Introduction to the Special Issue Victor L. Schermer1 and Cecil A. Rice2 issn 0362-4021 © 2013 Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society group, Vol. 37, No. 1, Spring 2013 5 1 Private practice, Philadelphia; Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association; and founding director of the Study Group of Contemporary Psychoanalytic Process. Correspondence should be addressed to Victor L. Schermer, MA, 735 South 9th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147. E-mail: vlscher@comcast.net. 2 Distinguished Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, cofounder and senior faculty of the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy, and instructor, Departments of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General and McLean hospitals, Boston. In the past three decades, significant advances have occurred in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and its theoretical base. Among these have been (a) self psychology, with its emphasis on empathy and attunement to vulnerabilities of the self; (b) intersubjective and relational psychoanalysis, showing the importance of subjectivity, mutuality, and authenticity in the therapeutic interaction; (c) the awareness of the profound impact of psychological trauma on attachments and the sense of self; and (d) the neuroscience of psychotherapy, pointing to the importance of attachment and self-regulation in the development of the nervous system and suggesting that deficits in neural networks can be partly remediated by psychotherapy itself. These newer perspectives share an emphasis on therapist attunement, engagement, and active coparticipation in the change process. Such understanding is highly relevant to group psychotherapy, and indeed, group systems theory has in turn contributed to the multiperson perspective at its core. The group psychotherapist’s use of these new understandings in assessing the positive or negative impact of his or her own involvement becomes acute during times when the ongoing flow and deepening of the treatment is blocked, as in periods of impasse, and in situations where the group is in a potentially traumatizing or self-destructive state. Some patients and populations, such as borderline, posttraumatic stress disorder, and schizophrenic group members, also require active therapist engagement on a sustained basis to have a productive therapy experience. Because how and under what conditions the therapist becomes an active agent, GROUP 37.1 book.indb 5 2/19/13 2:06 PM 6 schermer and rice as distinct from an introspective “consultant” or “neutral observer,” is often crucial to therapeutic outcomes, we asked three senior dynamically oriented group therapists to reflect on the “feeling of what happens” when such shifts occur in practice. We asked them what conceptual and theoretical guidelines they utilize under such circumstances. Some of these ideas were presented at a panel led by Schermer and Rice at the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society 2011 annual meeting, and the leaders thought that the diverse ways the panelists handled these problems merited further exploration and discussion in this journal. Marty Livingston and Isaac “Zeke” Youcha participated in the panel. Suzanne B. Phillips was brought in when Elizabeth Hegeman, the third panelist, encountered other important commitments that drew her away from the task. Livingston approached the issues from a self psychological perspective. Youcha was especially interested in how therapist engagement affects neurobiological aspects of trauma and chronic mental illness. Phillips, like Hegeman , frequently works with trauma victims and chose to focus on the importance of therapist coparticipation for traumatized and bereaved patients, especially when they reenact traumatic events in the here-and-now group situation. THE SHIFT IN ROLE FROM CONSULTANT TO COPARTICIPANT Traditionally, the role of the dynamic group psychotherapist is to introspect about the ongoing experience of the group and its members, offering interpretations that clarify group dynamics and deepen the members’ understanding of the conflicts, deficits, and dilemmas that brought them to treatment. This is the “consultant” or “facilitator” role, which the therapist learns early in training and which often sustains him or her in the day-to-day running of groups. The particular emphasis on, say, individual versus group-as-a-whole interpretations, or specific focal themes, depends on the therapist’s school of thought, but the interpretive position is typical of all dynamic approaches. Classically, the therapist serves as a nonattached observer who discloses little or nothing about himself or herself and tries to maintain the objectivity of a surgeon...