ABSTRACT
By mistakes, I am focusing on errors visible to the group that therapists make, not internal ones in our thinking, nor the ones the group members themselves will make. This could include anything from forgetting something significant about a member like their name, misinterpreting a member’s expression or feeling, expressing a judgment that one or more members find hurtful, or even loudly passing gas. When a therapist makes a mistake that is obvious to the group, whether it reflects an objective or realistic countertransference to clients’ personalities, or our own subjective transference to the client (Ormont, 1993), it still presents a useful opportunity if it can be worked in the group.
