Preface to the Fifth Edition
For this fifth edition of The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
I have had the good fortune of having Molyn Leszcz as my collaborator.
Dr. Leszcz, whom I first met in 1980 when he spent a yearlong fellowship
in group therapy with me at Stanford University, has been a major con-
tributor to research and clinical innovation in group therapy. For the past
twelve years, he has directed one of the largest group therapy training
programs in the world in the Department of Psychiatry at the University
of Toronto, where he is an associate professor. His broad knowledge of
contemporary group practice and his exhaustive review of the research
and clinical literature were invaluable to the preparation of this volume.
We worked diligently, like co-therapists, to make this edition a seamless
integration of new and old material. Although for stylistic integrity we
opted to retain the first-person singular in this text, behind the “I” there is
always a collaborative “we.”
Our task in this new edition was to incorporate the many new changes
in the field and to jettison outmoded ideas and methods. But we had a
dilemma: What if some of the changes in the field do not represent ad-
vances but, instead, retrogression? What if marketplace considerations
demanding quicker, cheaper, more efficient methods act against the best
interests of the client? And what if “efficiency” is but a euphemism for
shedding clients from the fiscal rolls as quickly as possible? And what if
these diverse market factors force therapists to offer less than they are ca-
pable of offering their clients?
If these suppositions are true, then the requirements of this revision be-
come far more complex because we have a dual task: not only to present
current methods and prepare student therapists for the contemporary
workplace, but also to preserve the accumulated wisdom and techniques
of our field even if some young therapists will not have immediate oppor-
tunities to apply them.
