ABSTRACT

The idea that the group is a microcosm of the world outside (Fehr, 1999, 2003; Yalom & Leszcz, 2005) leads us to explore how group members’ behaviors and interactions in the group parallel their behaviors and interactions outside the group. It is proposed that the reverse is also true: that the group provides a place for new behaviors and interactions that can be paralleled in the outside world. The group thus can be experienced as a safe and secure environment within which its members can practice new behaviors before trying them out in their worlds outside. Although this intervention arose out of a psychodynamic-relational theoretical model (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1998; Rutan & Stone, 2001), it can also be conceptualized as a behavioral intervention and thus attests to the pragmatic value of an eclectic approach in group treatment (Fehr, 2003).