Encounter Groups 1st Facts

by Morton A. Lieberman

Reports on the structure, operations, and effectiveness of the various types of encounter groups

496 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Thomas Griggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A technical book, it summarizes the methodology and results of the first comprehensive and rigorous research on the efficacy of a variety of group psychotherapy and personal transformation schools from the 1960's and early '70's. I was astonishingly lucky and highly privileged to have had two of the authors, Matt Miles and Irv Yalom, as professors in my first Master's program in Psychotherapy and Social Change through the Southeast Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the mid '70's. This work is not fun reading. It is about as dry as anything I have ever read. It is exceptional on two counts, however. One, it lays out a ground-breaking model for psychotherapy outcome research in an era in which anyone could proclaim themselves the guru who had discovered the keys to personal transformation and self-actualization, without any accountability for success or unintended harm to their participants. Second, it isolated some of the key factors that accounted for the astonishing efficacy of the ReDecision School of Transactional Analysis developed by Bob and Mary Goulding, who clearly emerged as the most effective of all the models studied.