Relational Group Psychotherapy

Richard M. Billow, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, and an active contributor to the psychoanalytic and group literature. He has been associated with the Gordon Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, New York, since 1968, where he achieved doctorate and postdoctoral certificates in psychoanalysis and individual and group psychotherapy. He is Clinical Professor and Director of the Institute's Postdoctoral Program in Group Psychotherapy as well as running his own private practice in Great Neck, New York.

• Acknowledgments. Foreword, Malcolm Pines. Introduction, James S. Grotstein. Preface: Plan of the Book. 1. The Authority of the Group Therapist's Psychology. 2. The Therapist's Anxiety and Resistance to Group. 3. The Basic Conflict: To Think or Anti-Think - Applying Bion's Theory of Thinking in the Group Context. 4. Entitled Thinking, Dream Thinking, and Group Process. 5. Containing and Thinking - The Three Relational Levels of the Container-Contained. 6. Containing the Adolescent Group. 7. Bonding in Group - The Therapist's Contribution. 8. Rebellion in Group. 9. Primal Affects - Loving, Hating, and Knowing. 10. Primal Receptivity - The Passionate Therapist: The Passionate Group. References. Index.

Relational' group psychotherapy is a development of group therapy where the relational component begins to assume a dominant role, for example, where the group leader cannot be understood as separate from his group. Billow shows how he has been able to use these notions in clinical work, in supervision and in teaching, with many vignettes in each chapter. He also makes use of Foulkesian group analytic ideas and makes links between Foulkes and Bion'.