ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the group therapist's own personal history, with a particular focus on group experience through life, including the influence of the therapist's own family group. It focuses on the hidden and symbolic motivations of the group therapist, some of which reflect personal difficulties and defensive constellations, it is necessary not to lose sight of the positive, healthy reasons for choosing this area of work. The importance of group therapist variables is of course recognized professionally and is often discussed in group supervision as well as workshops and training events. But our collective 'wisdom on who the group conductor is' is insufficiently documented in the literature. Much of the literature to a large degree assumes the positive, healthy reasons for people seeking to become therapists and instead concentrates on the problematic aspects, highlighting the flawed and fallible nature of the therapist's personality.
