Book review of Koinonia: From Hate, through Dialogue, to Culture in the Large Group by Patrick de Maré Robin Piper, & Sheila Thompson

It will be of great significance to every group therapist who has wondered how large a therapy group can be that the authors of Koinonia propose a “median” group (of 20 to 40) as the ideal “container” for hatred and paranoia. The “median group”, they argue, is the ideal arena for social resolution through “koinonic” dialogue, which requires the transcendence of individualized narcissism and the development of impersonal and interdependent friendship/citizenship. Thus “Koinonic dialogue” carries a potential highly relevant to all group work—and a potential particularly relevant to therapy