ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the potential contribution of neuroscience to psychotherapy can seem huge. In developing a quite different conception of the role of psychotherapy in health, the founder of group analysis, S. H. Foulkes, turned to an alternative tradition of neurological thinking in preference to the localizationalist schools that had inspired Sigmund Freud. The extent to which the new concepts are actually justified must be tested in the original domain, in this case psychotherapy. The question of clinical effectiveness has been a prominent theme of psychotherapy research since its inception. One of the great achievements of conventional psychotherapy research, achieved through painstaking attention to in-session events, is its support for the importance of the relationship between therapist and patient in influencing the outcome. In moving from speculation to science, it is evident very little has been established so far about brain processes during psychotherapy.
