ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the theory-building efforts of others and discuss some of the issues and special problems encountered in attempts to conceptualize the therapy group. W. R. Bion, S. H. Foulkes, and Henry Ezriel each have presented theories which attempt to identify characteristics of the group as a whole, discuss how these characteristics emerge from the patients' interaction, and examine their implications for the patient's therapeutic experience and the therapist's role. Slavson, Locke, Wolf and Schwartz, and many others have presented theories which focus on the individual patient. Theories which deal primarily with therapy groups are likely to emphasize the group's coping capacities, for the group is more likely to be called upon to deal with emotional issues than with an overt, publicly defined task. Some theorists who have studied group-level characteristics of psychotherapy groups have also developed theories about the way in which group-level phenomena generate from the behavior of the individual patients.
