Reddit reviews The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

It was, at least according to him. It really is some cognitive dissonance that an eminent therapist can think

>But could I relate to Betty? To be frank, she revolted me. It was an effort for me to locate her face, so layered and swathed in flesh as it was. Her silly commentary was equally offputting. By the end of our first hour, I felt irritated and bored. Could I be intimate with her? I could scarcely think of a single person with whom I less wished to be intimate. But this was my problem, not Betty's. It was time, after twenty-five years of practice, for me to change. Betty represented the ultimate counter- transference challenge — and, for that very reason, I offered then and there to be her therapist.

>Surely no one can be critical of a therapist striving to improve his technique. But what, I wondered uneasily, about the rights of the patient? Is there not a difference between a therapist scrubbing away unseemly countertransference stains and a dancer or a Zen master striving for perfection in each of those disciplines? It is one thing to improve one's backhand service return but quite another to sharpen one's skills at the expense of some fragile, troubled person.

>These thoughts all occurred to me but I found them dismissible. It was true that Betty offered an opportunity to improve my personal skills as a therapist. It was, however, also true that my future patients would benefit from whatever growth I would attain. Besides, human service professionals have always practiced on the living patient. There is no alternative. How could medical education, to take one example, survive without student clinical clerkships? Furthermore, I have always found that responsible neophyte therapists who convey their sense of curiosity and enthusiasm often form excellent therapeutic relationships and can be as effective as a seasoned professional.

>It's the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals — my professional rosary. I say that often to students. And say other things as well, about the way to relate to a patient — positive unconditional regard, nonjudgmental acceptance, authentic engagement, empathic understanding. How was I going to be able to heal Betty through our relationship? How authentic, empathic, or accepting could I be? How honest? How would I respond when she asked about my feelings toward her? It was my hope that I would change as Betty and I progressed in her (our) therapy. For the time being, it seemed to me that Betty's social interactions were so primitive and superficial that no penetrating therapist-patient relationship analysis would be necessary.

I find this all completely stunning. The arrogance. The using a patient for improving his own skills who is never asked for consent to be used in that manner -- People who are seeing students in training do so with full knowledge and intent to do so. His problem here is not lack of technique. It is sickness for which he should have known he needed his own treatment.

But instead he satisfies himself with the notion he is providing adequate care because, due to the patient's deficiencies in social relationship -- no way those could be projections of his own disgust and hatred for her, of course -- "no penetrating therapist-patient relationship analysis would be necessary" (a parapraxis so laughably obvious a psych 101 student could have caught it).

This is all treated like he is doing her some kind of favor. Because he is the "great man."

And this is the author of probably the most widely-lauded book on group therapy.

I have often thought a foundational problem with psychoanalysis is that, from the very beginning, we only have the famous analyst's account of how successful their treatments were. There is no essay by Betty about her regard of the treatment and what the longterm effects were. But these people are taken as experts and models for practice, without question.

I am no CBT advocate and I do believe healing is through relationship. I am interested and excited by new research linking neuroscience and analysis, for instance by Allan Schore and the late but wonderful Jaak Panksepp. But I wish there was some attempt at accountability or objective review of these historical famous, revered psychoanalysts.