Psychodynamic Group Psychotherapy, Second Edition

Efforts to fix organitional, outlining, and other general editing problems from the previous edition, seem to have created greater problems rather than lessening them. That said, I still use it as my primaray text when I teach the subject to doctoral students because I can find nothing that does justice to the subject nearly as well. Dr. Richard E. Prince

Drs. Rutan and Stone have long been actively involved in the forefront of teaching and conducting Group Psychotherapy. Their credentials, reputations and skills precede them. Yet, none of this guarantees a book which will serve the needs of its readers. With the earlier editions of this volume, readers were taken into the realm of Psychodynamic Group Psychotherapy, in a clear, concise, and useful manner. Often when authors produce books such as this, later revisions are simply a reworking of the previous editions. Not so with this book. In fact, the authors pushed themselves to produce a volume which not only brings the material alive, but draws the reader directly into the process. In their latest edition, Rutan and Stone not only present well articulated clinical examples, but they also share with the reader, the therapist's thoughts that lead to the particular interventions. This takes the use of clinical examples from 2 to 3 dimensional, and allows the reader to more fully understand not only what was done in each situation, but why. The authors also update the book with currrent issues, such as the impact of managed care (although this is not a primary focus of the book). And, as before there is an abundance of information outlining and explaining the underlying theoretical principles which inform this modelAs someone who has led, taught and supervised Group Psychotherapy for the past 15 years, I believe that this is one of the best books on this subject, available today. While it is not a general book aimed at providing an overview of Group Psychotherapy, or an overview of various models of Group Psychotherapy, it does translate the authors' clinical insight and experience into a format from which others can learn and grow. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the theory and practice of Psychodynamic Group Psychotherapy.