Book description
Richard M. Billow expands and develops his ideas, first presented in
Relational Group Psychotherapy: From Basic Assumptions to Passion. He
constructs a theoretically sophisticated, yet experience-near approach
to contemporary group therapy. Building on Bion's striking theoretical
realignment, replacing the polarity unconscious-conscious with
infinite-finite, Billow revises traditional concepts and terms to offer
a new model of relational group psychotherapy. In this book he defines
the essential therapeutic task: to address the hunger for truth, an
appetite stimulated by the group itself. Group members bring infinite
potential into the room, but the truth that is developed and realized is
bounded by the nature of their interrelationships, individual
psychologies and perspectives, as well as by human limitations in
processing experience to make it meaningful. How the therapist, along
with group members, assess and respond to the need for truth, in the
immediate clinical context, create the phenomena of resistance,
rebellion, and refusal. The group therapist remains central in the
action: evaluating and responding to the truth needs of the various
individuals and the group itself and detecting and minimizing the impact
of falsity. Using lively clinical anecdotes, Billow demonstrates how the
group therapist deals with the dynamic forces of the 3 Rs, operating in
four relational modes: diplomacy, integrity, sincerity, and
authenticity. This volume is essential reading for individual and group
psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, academics, and students of
psychoanalytic theory.
