New Applications of Self Psychology to Group Psychotherapy: Introduction

Abstract

Over the last 15 years, many writers have applied self psychology to group treatment. Arensberg’s (1990) work, one of the most comprehensive, extends Kohut’s (1971) concept of selfobject tranferences to the group setting and discusses their unfolding and working through in group therapy. There are now several core works that focus on dealing therapeutically with these transferences and other group processes from a self psychological perspective, including Stone and Whitman’s (1980) and Shapiro’s (1991) papers on the role of empathy in the creation of safety in the deepening of the group therapy process, Bacal’s (1991) exposition on “responsiveness and reactiveness” in groups, and my own contributions that stress underlying vulnerability (Livingston, 1999, 2001). The more recent literature contains collections of papers devoted to a wide range of applications of self psychology to group therapy (Livingston & Harwood, 2001; Harwood & Pines, 1998; Segalla, 2003). This Special Section of the International Journal of Group Psychotherapy represents the latest thoughts on the application of self psychology to group treatment. Four papers by leading authors in this area are offered: Irene Harwood integrates new ideas from recent work in infant observation studies, attachment research, trauma, and neurobiology and illustrates the application of these theoretical and empirical contributions to the