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.