Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents approaches evolving an answer to the complex problems posed by rapidly growing demands for increased numbers of well-trained professionals in the various social services. It describes the experiences of the Family Discussion Bureau in setting up short residential training courses for social case workers. The book explains ways in which a change agent, a psychiatrist trained in group dynamics as well as psychotherapy, can use small group methods as a vehicle for making institutional personnel from the penal system receptive to new ideas. Like the therapist in re-educative psychotherapy he uses the clinical approach to equip his clients with the necessary skills to solve their own problems. The anxieties that attend entry, attachment, interaction, and separation in the microcosm of the work group are explored and related to identical phenomena that occur “back home”.