ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION – PSYCHOTHERAPY AND SYSTEM: WHAT THE PSYCHIATRIST NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT GROUP PSYCOTHERAPY AND GROUP DYNAMICS Our approach to thinking about groups, emphasized in the subtitle of this chapter, embeds a specific treatment modality in a more comprehensive understanding of group processes.1 From a biopsychosocial perspective on human development and psychopathology, human beings are group animals – Aristotle’s phrase was ‘political animals’ – through and through. The three major clinically oriented theories of group dynamics – those of Irvin Yalom2 in the USA and SH Foulkes3 and WR Bion4 in the UK – are based on the premise that we are as hardwired through natural selection to interact within groups as we are to breathe air: the group is our natural medium.
