Back to the Future of Group Therapy Theory: 15 Years Into the New Millennium

Abstract

53 1 The author would like to thank the following colleagues for providing information and ideas helpful in preparing this article: Drs. Yvonne Agazarian, Virginia Brabender, Susan Gantt, Earl Hopper, Leonard Horwitz, and Isaac Youcha. 2 Private practice, Philadelphia, PA. Correspondence should be addressed to Victor L. Schermer, MA, LFAGPA, 735 South Ninth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147-2838. E-mail: VLScher@comcast. net. It is an honor and a pleasure to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the journal GROUP, which has sustained our field through so many changes and provided a rudder to help us steer our course. And it is also intriguing on such occasions to look back with an eye to the future. When I think retrospectively about my previous article on the future of group therapy theory (Schermer, 2000), I am excited about the many developments that have taken place in the short span of 15 years since it was written, but I also feel a sense of loss that the grand group-as-a-whole theorizing that characterized the earlier decades has diminished. That decline was already happening then, and I predicted it would continue, and I am frankly nostalgic about a time when we had big visions about what we might know and understand about group dynamics and their powerful force for good and ill. Now we are in a phase of examining details and nuances and trying to sort out what works for particular patient populations and treatment situations. In many respects, we have gone from idealists to pragmatists. So be it. In what follows, I will try to articulate the trends in group theorizing in the new millennium. Of necessity, my perspective will be biased and limited by my own experience and points of contact, but I hope it will resonate with what others might know. I will focus on four aspects: (a) the impact of evidence-based therapy on our theorizing; (b) the trend toward mini-theories and limited domain models and application of findings from other disciplines; (c) the increasing influence of neuroscience, trauma studies, and attachment theories on how we view our groups and patients; and (d) the work of those who continue the group-as-a-whole tradition of our predecessors and mentors.