may be disrupted. Suggestions for reform will be offered.     

Initiating a Couples Group

Couples-group therapy is thought of as a helpful treatment for most couples, and as a primary treatment for married couples who have longstanding problems of a rigid and chronic nature. It is most useful for couples for whom blaming, power plays, and suppression of anger are prominent modes of interaction. Couples-group therapy is helpful to these couples because the group is a microcosm of society, provides a wide variety of coping styles, and offers observable alternatives to dysfunctional behaviors. A group dynamic also decreases the couple's sense of isolation. Issues relevant to starting a couples group--indications, contraindications, policies and balancing a group--are discussed. Clinical vignettes from ongoing open-ended couples groups are presented to illustrate the points made.     

Trauma, Regression, and the Intensive Group Experience

Ferenczi contributed a theory of trauma and regression that has application in the contemporary practice of group therapy. This article seeks to present an extension of these seminal ideas in the form of interventions based on therapist induced regression. The Intensive Group Experience (I.G.E.), a time extended group format found to be necessary for extensive emotional reliving and working through of trauma is described. A clinical case example is then discussed in detail and concludes this report.     

Integrating New Members into an Ongoing Therapy Group: The Life-Line Technique

Integrating a new member into an existing group poses many problems, both for the new member and the group as a whole. To address these, the authors propose use of a life-line technique to introduce a new member to the group. Following review of the basic narrative assumptions, a specific procedure that utilizes the life-line is described. Comments of new and old members after one typical life-line presentation are given. These comments are representative of those made on other occasions. They indicate that this life story review is therapeutically helpful and assists the process of integration of a new member into an ongoing group. Some limitations of this method are addressed in the discussion.     

Analytic Group Psychotherapy: A Uniquely Effective Crisis Intervention

This paper describes the author's experience doing crisis intervention with survivors of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. It focuses on enhancing the understanding of and potentially expanding the theory and technique of analytic group therapy as applied to this unique situation.Private practice in     

Shame, Women, and Group Psychotherapy

This paper addresses gender-related experiences of shame, focusing on the shame-prone woman. Specifically the varied manifest behaviors, dynamics, and defenses commonly observed in shame-prone women are described. It is recommended that the addition of group therapy to individual treatment, once the client is ready, can expedite progress for these patients, as they are more able to integrate previously disowned and shamed aspects of themselves. A number of potential problems when working with these patients in group are identified and explored.     

Self Psychology, Dreams and Group Psychotherapy: Working in the Playspace

This paper presents one leadership style within a self-psychological approach to working with dreams in group psychotherapy. It stresses an empathic attunement, the creation of safety, and an experience-near playful relationship. Playful is not used lightly here. It is used in the spirit of Winnicott's intermediate space where a mother suspends questions of what is real or not real and what is me and not me. Freud's analogy to a playspace forms a metaphor for the creation of a special atmosphere in a group, or for that matter in individual work as well, that encourages exploration, risk taking, and vulnerability. Working with dreams in this playspace deepens the curative process, not only for the dreamer, but for the entire group.     

The Deep Structure of Group Life: Unconscious Dimensions

There is a reconsideration and renaissance of interest in expanded conceptions of unconscious processes as they affect individuals and groups (Grotstein, 1999). Recent focus on social unconscious (Hopper, 1996) and cultural unconscious processes (Henderson, 1988) and the nature of intersubjectivity (Harwood and Pines, 1998) raise questions about the location of group analysis. This paper considers the deep structure of group life by examining four functions of the unconscious: repressive, conservative, creative, and mythopoetic (Ellenberger, 1970). On an individual level of analysis, these functions are equated respectively with formative ideas about the: personal–subjective, social–political, intersubjective–cultural and collective–objective unconscious. Group level analogs, as they develop and affect groups and their members, are explored as synthetic, shared, symbolicy and synchronous unconscious processes.     

The Social Psychology of Groups and Group Psychotherapy: One View of the Next Century

Will fields that study groups in general, such as social psychology, and fields that use groups to achieve therapeutic goals, such as group psychotherapy, move toward unification in the future or will they drift apart? One possible future assumes that these two approaches to groups will become better integrated as (a) societal changes increase individuals' reliance on groups; (b) research and theory on group processes become more sophisticated; and (c) basic and applied researchers work together more closely in examining groups. Such unification requires, however, changes in the training, outlook, and procedures used by both practitioners and researchers.     

Confrontation Group Psychotherapy with Gifted, Dually Diagnosed, and Self-Destructive Adolescents in a Residential Setting

An adolescent mutation has proliferated since the late 1960s who has been immune to traditional therapeutic and educational approaches. It takes a new breed of group leader to work with this difficult-to-treat youth, who either self-medicates abusing psychoactive substances and/or takes prescribed and potent psychotropic medication. Innovative and humanistic treatment techniques are needed to convince an unconvinced youth to use, rather than abuse, superior intellectual and artistic abilities.