Content area
Full Text
The Theory & Practice of Group Psychotherapy, 5th edition. By Irvin D. Yalom with Molyn Leszcz. New York: Basic Books, 2005, 668 pages. $55.00.
The intransigent split between clinician and researcher, once an exclusive province of academia, has become a central issue for psychotherapists practicing today. Efforts to introduce and promulgate practice guidelines and evidence-based treatments in mental health represent arguably one of the most challenging problems we face. Multiple and converging sources of evidence indicate that the person of the psychotherapist is inextricably intertwined with the outcome of psychotherapy. The contemporary research consensus (Luborsky, et al., 1986; Crits-Christoph et al., 1991; Wampold, 2001) suggests that the largest variation in therapy outcome is accounted for by pre-existing client factors, such as motivation for change, and the like. Therapist personal factors account for the second largest proportion of change, with technique variables coming in a distant third. Some in the field (e.g., Norcross, 2002) have gone so far as to adapt Bill Clinton's 199 1 unofficial campaign slogan, "It's the relationship, stupid!" to highlight the importance of these crucial findings.
Through five editions and more than three decades, Irvin Yalom has been saying much the same thing. Indeed, the first edition of his text, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, in 1970 signaled a shift in thinking with its research focus and organization nested in the evidence-based "curative" factors in group psychotherapy (the terminology was revised to "therapeutic" factors in 1985 to reflect a more realistic view of therapy outcome research). In the fifth edition, he has a collaborator, Molyn Leszcz, who assists in continuing the book's tradition of noting and discussing research (its limits as well as its virtues) in a clear and intelligible manner. While never losing sight that his book is directed toward current and future group therapists, Yalom nonetheless maintains a sharpened focus on research and the need for clinicians to become critical consumers of empirically informed findings.
Near the end of the preface in the latest edition, Yalom mentions the fact of his novel writing. This singular event is actually more significant than it looks at first. The novel and its more public persona hold the ability to influence society in a way that even a widely read text in...