Psychoanalytic Group Theory and Therapy — Essays in Honor of Saul Scheidlinger

Psychoanalytic Group Theory and Therapy — Essays in Honor of Saul Scheidlinger

Saul Tuttman

Madison, CT: Intl. Univ. Press, 442 pp., 1991

The very nature of this book defines both its strengths and its weaknesses. Although the title implies something systematic and complete along the lines of an overview of psychoanalytic group therapy, the subtitle, “Essays in Honor of Saul Scheidlinger,” reveals the book’s true character. It is in fact a collection of essays that parallel Dr. Scheidlinger’s work, and that includes work by some of the most highly respected names in psychoanalytic psychotherapy today, including among others Otto Kernberg, Howard Bacal, and Robert Dies. It is not, however, a text on psychoanalytic group therapy and as such is aimed at a more narrow audience, namely people with some knowledge already of this field. If one is interested in expanding one’s knowledge of the specifics of psychodynamics in the group setting, this is a useful book. If one is looking for an overview of this field, it is not.

The section on leadership offers a particularly good discussion of the role and style of leadership and its effect on a therapy group. Indeed this section is useful to read regardless of the therapy one practices. It cogently explores some of the issues related to the therapist’s role as is so aptly expressed by the title of James Anthony’s Chapter, “The Dilemma of Therapeutic Leadership: The Leader who does not Lead.” Similarly, the section on the evolution of psychoanalytic group theory is quite useful.

As would be expected in any book in psychotherapy published in the last decade, issues relating to the treatment of character level or pre-oedipal pathology are also extensively explored. Dr. Scheidlinger’s contributions to the psychoanalytic group therapy of this population are well discussed, but unfortunately the book here falls into the usual pitfalls seen in discussions of this population, failing to look at the whole issue of which of these characterologically difficult patients are really helped by dynamically informed therapy. The work is thus theoretically interesting, but fails to fully develop and integrate these ideas, a tendency the whole book shares to some degree.

To recapitulate, this book can serve as an interesting smorgasbord of ideas related to psychoanalytic group therapy and theory for those already familiar with this field. However, it is not likely helpful in exploring the field systematically, or indeed in exploring individual issues in depth, as it tends to skip onto another issue just as one area begins to be more fully developed.